About two months ago I won a free open bar to a fairly popular bar in New York City. I could bring up to twenty guests but only person could attend this time. I am not one to be bothered by people not being to attend because if I were the only one who could go, I would have still gone and had a jolly good time. We arrived there around 10pm and got in with no event at all and found a good spot to stand.
The music was decent for most of the night and people seemed to be having a wonderful time from what I could see. Being a people watcher, I was having a great time imagining all types of things about people. As the night progressed I couldn’t help but notice a group of people who seemed to be having a time of their lives. They were full of energy and were dancing energetically. What struck me as odd was that I could have sworn there was a point when two of them kept dancing without music playing while the D.J was making some announcements.
I brushed that aside probably eagerness for more music, but later noticed that they were making gestures with their hands to each other. I put two and two together and concluded that these were people who couldn’t hear. I was pleasantly surprised and absolutely intrigued by this. I had never encountered people who were deaf but would venture to the dance floor to dance their hearts out and away in the way that this group of five or six people were doing. Like a child seeing a plane for the first time I was totally wowed by what I was witnessing. I immediately felt a strong desire to want to know these people. Their joy was contagious and they even joked with us. We ended up talking and dancing with and around these individuals culminating in us exchanging social networking information. I even found out that one of the girl’s is Ghanaian.
I had hitherto equated Disability to inability on many levels. However, that night shifted the paradigm a little bit for me. Watching those people dance to music they couldn’t hear was tremendously inspiring and uplifting. It made me look at my abilities and gifts (that I take for granted) in a more loving and appreciative way.
The story is told of a group of blind women who went on a picnic and carried a camera with them. While sitting on the grass enjoying their meals they would ask passers by to take their picture. I am sure the people who were taking their pictures would wonder why these old, blind ladies would want their pictures taken. I mean, what good will that do for them. They can’t see the pictures anyway. The answer I think lays not so much in a primary selfish consideration of themselves, but rather, in a selfless consideration of others who may see and appreciate the images. When others (friends and/or family) have appreciated the images, then these blind women will be subsequently allowed the secondary joy of remembering their trip and recounting or relishing it through the appreciation of their loved ones.
We all live through the efforts of others, some more than others, but I daresay we all do. Often what we consider to be our joy is dependent on another person’s work, worth or doing. So disabled or not, we need others to make life worth living. Some people see the disabled and think of all the things they cannot do, but often it is really only one thing they can’t do. Those deaf people taught me that their inability to hear didn’t prevent their limbs from moving and their hips from shaking. They couldn’t hear the music but it didn’t matter because they were going to focus on what they could do and that was to break a sweat and joyously dance the night away. We can ask many questions about disability, why it comes, if we deserve for it to come, what deep lessons we are to learn from it and whose fault it is that it came, and still find that it is still with us whether we answer the questions or not. Or we can accept that it is with us and that we needn’t bitch and moan even if we can answer the deep questions about it.
We owe each other a duty as humans to be gracious towards each other and whether disabled or not one great gift we can give to each other is to allow someone to enjoy us as human beings. Has someone enjoyed you today?
2 comments:
This blog was very interesting to me. I think about this topic often beings one of my favorite television channels is The Discovery Health Channel. I watch shows about individuals with what the norm would consider to be a "disability" all the time. As an outsider, I can't even imagine how it would feel to live in their shoes. In all reality it is amazing how people adjust and learn to live differently depending on their restrictions. An example is an individual without arms/hands. They adjust, and learn to utilize their feet and toes just as well as anyone would use their hands. As an outsider I sometimes pity a person with a disability when in reality they may seem perfectly content. I think it would be more difficult to deal with a change that occurs later in life as opposed to birth beings there is an emotional element associated with thinking about the past. Sort of the "you can't miss what you never had."
Letty, that was beautiful.I completely agree with you in that often dealing with "disability" from birth will definitely be different from dealing with it as a change in life.
I am also equally amazed and totally inspired by the number of people who transform such disadvantages to amazing achievements and skill. Personally I wouldn't want to lose any of my senses as a matter of cause or effect of anything, however, the interesting thing is that whether we like it or not, with age, and with life losing a sense is often inevitable.
I think we have a duty to take all the different types of inspiration we get from people who are "disabled" and infuse it into our lives. It is hard not to look at them differently but even if we can't look at them as the same as us we should be aware that they can learn from us as much as we can learn from them.
(I put disability it in quotes because not everyone necessarily see a loss of any sense as a disability)
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