Thank you for mentioning my work!!! I appreciate that!!! I appreciate your whole newsletter today! So many good thoughts about living the creative life !!!! Silence is indeed the word of the week for me too!! Thank you again!!! 💚💚💚
Yes!!! It really is!!! As a deaf person my idea of "silence" is much more than the absence of sound...it is deliberately taking the time and crafting the space to hear my own thoughts.💚
I would love to "hear" more about this if you have any more thoughts to share on it. I have been reading a lot lately, sparked by school, about what "seeing" means for people who are blind and how to try to understanding blind sight from a perspective other than just the absence of what we know as sight. It's interesting stuff. I have the same interest in what it means to hear when deaf. I wouldn't say I know a lot about this experience but I've tried to learn by watching documentaries etc. about people's experiences. I have noticed recently that when deaf people are represented on television, often now us hearing people hear sounds like waves to represent their experience. I don't know that this would be accurate but wonder if it's better than perhaps representations in the past.
The movie etc representations of deaf people are better only in the sense that deaf people are there at all. It's also some better because deaf people aren't *always* the victims. But still the representations of deaf people, with the sound waves you speak of, are I think geared for the hearing people in the audience so those hearing people won't wonder if something just went wrong with their device/sound system were the movie to become silent while the deaf persons viewpoint is depicted.
What it means to "hear" when deaf: whenever I'm in real life with someone who is speaking I'm lipreading them. I have very good hearing aids and they will help to a degree depending on the situation. If you and I are talking in a quiet place my hearing aids will help me follow your conversation even if I glance away from your lips to spoon out some salsa. In a noisy pub if I glance away from your lips to spoon out salsa it is possible that I will have lost the thread of what you're saying. Now I'm a smart cookie and am damn good at word games so I can look up from my salsa spooning and within a few more words from you I will have guessed what I missed at least enough in order to ask you a clarifying question. More generally speaking hearing and listening are things I have to do with full concentration and attention. Out of 10 spoken words I might, emphasize *might*, have heard 4 of them. I might accurately lipread 4 other words (provided you weren't chewing chips and salsa while talking) and I will guess, based on those word perceptions, what the whole 10 word sentence was about. I ask questions to make sure my guess was accurate. And so it goes all conversation long. For me conversations can be exhausting. I have conversations with awareness and intention.
Even more generally when I enter a store, a library or any public place I use my eyes to scan and "hear" what's going on. I read anything written down and publicly posted because, for example, I will not hear in an understandable sense any intercom announcements. I will deduce from written notices and people's behavior what that announcement may have been. Guided museum tours for ex are largely useless to me because the in person guides usually speak towards the painting not the audience - so I look for written brochures, books etc about the museum exhibit instead. I might catch a bit from lipreading the tour guide if the tour group is small. Any written words that I read in advance will help me to better guess what the tour guide might be saying. If the guided museum tour is only audio recordings that is utterly useless to me. Does this somewhat answer your question? Any more questions? 😘💚💚💚
Thank you again for your response. I really appreciate being able to learn from people's direct experiences and you are so articulate about it. Your lines about the salsa captured my imagination ... use that in something creative someday if you haven't already!
I would certainly never have thought about how the museum guides speak towards the painting! It isn't the same thing but I am also someone who benefits a lot from reading in advance because I don't learn well or take in information easily when listening to it. Audio tours are wasted on me. When I sit in lectures I take copious notes because I have to go back and read it later to make any sense of what I've heard. I really want to see more incorporation of all different learning styles and ability needs throughout all aspects of our culture.
And yes, it makes sense to me that the "waves" in the tv shows are designed for hearing people so it is still exclusionary but we're making small progress. I hope we keep making progress. I've enjoyed watching Marlee Matlin's career in that she is a deaf actress who plays complex roles where her deafness isn't always her defining characteristic. It's not unproblematic (thin white Hollywood celebrity etc etc) but it's movement in a direction that I hope keeps moving in bigger leaps and bounds.
Curious if you also use sign language or stick to lip reading? I recently had a little chat here with Helen Conway about British Sign Language vs ASL and learned that the two visual languages are actually more different from one another than the two spoken languages which I found really interesting.
Continuing to think about your description of what silence means to you and what it may mean to me ...
Just a quick reply: I do use some sign language but primarily I do lipreading. And I too hope the world becomes more accepting of diversity in all of its forms! 💚💚
Thank you so much for answering. I will read in more depth in a little bit. We definitely have a long way to go with representation - of deafness, people of color, mental health. All of it. 💙🦋
An additional thought to my earlier reply to you: when I had art history in college - in the dark rooms with the screen projected images - I would be certain to sit right in front of the lectern so I could see the professors lips in the light the prof had on her/his notes. I also - and this was key - I went to the profs office hours and asked for advance reading prior to lectures. I read extra just so I would have a sense of the vocabulary the prof would use in lectures. Now, decades away from having gotten my degree, I realize that this also gave me space and silence in which to also hear my own thoughts about the topic of the lectures etc. So I think of "silence" as that space between inputs. Does that make sense?
Thank you for mentioning my work!!! I appreciate that!!! I appreciate your whole newsletter today! So many good thoughts about living the creative life !!!! Silence is indeed the word of the week for me too!! Thank you again!!! 💚💚💚
When things get so hard in the world I think taking time and space for a little bit of silence is so powerful. <3
Yes!!! It really is!!! As a deaf person my idea of "silence" is much more than the absence of sound...it is deliberately taking the time and crafting the space to hear my own thoughts.💚
I would love to "hear" more about this if you have any more thoughts to share on it. I have been reading a lot lately, sparked by school, about what "seeing" means for people who are blind and how to try to understanding blind sight from a perspective other than just the absence of what we know as sight. It's interesting stuff. I have the same interest in what it means to hear when deaf. I wouldn't say I know a lot about this experience but I've tried to learn by watching documentaries etc. about people's experiences. I have noticed recently that when deaf people are represented on television, often now us hearing people hear sounds like waves to represent their experience. I don't know that this would be accurate but wonder if it's better than perhaps representations in the past.
The movie etc representations of deaf people are better only in the sense that deaf people are there at all. It's also some better because deaf people aren't *always* the victims. But still the representations of deaf people, with the sound waves you speak of, are I think geared for the hearing people in the audience so those hearing people won't wonder if something just went wrong with their device/sound system were the movie to become silent while the deaf persons viewpoint is depicted.
What it means to "hear" when deaf: whenever I'm in real life with someone who is speaking I'm lipreading them. I have very good hearing aids and they will help to a degree depending on the situation. If you and I are talking in a quiet place my hearing aids will help me follow your conversation even if I glance away from your lips to spoon out some salsa. In a noisy pub if I glance away from your lips to spoon out salsa it is possible that I will have lost the thread of what you're saying. Now I'm a smart cookie and am damn good at word games so I can look up from my salsa spooning and within a few more words from you I will have guessed what I missed at least enough in order to ask you a clarifying question. More generally speaking hearing and listening are things I have to do with full concentration and attention. Out of 10 spoken words I might, emphasize *might*, have heard 4 of them. I might accurately lipread 4 other words (provided you weren't chewing chips and salsa while talking) and I will guess, based on those word perceptions, what the whole 10 word sentence was about. I ask questions to make sure my guess was accurate. And so it goes all conversation long. For me conversations can be exhausting. I have conversations with awareness and intention.
Even more generally when I enter a store, a library or any public place I use my eyes to scan and "hear" what's going on. I read anything written down and publicly posted because, for example, I will not hear in an understandable sense any intercom announcements. I will deduce from written notices and people's behavior what that announcement may have been. Guided museum tours for ex are largely useless to me because the in person guides usually speak towards the painting not the audience - so I look for written brochures, books etc about the museum exhibit instead. I might catch a bit from lipreading the tour guide if the tour group is small. Any written words that I read in advance will help me to better guess what the tour guide might be saying. If the guided museum tour is only audio recordings that is utterly useless to me. Does this somewhat answer your question? Any more questions? 😘💚💚💚
Thank you again for your response. I really appreciate being able to learn from people's direct experiences and you are so articulate about it. Your lines about the salsa captured my imagination ... use that in something creative someday if you haven't already!
I would certainly never have thought about how the museum guides speak towards the painting! It isn't the same thing but I am also someone who benefits a lot from reading in advance because I don't learn well or take in information easily when listening to it. Audio tours are wasted on me. When I sit in lectures I take copious notes because I have to go back and read it later to make any sense of what I've heard. I really want to see more incorporation of all different learning styles and ability needs throughout all aspects of our culture.
And yes, it makes sense to me that the "waves" in the tv shows are designed for hearing people so it is still exclusionary but we're making small progress. I hope we keep making progress. I've enjoyed watching Marlee Matlin's career in that she is a deaf actress who plays complex roles where her deafness isn't always her defining characteristic. It's not unproblematic (thin white Hollywood celebrity etc etc) but it's movement in a direction that I hope keeps moving in bigger leaps and bounds.
Curious if you also use sign language or stick to lip reading? I recently had a little chat here with Helen Conway about British Sign Language vs ASL and learned that the two visual languages are actually more different from one another than the two spoken languages which I found really interesting.
Continuing to think about your description of what silence means to you and what it may mean to me ...
Just a quick reply: I do use some sign language but primarily I do lipreading. And I too hope the world becomes more accepting of diversity in all of its forms! 💚💚
Thank you so much for answering. I will read in more depth in a little bit. We definitely have a long way to go with representation - of deafness, people of color, mental health. All of it. 💙🦋
Me too. A long way to go... Hugs! 💚🦋
An additional thought to my earlier reply to you: when I had art history in college - in the dark rooms with the screen projected images - I would be certain to sit right in front of the lectern so I could see the professors lips in the light the prof had on her/his notes. I also - and this was key - I went to the profs office hours and asked for advance reading prior to lectures. I read extra just so I would have a sense of the vocabulary the prof would use in lectures. Now, decades away from having gotten my degree, I realize that this also gave me space and silence in which to also hear my own thoughts about the topic of the lectures etc. So I think of "silence" as that space between inputs. Does that make sense?