Protected: October Foto Friday!
October 17, 2008 at 10:10 pm (Children and Parenting, Snicklebritches, Wigglebutt)
In a few years, I’ll be 30…
October 17, 2008 at 1:59 pm (General/Everything, Writing)
What do I hope to achieve by 30 years old?
I am turning 28 in a couple of months and I’ve been pondering about what I have accomplished, whether or not I’ve lived up to my younger self’s expectations, and what I want to have done by the age of thirty. Just a lot of thinking going on.
Am I where I thought I would be when I was half this age (15)? I don’t have the brood I hoped for, but a piece of my heart is walking around in Maine and the two babies I have here under this roof are more than enough to keep me busy. I do want to adopt more children later on. I am not finished adding to this brood by that mean, although my body might be done carrying babies.
I thought I would be a librarian/homeschooler. I was going to be the night librarian at a university that has a 24 hour library on campus, sleep until noon, then using my afternoons to home school my 6 children; the oldest of which would be just starting his teenager years. I doubt that will be the case in two years. I did go to college and I left college just a few classes away from my bachelor in library science. That was a very frustrating chapter of my life. So close, yet out of grasp. It’s as well. I ended up moving to southwestern Missouri, where the library job market is very competitive. In New England, the library job market was/is wide open.
In two years, Wigglebutt will be 4 and preschool age. I still intend to fully homeschool Snicklebritches, but we’re now not sure this is the best for Wigglebutt because of his delays. He’s in 5 kinds of therapy as it is at only 2 years old. I am going to need all the help I can get to ensure he gets the education he deserves. At 15, I thought I would be this hardcore homeschooler, where the child is always better off at home. Now, I’ve changed the way I see it. Home education is the best for most children because of how you can tailor the education to their needs, but some needs are too great to not have professionals do a small portion of the schooling.
Especially speech therapy. I’m at a HUGE disadvantage, being deaf, and my son has trouble with his oral motor skills. In two years, I see myself enrolling him into this preschool within the hospital meant for medically special needs children (such as epilepsy, Down syndrome, spina binfida, cerebal palsy, etc.. and NOT autism, there’s a whole different preschool for autistic children in the behavioral center here in town). Anyways, I think we might have him enrolled in that 3 mornings a week, First Steps two afternoons a week in my home and the rest of the time I’ll fill it in with fun science and history stuff, which they do not cover.
The funny thing is back at 15, in my view of the future, I didn’t see a man. Yeah, I must have been married to have all those children and whatnot, but I did not see love. That is a pleasant surprise for me. I have a husband, a soulmate, a companion. He is my other half. I thought that didn’t exist. I’m glad that the universe saw it fit to show me that I was wrong about what love is. In two years, when I am 30, my husband and I will have been together for six; married for four years. I definitely did not anticipate being in love when I am thirty years old. I am not complaining at all though.
At this age, I am thinking about what I want to get done by 30. Two things come to mind. I want to have my book ready to be revised and sent to agents/publishers and I want to get back down to 145 pounds. I suppose I will need to start setting those two goals and work backwards to see what kind of timeline I need to establish in order to accomplish those goals. If you are reading this blog and you want to encourage me along, let me know and I can tell you when key dates/objectives are and you can remind me to see if I am staying on track and keep me accountable.
It boils down to this- When I am 30 years old; I want to be slimmer and carrying around a manuscript at a writing convention!
Looking forward to the release of this documentary-
October 17, 2008 at 1:00 pm (Deaf)
This is a documentary of the deaf entertainment industry. Yes, there is one! This will be a limited release. I hope that they consider my small city big enough to consider this as one of the locations they release the documentary in. This small city does have a large deaf population in it and the surrounding areas. I contacted the president of the Deaf Awareness Group to see if she is interested in finding out how to nominate our city as a location for a showing of this documentary. I am sure you all have heard of Marlee Maitlin and Heather Whitestone, but neither of them are featured. Robert DeMayo is. The world’s only deaf rock band; Beethoven’s Nightmare is featured in this. I haven’t heard of CJ Jones (deaf comedian) or TL Foresberg (singer), but from what i could find of her lyrics, I think I’ll like her. One of her songs is titled “Not Deaf Enough” and it is exciting to discover that there are others out there who feel stuck between worlds like I do.
Here’s the trailer for “See What I’m Saying” documentary.
October 15
October 15, 2008 at 11:40 am (Children and Parenting, General, Losses)
Today is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Day. I had miscarriages, a preemie, and stillbirths. Every one of them devasted me. From the pregnancy that ended as soon as it began to the son I lost during childbirth. It didn’t matter to me how far along gestationally I was, the emotional pain was of equal intensity. I did get to know my babies better the longer they hung out in my womb, but I also wonder as much about the earlier losses that the Lord decided was best for them to come home earlier.
If you have also gone through the heartache of losing a baby, I am so very sorry and I want you to know that the pain of your heartwrenching grief is valid. Go light a candle in remembrance of your babies and bask in the knowledge that God will reunite you when he feels the time is right. Until then, I strongly believe that you can visit them in your dreams. I do.
I am a woman, SEE me write!
October 14, 2008 at 9:24 pm (Deaf, Writing)
Tags: Deaf, Writing
It was by luck that I was mainstreamed and immersed into an experimental method called the Look, See, Say method of teaching deaf children the English language. Therefore, I grew up familiar with the words and how they fit together to tell stories. I learned to read by memorizing shapes of whole words. I remember them showing us a big poster size flip chart with a picture of bear and a box simply outlining what the word shape is. They taught us the actual letters later on. I don’t know what other deaf children go through to learn how to read when they are immersed in the ASL lifestyle. I am sure it is a very different experience from what I had. I was immersed into the hearing world and I always knew there was something missing. I don’t remember the exact moment I realized it was sound, but after I understood there was a whole world that I was cut off from; that only made me determined to try to understand it through words.
I seized anything that looked like it would describe sounds in detail to try to imagine what it is like to hear. I would scour books for references to sound and savor each word. I would attack poems; desperately trying to ‘hear’ the words, the cadences, and the way the words feel in my mouth. I would comb the dictionaries and thesauruses for words about sound to read the definition and try to understand how it must feel in hearing people’s ears. I would cross reference between the thesaurus and the dictionary in my search for noisy words. I would discover the word click, look it up (a slight sharp sound), then I would go to whatever the book/poem used this word to describe the sound and I would feel for this sound. In this case, the lock clicked. I went to my door and felt the doorknob with all of my senses and listened with my touch for this mysterious click. A metallic tickle in my hand! This is a click! Excited, I would go to the thesaurus and search out ‘click’ to find bang, clack, etc. I chose clack because this is so similar to click. I look for clack in the dictionary (to make a quick sharp sound) and I saw an example: “The fork clacked on the dish.” Naturally, I went to the kitchen and listened with my touch for this clack. It vibrated my hand. So a click tickles and a clack vibrates.
After a while, just reading about sounds didn’t satisfy me. I had to share how I felt about my soundless but vibrating world. I am able to become more than just that deaf girl through my words; becoming someone that counts. When I convert what I think into words, my thoughts suddenly has relevancy in the dominantly hearing world. In real life I am unable to defend myself or to intermesh myself into conversations, but in my writing I can lay it all out for the world to see so that they may understand where I am coming from. Writing is the only way I, as a deaf woman, am able to share my experiences in a universal way.
When I write….
October 13, 2008 at 2:17 am (Writing)
Tags: Writing
When I write, I feel like I need to get it right or not write at all. When I write, I see myself struggle with getting an accurate portrayal of what I see in my mind onto paper. When I write, I discover visualizations I never would have stumbled across otherwise. When I write, I ache for the ability to get all these stories, memories, thoughts out into words. It would be cool if I could have a pensieve that automatically converts what I see in my mind into words. That would save me a lot of the struggling that I have- the ability to sift through my memories and thoughts with a detached soul.
When I am writing, I feel myself become serene and calm at the same time my mind awakens and starts racing as it digs deeper within for inspiration. When I write, I see things click into place when I wasn’t sure how it would fit together as a whole story. When I write, I discover things about myself that I did not know, even if the subject isn’t about me. When I write, I feel nervous that if I do let myself write from the heart, from my soul; allowing myself to passionately pour myself into my work that it will come back to haunt me… therefore I am always finding myself to be writing with self-restraint in order to protect myself.
When I write with my favorite messy tortoise shell fountain pen with bottles of emerald ink scattered at my side; I watch the shadow of my pen lick and flitter across the crisp page; chasing its own shadow; tracing an inky trail of breadcrumbs… if only the birds could come fly onto my pages and peck at it- eating my words away. Alas… this pen is an ordinary one, it permanently leaves its mark, cancelled out only by smearing additional ink onto it. It goes both ways for me… it’s therapeutical to visualize ink as if it is sucking my emotions out down my arm, through the pen and finally onto the paper to remain there for a long time. Yet that is precisely why it is intimidating- the knowledge that the ink I deposit upon the paper will remain in its stark reality for anyone to discover.
When I write, I discover the wonderful mysteries of how strangely my mind works. My mind has minds within minds, each independent of others and this is how I can carry several separate trains of thoughts all at once… yet if one level of my thoughts cease to function, all the other levels of my thoughts will go away too and I am left an empty shell- a zombie-like being. Aha… perhaps I’ve stumbled onto the secret of myself… a mind whose all levels and sublevels of thoughts is a sign of a troubled soul truly at peace, whereas a mind whose different levels of thoughts clash points to a tormented soul.
On some days, my mind feels whole, coherent, calm, at peace… and on other days, my mind feels fractured, confusing, and constantly racing, feeling unsettled. So on the whole, what shape is my inner being in? Since I am not calm every day, does that mean my bad days hurt me more than I realize? Some days, I write furiously and clearly, forming words that flow and make sense and on other days, my writing look like the angry scribblings of a grade schooler. I ache for a revelation by the Lord Almighty himself and for the confidence and faith to recognize without any doubts that the thoughts I have do come directly from the Holy Spirit…
How do I learn to release my self bondage and write freely, without holding anything back? How do I allow myself to live through my words; rather than using words to show what I am? I know I can write much better and I know what my writing needs… more of the raw essence of my being kneaded into my words. I just have to figure out how to break down the dam holding back the flood of emotions that I know is on the brink of being released…
Burrell’s caught by the balls…
October 12, 2008 at 3:57 pm (Deaf)
Tags: Deaf, mental health
This isn’t my story, but this story is closely related to my own story. I’m still working with Sarah Overstreet on my story, she’s still doing research and verifying what needs to be verified before she publishes it. Now that she published a column about the similar issues, I think I can now say who the “newspaper columnist” is that I’ve been dialoguing with. Look at the comments to her column. That just shows the hearing people really do not get it about how it is to be deaf. Can you carry on a real conversation… a REAL soul searching conversation by writing back and forth? And not get frustrated? That solution in the comment won’t do.
Another commented about how odd it is to be an interpreter in the same circles. That’s how small and interwined the deaf culture is. If you go to a deaf activity, chances are you will run into nearly the whole deaf/interpreter/CODA community in one place. It’s hard to not run into the interpreter. However, a counselor who works with the deaf understands the need to hang back from deaf social functions. That is what we need.
I am excited that Sarah Overstreet is going after Burrell in her column and calling them out, so to speak!
Sarah Overstreet is someone we are lucky to have on our side, as a deaf community. Let’s all give her a big shout out and thanks! *raises and waves hands*
Threaten?
October 11, 2008 at 12:55 am (General/Everything)
So I guess Tishia in Swahili means “Threaten.”
http://www.websters-dictionary-online.org/translation/Swahili/tishia
Hmmmmm…………………
Protected: Get ready for some cuteness!
October 10, 2008 at 6:57 pm (Children and Parenting, Snicklebritches, Wigglebutt)
Today is Trinity’s Birthday
October 10, 2008 at 3:20 pm (Trinity)
Happy Birthday to you,
Happy Birthday to you, my son,
Happy Birthday to you,
Happy Birthday dear Trinity,
Happy Birthday to you!
I will miss you for infinity.
Today is my son, Trinity’s birthday. The last time I saw him was five years ago. He was a preschooler, but now he is a preteenager. I am so sad I missed out on his elementary school years. A certain somebody kept me updated on him, but she has since passed on and I’m now without a way to know what my son is up to, whether or not his father is treating him good and not exposing him to his lifestyle, or whether or not he moved up through the grades in school. Last I knew, they had to hold him back twice in kindergarten. His father blamed me for that, even though I was out the picture and not around to have it actually be my fault. If I had custody at the time, I would have seen how much he struggled in public school and pulled him out to homeschool him instead. I hurt that I never got this chance to do what’s the best thing for my son. I am afraid that he hates me today. With all the toxic garbage that his father is telling him on a daily basis, I wouldn’t be surprised if Trinity hates me because he thinks I didn’t want him. Back then, he did think the world of me. Here’s a picture of us the day before I left him behind.
- Trinity and Momma
