Viewpoints...

I see you there, I know your words are for me, I don't hear them. Your words fall on deaf ears, not of my choosing. Standing here seeing moving lips, I don't read at all well enough to get your point. You scream it out, I see it in your face (red) and body language (the tension). I try not to let on, you'll be angered by my facials, your kind always are. I sign tiny, just out of your frame of vision, if you catch it, you'll think I'm different and wrong. You do catch it, you have a crazy look, that "oh shit, a deaf one" look. I can read that face anywhere. I watch you regroup, looking around trying to figure out how to solve this, you catch sight of someone you know who signs. I watch as you catch their eye and call them over. The first sign you ask them to feed to me is an apology. I am still hurt, but realizing you're not like others, not entirely at least. Maybe your face of oh shit was not about me but about your own behaviors and assumptions. I guess this wont be as bad as I thought, maybe I'll be okay here.

(This is not by any means me saying I know what it is like or choosing to say I am truly reflecting what it is like to be deaf but...I've got some ideas on what I'm trying to say and really just want to put out there the prose I wrote in my Orientation to Deafness Class as I watched a show about being deaf and after several conversations, chapters read, and shows both fictional and nonfiction viewed. )