Theresa Stern: Awesome. So can you give us just a little bit of a ... I know you live up in Seattle, and I know you're an artist. Tell us a little bit about yourself and your background.

Paul Castle: That's it. There's nothing else to know about me.

Theresa Stern: That's it. Okay.

Paul Castle: It was so nice being here. Take care.

Theresa Stern: I love it.

Paul Castle: No, you're right, I live in Seattle, Washington. However, I am originally from Canada. I was born in Vancouver BC.

Theresa Stern: Oh, nice.

Paul Castle: But my husband and I live here in Seattle now. And I love it here because the weather is very similar to Vancouver, so it doesn't feel very far. It's the Pacific Northwest lifestyle.

Theresa Stern: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Paul Castle: And you're right. I am a visual artist, which catches people by surprise sometimes, a blind artist, you don't meet one of those every day.

Theresa Stern: No, no, no. Tell me a little bit more about that. Did you study art? Or was it something that you've always done throughout your life?

Paul Castle: Always been passionate about visual arts, drawing from the moment I could hold a crayon, telling stories, creating stories from a very young age, long before anybody knew that I had something serious going on with my eyes. So as you mentioned, I have retinitis pigmentosa, which is typically an inherited disease, however, nobody else in my family had visible symptoms, and so nobody was familiar with the disease. And I didn't really start to experience the symptoms of it until around the age of 10 when I noticed night blindness. I couldn't see the stars in the sky. I was clumsy in restaurants and in movie theaters and at dusk.

Theresa Stern: Yes, yes.

Paul Castle: But because we had no clue what was going on, I wasn't actually diagnosed until 16, after a rather harrowing attempt to start learning to drive.

Theresa Stern: I was going to ask. That is just sort of that prime time to figure that out. Oh, my goodness.

Paul Castle: It sure is. It sure is.

Theresa Stern: Oh, wow.

Paul Castle: But at this time, I'm a passionate artist. I'm painting. I'm drawing. I'm writing stories too because my dream was to not only write and illustrate children's books, but also to make movies and be a director. And talk about throwing a wrench in my plans, when the doctor looked at me and my mom and my dad and said, "You have this very rare disease. And guess what, there's nothing we can do about it at this time." In fact, his one recommendation was eat more spinach.

Theresa Stern: You're kidding.

Paul Castle: No. That was it. We left, went straight to the grocery store and loaded up on spinach.

Theresa Stern: Oh, my gosh. [inaudible 00:03:23] you're Popeye or something.

Paul Castle: Yeah, exactly.

Theresa Stern: It's crazy.

Paul Castle: Exactly.

Theresa Stern: Oh, my goodness. But you kept going. You kept going. I love that because I think so many times, we hear there's nothing we can do, and yeah, you can't do that. But you stuck to your guns. Tell me a little bit about that.

Paul Castle: Yeah. In the moment, it was obviously a very big thing to process. But the lights didn't go out in that moment. I still had quite a bit of my vision. And when you're a teenager, you're not thinking too far ahead in your life.

Theresa Stern: No, definitely not.

Paul Castle: So I continued to just pursue the things that I loved, the visual arts, making my little movies on my home video camera for my school assemblies and all of those fun things with my friends. But as the sight started to decrease, and those instances of clumsiness and accidents increased as well, I did make the decision that when I went to college, when I graduated from high school, I didn't go to film school as I had intended to do. I actually studied English literature in the Bay Area. I went to San Jose State in-

Theresa Stern: Oh, you did?

Paul Castle: Yes, in Northern California. It was very exciting, big change from a small Canadian town, because at that time, I was living north of Vancouver in a small town, so I had a big change.

Theresa Stern: Yeah, that's right.

Paul Castle: In a thriving, vibrant, colorful, prideful city like San Francisco.

Theresa Stern: Yes, yes, yes.

Paul Castle: It was huge for me. And I studied English literature, which was really the root of my love of stories anyway. And on the side, I continued to draw, to paint. And by the time I graduated from college, I was selling my paintings in coffee shops, in small galleries, and at markets. And not only was I selling my paintings, but I was selling my story as an artist with retinitis pigmentosa. And I saw it as an opportunity not only to talk about what I loved, art and storytelling, but an opportunity to educate people about the blind community. I had been going to support group meetings at The Lighthouse for the Blind at that time.

Theresa Stern: Oh, yes. We love The Lighthouse.

Paul Castle: And I was even doing some fun charity stuff with them. And so I was getting plugged in with that community, as well as the LGBTQ community in San Francisco. And of course this being Pride Month-

Theresa Stern: I know, yes.

Paul Castle: Our pride collaboration, which we'll get to in a moment, I just wanted to mention that. Oftentimes, I couple those things together. I say, "I'm so proud to be part of the LGBTQ plus community, but I'm so proud to be part of the blind community too." These are such incredible resilient communities.

Theresa Stern: Absolutely, absolutely.

Paul Castle: And I feel so lucky. So by the time I graduated college, I just threw myself into the arts and that's what I was doing. And I haven't ... I never stopped.

Theresa Stern: That's fantastic. And tell me a little bit about this digital influencer. That sounds fancy. Tell me about that.

Paul Castle: Well, that didn't come about on purpose. With the rise of social media, Instagram, and Facebook and Twitter, and of course, now TikTok, I realized as an artist, as an independent artist, and a small business owner, the best way to find those customers and get the word out is social media. There was a time when artists like me, we had to find gallery representation, and it's a real tough world out there to get that kind of representation. There's a lot of competition, and those places are small. And I realized that I could grow my own audience on social media. And so when I met my husband, Matthew, who's a phenomenal musician, I'm very fortunate, he's a violinist.

Theresa Stern: Oh, wow. You guys are a talented couple. That's fabulous.

Paul Castle: We're artsy. We're artsy.

Theresa Stern: I love it, yep.

Paul Castle: He's a classical violinist, so I'm very fortunate I get to hear him practice all day.

Theresa Stern: Yes. Oh, my gosh.

Paul Castle: It's one of the beautiful things about our relationship because I say, "Well, I don't need my sight to enjoy this because I can listen to him for the rest of my life."

Theresa Stern: Right. And you met him when he knew how to play, not when he was learning to play the violin.

Paul Castle: Yes.

Theresa Stern: Because that's a whole nother acoustic experience.

Paul Castle: He's been playing. I know very well because he's tried to teach me. It's a disaster and we won't go down that road. But he's been playing the violin since the age of three, so he sounds phenomenal. In fact, I met him the same week he was performing on stage with Andrea Bocelli, so that's-

Theresa Stern: Holy moly. Oh, my gosh.

Paul Castle: Yeah, it was so cool. But the two of us, the incredible thing about Matthew is he's so tenacious, he's so type A. He's so disciplined. That's his violin background. He said, "Paul, you need to get organized. You need to start utilizing social media." And so we really threw ourselves into it together and I feel like as a couple, we really discovered how to use the platform. So we have multiple accounts across all of the available social media. We have over half a million followers on our social accounts.

Theresa Stern: Wow.

Paul Castle: And that's how we drum up the interest. That's how we get people interested in the work that we're producing, but we also use it as an opportunity to talk about healthy gay relationships, and supporting the LGBTQ community. And of course, I use every opportunity to talk about being a person with a visual impairment. I talk about the blind community. And since last October, I mean, I can't talk enough about Guide Dogs for the Blind.

Theresa Stern: That is exactly where my next question was coming.

Paul Castle: I pitched you that segue.

Theresa Stern: You are ... Yeah, exactly.

Paul Castle: I may also have my own podcast, by the way.

Theresa Stern: I was going to say. Can you come every week? So yeah, tell me about the decision and sort of your journey to deciding to sort of take this really ... It's a big lifestyle leap into sort of sharing your life with a guide dog.

Paul Castle: Yeah. Well, I've always loved dogs. I grew up with dogs. That's an important first thing. I think it's important that you love animals. You know? But about 10 years ago, my sight, RP, retinitis pigmentosa, being degenerative, there comes a point when you have to make a decision to start using a mobility aid. And of course, that was the white cane. And so I put it off longer than I should've. And I think that's the story for many of us.

Theresa Stern: For everybody, yes.

Paul Castle: Yeah. I think I tripped over enough small children and dogs, and fell off enough curbs.

Theresa Stern: Yeah. I hear you.

Paul Castle: That I finally said, "Paul, let's stop hurting these small children and dogs, and making a fool of yourself."

Theresa Stern: Right.

Paul Castle: And I called the ... I was living in Canada at the time, so I called The Canadian National Institute for the Blind, the CNIB, and started working with them. They were wonderful. They got me my first cane, and I started using my cane, and it was life changing, life changing. It truly was. It gave me an independence I didn't have before.

Theresa Stern: Well, it's funny because we think about, oh, if I'm using my cane, I'm going to stand out and I'll be embarrassing. But you know what, all the tripping over stairs-

Paul Castle: It's way more embarrassing.

Theresa Stern: Exactly. That was finally my come to it moment. So yeah, I could totally relate. Yes.

Paul Castle: Theresa, that is such a good point. I haven't actually pointed that out to anybody yet, but that is such-

Theresa Stern: Which is less embarrassing?

Paul Castle: Yes. So it was a big, big change. But I mean, I love the freedom it gave me, and I used that for several years. But it's not perfect. Sometimes we are whacking things. Even, occasionally I say it impales you if it gets caught on a crack, it comes right back into your stomach or elsewhere.

Theresa Stern: Yes, yes. Exactly, yes.

Paul Castle: And that's not fun.

Theresa Stern: No.

Paul Castle: And the thing is, I live in Seattle, downtown Seattle. And even at night, where my vision is completely gone, no low light vision, I really didn't feel confident leaving my house even with my cane on my own in a busy city. Obviously, one can do that.

Theresa Stern: Oh, yeah. And a lot of people do.

Paul Castle: And a lot of people do. But I was wary of it because just some fears around it, to be honest.

Theresa Stern: For sure. Yeah, yeah.

Paul Castle: And half the year, that's fine when the days are long. But when it's winter and it's dark at 4:30, you start to feel kind of cooped up.

Theresa Stern: Yeah, for sure.

Paul Castle: And that could be in part due to the progression of my eye disease. I'm down to less than 10% of my visual field, and so there's an adjustment that comes with that, so losing my sight and then having that fear just sort of for me intensified. And that's when my husband, Matthew, said, "Paul, what about that next step? We've always talked about if we were ever to get a dog, it would be you getting a guide dog."

Theresa Stern: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Paul Castle: And so I said, "Let's do it. This feels right. Where do I begin?" I said, "Well, let's go online. Let's Google it." So we did, and I'll be honest, we went to a couple of different websites, and I was just navigating on my own. And I couldn't even find the application page. I didn't know where to ... I couldn't navigate. How do I sign up for this? Until I stumbled across Guide Dogs for the Blind.

Theresa Stern: Yay.

Paul Castle: Life changing moment, light bulb moment.

Theresa Stern: Good.

Paul Castle: It's like a revelation. You guys have outfitted the website. It's with the visually impaired person in mind to a T. I mean, it was like my eyes relaxed. I was like, "I can do this on my own."

Theresa Stern: [inaudible 00:13:34] search around, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Paul Castle: I was like, "Oh, here's where I apply. Oh, here." I did the whole application process on my own, filled out the whole form on my own. By the way, that's never happened. Matthew always has to sit with me.

Theresa Stern: There's always one thing that you can't get to. I can totally relate to that.

Paul Castle: I know. But it happened, I did it.

Theresa Stern: That's amazing.

Paul Castle: And within a couple of weeks, I was on the phone with you guys and we were just moving things along to the next part of the interview. And it was during the pandemic, so a lot of it was over Zoom.

Theresa Stern: Yeah, that's right. Huh? Oh, my gosh. So you came in. And tell me about your dog and what it was like to meet your dog.

Paul Castle: It was truly magical. It was just so magical. First of all, just the experience of going down to the Oregon campus. It was in October, so all the leaves, it was autumn.

Theresa Stern: It's so beautiful there.

Paul Castle: So beautiful.

Theresa Stern: The colors, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Paul Castle: And everyone was just so kind, the staff at Guide Dogs for the Blind, and just an incredibly passionate staff of people from the nurses, to the RAs, to the instructors, and the trainers, and every single person. The chef, oh my God. Can we talk about the food?

Theresa Stern: I know, the food, hello. Yes.

Paul Castle: Shout out to Katherine in the kitchen. I loved that. She was phenomenal. I mean, I was treated-

Theresa Stern: Did you try her cashew dressing?

Paul Castle: Oh, I left with the recipe.

Theresa Stern: Oh, God. That's so good.

Paul Castle: Yeah. I made it. It's not quite at Katherine's level, but I'll work on it. Yeah, yeah, that cashew dressing. So everything about the experience, I felt like we were just treated like kings. It was just an incredible retreat. But boy, was it a lot of work too, right? It's not like it's easy street. You're there to learn a lot in two weeks.

Theresa Stern: Yeah. It's a lot. Yeah.

Paul Castle: I was so nervous before meeting my dog though. Can you imagine? So the next day, it's called dog day, and I actually asked my trainer, who I met prior, of course, the day before when we did all the testing with Juno. If our listeners don't know what Juno is, that's sort of a prop dog that you learn on first before you start with the real thing. It's important to know the basics.

Theresa Stern: Right. So the dog will have a little respect for you when they meet you, not completely a novice. Yeah.

Paul Castle: Yeah. So I asked Kai, my trainer. I said, "Do you mind if I set up my camera and film my first meeting with my dog?" Because I wanted to send it home to my husband, I wanted him to see it. And I wanted a keepsake. So I propped up my camera in some corner of the room, and Kai opened the door, and my dog comes bounding towards me, jumped up onto my lap. I mean, what a beautiful ... My first thought was, "He is so soft." He's so soft. He was so soft and cuddly and sweet. And a funny story is Kai said, "Surprise, it's me and friend," because she didn't want to reveal his name yet.

Theresa Stern: Oh, she didn't tell you the name yet.

Paul Castle: She said, "Me and friend," because that's a big thing, we don't know the name.

Theresa Stern: It's a really big thing, yes.

Paul Castle: It's a guessing game. Right?

Theresa Stern: Yes.

Paul Castle: What's it's going to be?

Theresa Stern: Yes.

Paul Castle: So she said, "It's me and friend." And I thought she said, "Fred," so for about a minute, I swore my new guide dog was named Fred. I had Fred-

Theresa Stern: Which would be adorable.

Paul Castle: Adorable name, I love it. Actually, it's now his middle name, by the way.

Theresa Stern: I love that. Okay. Good, good, good.

Paul Castle: And moments later, I learned that his name was Maple.

Theresa Stern: Maple.

Paul Castle: And the coolest thing about that, as you remember from the beginning of our conversation, I'm from Canada, and the maple leaf-

Theresa Stern: Yes, maple syrup, maple leaf, all of it.

Paul Castle: It's on our flag.

Theresa Stern: It is, it is.

Paul Castle: It's kind of a big deal.

Theresa Stern: It's your hockey teams and everything.

Paul Castle: Maple leaves, yes.

Theresa Stern: Yeah.

Paul Castle: So I was like, "Boys, did they plan this?"

Theresa Stern: Isn't that weird?

Paul Castle: Nope. They didn't.

Theresa Stern: No. They don't. It just turns out it's the magic part.

Paul Castle: Yep. It's the magic part. It's the magic part. I'll throw you another little bit of magic that really struck me. So one of our followers, shortly after Guide Dogs for the Blind, I posted that TikTok video and it went viral.

Theresa Stern: Oh, I bet it did.

Paul Castle: I posted the video to TikTok. Yeah, it got several millions views.

Theresa Stern: Oh, my gosh. Made everybody's day, I'm sure.

Paul Castle: And one person pointed out, well, Maple is just a mashup of Matthew and Paul, my husband's name and my name.

Theresa Stern: I hadn't thought of that. Oh, my gosh. People are so clever. That's awesome.

Paul Castle: So clever. Right?

Theresa Stern: Yes.

Paul Castle: It's just one of those things. It's just one of those little serendipitous touches. But needless to say, it was an instant bond with my dog. And the next two weeks was just an incredible experience. As soon as we hit the road together, the sidewalk, we weren't on the road.

Theresa Stern: I hope not.

Paul Castle: I thought, "This is amazing. This is incredible." My arm, sometimes it would ache a little with the cane, even the elbow. You know what I'm talking about?

Theresa Stern: Yeah, I do.

Paul Castle: Going across us. We were just gliding along so smoothly. I started to walk more confidently.

Theresa Stern: Yes, yeah.

Paul Castle: And I started to just hold my head up higher too, and my shoulder back, and I just felt cool. I'm just going to tell you right now, Theresa, I felt cool.

Theresa Stern: You felt cool.

Paul Castle: That's something I can't claim I ever felt with my cane all the time.

Theresa Stern: No, that's true.

Paul Castle: I tried to look cool, but I truly felt cool with my dog.

Theresa Stern: With your Maple Man.

Paul Castle: With my Maple Man, I call him that too. That's really funny. Well, we call him Mr. Maple.

Theresa Stern: Mr. Maple. Oh, I love it. And what did Matthew think when he first met? Because it's really a family project in some ways because everybody's living together, yep.

Paul Castle: Absolutely. He just fell in love instantly. I mean, Maple's the friendliest, most gentle soul you'd ever encounter. I would love for you to meet him someday, Theresa.

Theresa Stern: I want to. I want to now that we can travel again.

Paul Castle: Yes, I know.

Theresa Stern: Yes.

Paul Castle: He's so special. He's so special, so it was just instant love and connection. And that's one thing I never really considered or anticipated, was the family bond that I would feel. Matthew and I, we don't have kids. We hope to someday, but we don't, and this was one of those moments where we just felt like a family. We do things as a family. And the beautiful thing about a guide dog is they come everywhere with you.

Theresa Stern: They do.

Paul Castle: We went to Cirque du Soleil with Maple.

Theresa Stern: You did. Oh, my gosh. I wonder who got more attention, Maple or the acrobats.

Paul Castle: Or the performers. Maple was loved by all, trust me.

Theresa Stern: I'm sure.

Paul Castle: And we go out, we go to restaurants, we travel. We're going to Canada next week. And we just do everything as a family, and it's just a beautiful thing. It was a deeper love and connection than I ever, ever imagined. I knew we would have that companionship of course, and I love pets. But this is more than that.

Theresa Stern: It is.

Paul Castle: It's truly more than that.

Theresa Stern: Yeah. And until you experience it, it's hard sort of to explain to people.

Paul Castle: It really is, yeah.

Theresa Stern: So very cool. So I am just so thrilled that you came to Guide Dogs for the Blind and got connected with Maple and got connected with this amazing Guide Dogs for the Blind community. And so thrilled, and I'm waiting in line to get my pride shirt, so tell me a little bit about this collaboration that you did with our marketing department.

Paul Castle: Yes. Well, as you know and as I've said a couple of times already, I'm a visual artist. And that's really moved into illustration, so I illustrate. And I've actually just released my first children's book, and that's really where my passion is now.

Theresa Stern: Fantastic.

Paul Castle: Yes.

Theresa Stern: Tell us about that. Plug your book.

Paul Castle: Sure. Well, my book is actually called The Pengrooms, and it's about two penguins who get married. It's actually based on [inaudible 00:21:33] mine and my husband's wedding invitations. Matthew told me, "Please draw something on our wedding invitations." I drew two little penguins with rainbow colored bow ties and we called them The Pengrooms.

Theresa Stern: That's so creative. I love it.

Paul Castle: Well, it became so popular amongst our followers and our fans that I kick started the projected as a children's book a couple years ago. We just released the book. And it's just a sweet story about these penguins and these other sort of colorful animal weddings that show different representation again of the LGBTQ community.

Theresa Stern: Very inclusive of everyone, yeah.

Paul Castle: Very inclusive, yeah, so that's super cool. And so Guide Dogs for the Blind knew this about me, that I love creating art. And they said, "Hey, would you be interested in creating the pride design for our T-shirt this June?" And of course, I couldn't have said yes fast enough. So incredibly honored and truly a dream, combining these two things that I'm so passionate about. As I've told you, the LGBTQ plus community and the blind community, never have I had the chance to do something for both at once like this. I mean, it's truly the confluence of my passions.

Theresa Stern: I was going to say it's sort of that full circle story. Right?

Paul Castle: Oh, completely.

Theresa Stern: Now you tell stories and this is the whole story. I love that.

Paul Castle: Yes, yes, yes.

Theresa Stern: Tell me what the T-shirt looks like. I have not seen it yet.

Paul Castle: Oh, I'm so excited for you to see it, Theresa. I can't wait. I've already seen the mock up of the T-shirts. It's going to be so exciting to start wearing them around and talking about them. And we get to talk about them right here. Well, we talk about many different ideas and images. Of course, we knew from the start we wanted all of those rainbow colors in there, all of the inclusive colors as well.

Theresa Stern: Yes, yes.

Paul Castle: So that's a very colorful design. And we discussed: Would it just be dogs? Would it be humans and dogs? When discussing it, we decided we really wanted to show handlers and their dogs together, and so the image is three characters, and they each have a dog. One is, there's a black lab, a yellow lab puppy in training, so we represent the puppy raisers as well.

Theresa Stern: Puppy raisers, awesome.

Paul Castle: Because that's such an incredible part of the Guide Dogs for the Blind community.

Theresa Stern: The heart of it, really.

Paul Castle: That's right. I couldn't leave them out, so they're represented there too. And we have a beautiful golden retriever in harness as well. So it's all represented. And the characters themselves are wearing the LGBT colors. We have a scarf. One character's hair is actually dyed in the trans pink and blue colors. And then a T-shirt is all in the rainbow colors. And I think you're just going to love it. When I created this design, I just suddenly saw a story unfold before me. I thought, "These characters need a children's book."

Theresa Stern: I was thinking the same thing. Yeah, yeah. Well, now I'm even more eager to get in line first to get one, so that's fantastic. Oh, my gosh.

Paul Castle: Yeah. I'm so excited about it. I feel like I'm sitting on a little secret because of course I haven't told anybody about it yet, so as soon as we're ready. You know?

Theresa Stern: I know. Let it drop.

Paul Castle: I just hope they made enough because I know people are going to be clamoring for these.

Theresa Stern: That's what happens. Exactly, because I have been left out before when something big drops, so I'm like-

Paul Castle: Not you, Theresa.

Theresa Stern: No, it's true. It's true.

Paul Castle: Oh, goodness.

Theresa Stern: So yeah, yeah. Or they'll have an extra, extra small and a 12X or whatever. Okay, well, that's not really going to work for me.

Paul Castle: That's not going to work. Yeah, maybe a bedtime shirt or something, I don't know, one of those blankets that are also a shirt.

Theresa Stern: Yeah. Actually, that could work too. But this year I am getting one. I am bound to get one. Well, very cool. I so appreciate you sharing your talents with the whole community. I mean, I think that's just again, I am always amazed talking to people that are involved with Guide Dogs for the Blind. It's just this web of how we're all connected and how we can all support each other. And this is I just think a really beautiful example of that. So thank you so much for sharing your talents with us.

Paul Castle: Oh, thank you. My pleasure, my honor, truly. I feel so fortunate. Thank you, Theresa.

Theresa Stern: Gosh, well, I feel so fortunate that I got a chance to get to know you a little better today, Paul. And I'm hoping to come up to Seattle now because you've got the violin, you've got the art.

Paul Castle: Oh, yeah.

Theresa Stern: Do you guys cook?

Paul Castle: Oh, well, yeah. We're experimental. Well, I told you about the dressing.

Theresa Stern: Oh, that's right. You have the dressing.

Paul Castle: I left with more recipes. I actually asked for several, so I could brush up on one of those. I promise I'll cook you a great meal.

Theresa Stern: Okay, great.

Paul Castle: If that doesn't work, by the way, we have some great restaurants, Theresa. We can take you out.

Theresa Stern: That's true, you're downtown Seattle. No problem. Okay, good. Okay. Good. Well, very fun, and again, thank you so much for being here. And I look forward to meeting you in person sometime soon.

Paul Castle: I look forward to it too.

Theresa Stern: And Matt.

Paul Castle: Wonderful. Thank you so much, Theresa.

Theresa Stern: And Maple.

Paul Castle: Oh, yeah. Well, we can't forget Mr. Maple.

Theresa Stern: Maple, Wills and Maple can have a good old time together. Yeah.

Paul Castle: Wouldn't that be special?

Theresa Stern: Yes.

Paul Castle: Thank you. Thank you so much. Have a great, wonderful Pride Month.

Theresa Stern: All right. You too. Happy Pride. For more information about Guide Dogs for the Blind, please visit guidedogs.com.