“Sometimes I forget that you’re deaf.” people say. Or maybe they usually forget it, as it becomes incidental and retreats to the back of their minds.
Sometimes I forget that I’m deaf, too. Jacked into my computer with the headphones playing music the way I’ve always heard it. Feeling my bare feet slap against the linoleum in a way that logically must make a sound, but that is silent. Dishes that clash against each other and clang on frequencies that I’m impervious to.
It’s not a song that repeats endlessly inside my head “I’m deaf deaf deaf deaf deaf deaf deaf deaf deaf” constantly as I move about life. It’s something that I only bump into. It manifests itself in annoyances and occasional un-chosen isolation. In people being nervous to meet me, and in notebooks full of written-things that might have otherwise been spoken. It manifests itself in my flipping past shows that are not closed captioned–the same way that I flip past shows that are in Spanish or Chinese. They’re just not in a language that I understand. It manifests itself in silent doorbells that send the dogs into barking fits, and intercoms that I can’t use. It manifests itself in a lonely feeling that I get sometimes when I see a group of people signing, and know that I’m not a part of that culture.
People think that ‘disability’ is all about the lack of the ability, that the situation and the situation alone is enough to invoke a horror, a different-ness, a constant repetitive knowledge, an entire burden of consistent can-not/do-not/am-not that that cannot be forgotten or ignored.
But it’s not. Has never been. It’s merely a situation that manifests itself in fleeting ways when worlds collide. I think about it more on the level of being an immigrant–I only notice when there’s a language barrier that’s not coming down so easily as I’m used to.
July 28th, 2005 at 11:02 am
I’ve just got back from a week in France (hence no posts either), where the most un-deaf-aware person I encountered was, ironically, English
I’m lucky in that my French is pretty good, and having lived there for quite long periods of time I’m able to lipread it reasonably well - but there are moments when I just completely fail to grasp what’s going on - that being-an-immigrant feeling in fact.
July 28th, 2005 at 11:04 am
Which parts of France? The Languedoc? I was hoping to go see Rennes le Chateau someday….for one of my occult researches. I’m more than meets the eyes…and ears
.
July 28th, 2005 at 4:35 pm
I was in the South East - starting with three days on the South side of Lac Léman at Thonon-les-Bains, then two days in Chamonix (Mont Blanc), then three days of work-related things as part of a Festival at La Grave in the Dauphiné, where I was giving two lectures (en Français
), and finally a day in Switzerland, since we flew home from Geneva.
July 28th, 2005 at 7:01 pm
Welcome back, Nigel. Sounds like you had a wonderful time! Is France as beautiful as I’ve heard?
July 28th, 2005 at 10:23 pm
Nice..what kind of lectures did you cover? “Festival at La Grave”?..hmm…sounds like a place of supernatural energy there…
July 28th, 2005 at 10:36 pm
Sara - thanks for the welcome back
Oh yes, it’s a wonderful country, and only an hour’s flight away from me…
Sanctum: the festival at La Grave is a music festival have there every year for the composer Olivier Messiaen (the subject of a lot of my research). To everyone’s amazement, the lectures even got written up in the local paper (that’s me, the bald one second from the right as you look at it)
July 28th, 2005 at 10:37 pm
erm…something went wrong there. I wonder if I can get this to work..
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v605/makropulos/Summer%202005%20France%20and%20Geneva/dauphinelibere2005.jpg” alt=”Image hosted by Photobucket.com
July 28th, 2005 at 10:39 pm
Nope. still no good. One last try…
http://photobucket.com/albums/v605/makropulos/Summer%202005%20France%20and%20Geneva/?action=view¤t=dauphinelibere2005.jpg
July 28th, 2005 at 11:04 pm
Ah pardonez moi, I stand corrected, then. How fascinating regarding Monseir(?) Messiaen. I’ve been reading up on Mario Livio’s The Golden Ratio and how the divine proportion plays a role in music, the arts, sciences and all things related in the name of pi (phi).
July 29th, 2005 at 12:25 am
That last one worked wonderfully.
Quite cool about it being written up!
I can … almost.. read that. :p It’s easier than reading lips.
(guessing what the words mean.)