June 3, 2007

• I'm procrastinating right now. There are 3 other things I need to do before I can go to bed tonight...
  
  But instead, I'm going to tell you about the book I'm reading: In Silence - Growing Up Hearing in a Deaf World.
  
  I found it at a thrift store the other day and was immediately intrigued. A memoir of a girl named Ruth who grew up with deaf parents. She actually didn't really learn to communicate vocally till she was about 5 when she started attending school. All she knew were the sounds that her parents uttered, most of the time incorrectly. 
  
  When she was a baby, her mom would tie one end of the ribbon on her own arm and the other end to Ruth's. A deaf person can't hear her baby cry, but she can sense the baby waving her arms around. Wow, can you imagine that? Here's another paragraph that caught my attention, Ruth talking about her mom:

  
  

  She asked questions. She wanted to know. "How does the voice of my son Fred sound? Tell me, is his voice hard like hammer? You are girl, is your voice soft like fur? Explain to me. Lift up hands, move your fingers. Tell me. The radio is warm. Are words from voice warm? Now you must tell me. Where does noise sound go? Far away?"

  
  

  How we take such things for granted. Our senses, like this one; to be able to hear. To not hear your alarm clock in the morning, not hear when someone calls out for you, not be able to use the phone, not know what music is... 
  
  I hear the keys clicking as I type. The whir of the computer. An airplane flying overhead.
  What do you hear now?
  
  

  • 2:47 am
  • 7 Comments