Dear readers,
Since the start of my blog four months ago I have been enjoying the comments and contacts from you. Here is a summary of the most read articles on this blog in the case you missed one and would like to catch up. I know I would love to hear from you.
On Dusting Off Home Plate - Baseball is the only game I really know. Oh, I know what basketball and football intend with their baskets and...
On Random Acts of Kindness - After 9/11 we Americans learned that our assumptions of general safety were not as unassailable as we thought. In fact we have become ...
On Compassion - We are not born with it…To be fully human I believe we have to learn and practice compassion....
On Brailling - My husband and I got together in the middle of our lives, which meant that we brought into our relationship our already established...
On The Verdict - Of course we are caught up in the news, decisions and actions of the Trayvon Martin-George Zimmerman case. We would have to be on...
On Smiling - For several years my husband and I walked the paths of a neighborhood park most week days; for exercise, yes, but also...
On Stress - About fifty years ago a Hungarian doctor named Hans Selye coined the word, stress, as a description of any external demands made on the...
On Freedom - The ontologist, Ernest Holmes, has said that if God has a will, it must for us “to express greater life, greater happiness, greater power,” ...
On It Is What It Is - A Glib Set of Words ‘It is what it is.’ How often have we spoken this glib set of words when viewing something in front of us that...
On God - I am a believer. Not perhaps in the ways that some people are, but I came into life knowing I belonged to something greater than myself. ...
If you have enjoyed these posts, I know you’ll enjoy the Free Author Event at Stepping Stones Books & Gifts where I am appearing on August 30 and I invite you to join me to hear more about Essays on Everything
Blessings always,
Margaret Stortz
Showing posts with label Brailling. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Brailling. Show all posts
Saturday, August 17, 2013
Monday, June 3, 2013
On Brailling
My
husband and I got together in the middle of our lives, which meant that we
brought into our relationship our already established opinions, attitudes and
behaviors, formed long ago in our young lives.
My, were we capable of heady conversations, and, shall we say, “spirited
discussions!” Quiet exchanges actually
did take place and were always possible, but often loud and noisy were more the
norm, especially during our early years together.
Without Committing Mayhem
Then we got smart. We both knew that, as controlling as we both were, we were not about to change one another, so we had to find a way to make it through verbal communications without committing mayhem, and we invented…brailling. Everyone knows about the splendid language called Braille, created by French teacher, Louis Braille, in the 19th Century, that enables the blind to read using a coded system of raised dots that they could touch with their fingers. Quite simply they “read” with their fingers, and if they wish, not make a single sound. Well, as my husband and I discovered, there were lots of ways to be blind that did not necessarily involve physical sight. There were lots of ways to exhibit deafness as well that also did not involve physical hearing. We loved each other very much and were also quite blind and deaf at times to one another, not listening and not seeing what the other was trying to say.
Then we got smart. We both knew that, as controlling as we both were, we were not about to change one another, so we had to find a way to make it through verbal communications without committing mayhem, and we invented…brailling. Everyone knows about the splendid language called Braille, created by French teacher, Louis Braille, in the 19th Century, that enables the blind to read using a coded system of raised dots that they could touch with their fingers. Quite simply they “read” with their fingers, and if they wish, not make a single sound. Well, as my husband and I discovered, there were lots of ways to be blind that did not necessarily involve physical sight. There were lots of ways to exhibit deafness as well that also did not involve physical hearing. We loved each other very much and were also quite blind and deaf at times to one another, not listening and not seeing what the other was trying to say.
So
we taught each other to braille our bodies.
We learned to recognize the point of no return in our heated
discussions, the point where if anyone said one more word, one more syllable,
one tiny snort…we were into it! Full-on
hollering! No opportunity to say
anything lest it stoke a verbal forest fire.
Instead we reached out to use the language of touch. We might not have had the sense to say “I
love you,” but we could pass the words through our fingers, and we did. Quite often for awhile. The wonder of a soft touch on the arm or
shoulder, a finger or two brushing the back of the neck…and the anger backed
away, the fires blew out. We were wise
enough not to intrude any sexual overtures in the touching, which would have
lost us the chance to simply love as people growing in love again.
Belonging Can Be Conveyed In Many Ways
By now we’ve learned a couple of things. We don’t engage in much silly stuff anymore, so the need for big-time brailling isn’t there. Still, we both learned a whole, new language together. Belonging can be conveyed in so many ways; Oneness shows up when we least expect it sometimes. We have come to know each other so well that the exchange of a single touch can speak more volumes than the spoken word ever could. Riding together in the car, no words exchanged yet the desire to speak love surfacing, it is so natural, so easy to touch a knee, rest a hand on the thigh, saying once more for the zillionth time…I love you.
By now we’ve learned a couple of things. We don’t engage in much silly stuff anymore, so the need for big-time brailling isn’t there. Still, we both learned a whole, new language together. Belonging can be conveyed in so many ways; Oneness shows up when we least expect it sometimes. We have come to know each other so well that the exchange of a single touch can speak more volumes than the spoken word ever could. Riding together in the car, no words exchanged yet the desire to speak love surfacing, it is so natural, so easy to touch a knee, rest a hand on the thigh, saying once more for the zillionth time…I love you.
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