Transitions

 

   As is evident in my recent posts, I have been thinking a lot about changes, about how life changes with comings and (more often now) goings, about how my life is so different now than before my spinal surgery six years ago.  It is breath-taking how life can be radically different, sometimes quite quickly. 

   I continued to reflect on this in my latest Claremont Courier column, which came out on Friday. 

                     A RETIRED LIFE? 

   I recently went to a talk at Scripps College by DJ Kurs, the director, currently, of Deaf West Theater in Los Angeles.  Deaf West is a small but increasingly mighty theater that produces plays featuring deaf and hearing actors, some of which, like Spring Awakening and Big River, have ended up on Broadway.  Troy Kostur, one of its best deaf actors who I’ve had the pleasure of seeing a few times, including as Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire, won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar last year for CODA, which, in a bit of an upset, also won Best Picture. 

  Mr.  Kurs, signing and assisted by an interpreter, spoke about making theater more accessible, not only to the deaf but also to folks with other disabilities.  He talked about radical inclusion in theater, making it accessible to disabled audiences and also opening it up as a space for disabled actors and performers and disabled writers and creators. 

   I was all but jumping up and down in my wheelchair.  As in the Roberta Flack song, Mr. Kurs was singing – signing – my life with his presentation.

   I wanted to say, to proclaim, “That’s my jam!” (I was actually thinking of another word, but this is a family newspaper.) Writing (and sometimes performing) for the theater with a disability is what I’m all about. 

   Or it was.

   Since my spinal surgery six years ago and really several years before it, I haven’t had the ability and energy for playwrighting and performing.  I sometimes think about trying to revive one of my works or working on a new one, but, with still adjusting to my new, increased disability, I don’t feel I have the time, the strength, not to mention the resources. I almost felt like Mr. Kurs was taunting me, “killing me softly with his words”: look what I get to do, and you can’t anymore!     

   Is this what it feels like to be retired? I often wonder about this, as I think about adapting to my post-surgery life and find myself reflecting on the life I had before my surgery.  Is this what it’s like when you’re no longer doing what you used to do, especially when you loved doing it. 

   But I also think about it when I see all the retired people living here in Claremont and what a fantastic place it is to retire.  The college students may see Claremont as a “retirement community,” as one noted in speaking at a Pomona College commencement some years ago, but this isn’t a place where the retired while and waste away. 

   To the contrary, in Claremont, retired people actively pursue their passions, whether in marching for peace or protesting a current injustice or in auditing classes at the colleges.  There are concerts, lectures and presentations to attend and no end of local issues to debate and advocate. 

   Yes, the presentation on the disabled in theater struck a sensitive, even painful chord in me, but I was thrilled that there was the opportunity right here to see, and for others to see, that this work is going on, that, indeed, progress is being made.  I was glad to be kept informed, to be engaged.

·         * 

   Speaking of disabled artists, Raul Pizarro’s paintings all but glow.  They are illuminated, literally, with the white and pale colors in them shining out amid the dark colors, making the dark colors all the darker yet not so dark.  I don’t know how, but they radiate. 

   I have had the great pleasure of being friends with this fellow wheelchair user from Ontario, not only because of his sublime art.  He has been a real hoot, quite a character, as they say – quite an entertaining dinner guest. 

   Raul died on March 18 at age 47. He had recently undergone medical treatment that was thought to be successful. 

   I will miss the beauty and also the bawdy humor that Raul added to the world – and am thankful for all the work he left. 

   There will be a memorial service for Raul on April 28 at 10 at the Fox Theater in Pomona and also a gathering at 5 on the 30^th at the dA Center for the Arts. I suspect he would get a kick out of the venues. 

 

A different - and difficult - shyness

   Last month, I attended a memorial for an old family friend, the mother of three children that I grew up with here in Claremont.  I had not seen the three in years, decades, probably since high school if not earlier, and I was really interested to see them, what they were like after all this time. 

   I arrived early, and soon enough, there they were.  We said hi to each other, asked each other how we were doing, said, “Fine.” And then – nothing.

   It wasn’t that there was nothing to say, nothing to talk about after all the years that had passed.  It wasn’t that there was so much to talk about that it was easier not to talk.  It wasn’t that it wasn’t an appropriate place for a real conversation. 

   It was that we were embarrassed.  There was embarrassment, mostly on my part.  I was embarrassed to speak, embarrassed by my impaired speech, and also embarrassed that I would make them feel embarrassed if or when they couldn’t understand my speech. I’m pretty sure that they were feeling embarrassed, unsure about if they would understand my speech. 

   So it was easier, a relief, not to say anything. 

   Now, it’s true that I had a mask on, which didn’t make talking or understanding me any easier.  But even if I didn’t have a mask on, the scene would have played out the same.  (Also, having my speech device wasn’t feasible that day.)

   I was thinking about this later that day.  There was nothing new about what happened.  This happens constantly, over and over, almost on a daily basis.  It happens when I’m out on my own, and someone who knows me or knows who I am (many people in Claremont know who I am) will come up and say hello.  It even happens at my Quaker meeting when someone outside the half dozen or so who understand my speech come over to chat after the close of worship. 

   After a few brief pleasantries, they will look at me, often with a sad, guilty smile, sometimes making an effort to carry on an all-but-one-way conversation and then walk off, sometimes with an excuse (needing to use the restroom, catch someone else to talk to, etc), sometimes not. 

   Something like this even more poignantly happened when groups of college students worked with me to put on one of my plays – a play that, in a cruel irony, deals with and shows, in part, the experience and results of having impaired speech. Other than rehearsing and performing the play, the students and I didn’t really converse and make connections.   

   Like I said, this happens over and over.  As I thought about it that day, I thought about how, yes, it’s sad and frustrating, and I thought about how there are certain things I can do to mitigate or ease the situation, like having my speech device or having an attendant or friend who understands my speech with me. 

   But I also thought about others with impaired speech, in particular a friend whose speech is just a bit easier to understand than mine but isn’t shy at all about talking to anyone – and almost with an attitude of “I dare you not to understand me!”

   In thinking about all this, I realized that, in addition to feeling sad and frustrated, I was angry.  This was something new. 

   I realized that I’m angry that I wasn’t encouraged as a child to speak, that I wasn’t encouraged to not be shy or embarrassed about my speech.  I’m also angry that the children I grew up with weren’t encouraged to try to understand or to be open to trying to understand my speech. 

   It was almost like I was a deaf child and only my immediate family and my teachers and a few others (baby-sitters, friends) could communicate with me. 

   I am not sure if there’s anyone I can be angry at or fairly be angry at.  I am pretty certain that my parents thought they were doing the right thing.  After all, it was the 1960’s, and there wasn’t much help, besides medically, for the disabled or for the parents of disabled children. It was years before the disabled being integrated and mainstreamed into society and schools with non-disabled students.  There was little if any advocacy and no talk of disability rights. 

   By the time I started attending school with non-disabled students in my teens – at a junior high, not exactly a friendly setting – I had bought into the notion that it was better, safer, more comfortable not to speak outside of a small group of people (attendants, friends). I have, of course, learned more to communicate with others, but the emphasis has been on doing so with the assistance of others or a variety of devices (from the lowest to very high tech). My non-attendant friends who understand my speech have taken time and effort to do so. 

   I don’t know if I can blame anyone, but I am, yes, angry that I ended up being embarrassed about my speech. It sure would have been nice if I had been more comfortable talking and perhaps with helping others be comfortable with my talking. It would have been nice if I had been able to more easily connect and perhaps bond with more of the interesting, cool people that I have encountered in my life. That includes those I grew up with who I’m now seeing again, more often under sad circumstances.