Mis recuerdos...

While driving home to South County from the Pine, I was recalling a trip I took with my family on the Copper Canyon train. We had left Los Mochis, Sinaloa early in the morning and were bound for Chihuahua by way of the Copper Canyon. The train, El Chepe, would take us through deep canyons passing tropical plants, corkscrew into a mountain, and along a rim through forest environs for the next 12 hours if all went well. You see, time in Mexico is always much slower and a lot more forgiving in a way that schedules didn't always dictate things. Things just go the way they go down in Mexico.

I was sitting in a passenger car looking out the window and peering down into the deep barrancas of the Copper Canyon country when my father tapped me on the shoulder and told me he wanted to introduce me to some people. I, having been through the routine many times, predicted he was going to brag on me a little bit and ask me to say some things and why not, show them what I know in Spanish. It was pretty normal and was the way I was brought up. Take note of the words "routine" and "normal."

So I get up and follow my father through several passenger cars as they swayed left and right while the train was rounding a bend. We reach a dining car and approach a couple. An older looking man who appeared to be in his fifties if not sixties, and a young woman who was likely to be in her early thirties. They were both gringos us and were also headed to Chihuahua like typical American tourist who rode the train. I smile and greet them.

"I'm Jeffrey and it is a pleasure to meet you."

The older looking man shakes my hand and replies with an intensely profound articulation:
"Nice to meet you, Jeffrey. I am *garble* and this is *garble*."

As he said this pointing to the woman next to him, I reached out to shake her hand and smiled.

"mag nahem his juhnahva, night met shoe."

Before I could ask them to repeat, my father intervened with the explanation that this woman, Geneva, was deaf and wore a hearing aid like me. I was initially surprised and had no idea what to expect when my dad wanted to introduce me to these people. So there I was, just 15 years old, meeting another deaf person. An interesting surprise.

I didn't use ASL and neither did she.
I couldn't hear or lipread her.
She couldn't hear or lipread me.
So what was the solution?

Well, I had to tell the older man what I said and he had to tell her. She had to tell him and he had to tell Dad and Dad had to tell me. I couldn't really understand the man's words because he said them with such an exaggeration that whatever he could be saying was actually foreign to me whereas she, on the other hand, could actually understand him. We couldn't connect even though we were both afflicted with the same problem. We were both dependent on the hearing people we were able to communicate with in order to communicate with each other. Never mind the fact that we were both visually attentive of each other even though we stood like statues.

I remember standing there on the train with Geneva staring out the window while I'm staring at the whole situation. My Father and the older man kept talking. They weren't talking about the trip. They weren't talking about the scenery. They weren't talking about Mexico. They were talking about us. There I am,..standing there with my mouth shot to the floor. The other deaf person is ignoring the situation by pretending to watch the passing landscape. I look at my father. I look at the older man. There talking about the very two people who are both deaf and wear hearing aids. They're talking about speech. They're talking about all that hearing perspective bullshit when these two subjected souls are left hanging with a reality that it is a hearing world and I'm a piece of shit because, dammit, I was born deaf.

What if we could communicate?
What if we could exchange thoughts and questions?
What would I have asked her?

"How do you like Mexico?"
"Do you know Spanish?"
"Where are you from?"
"Can you understand what they are talking about?"
"What do you do when that happens?"
"Why do you ignore it?"
"Why do you pretend?"
"Who said its not a good idea to make them upset?"
"Is that why you suppress your emotions?"

That is not happy and nor is it healthy but it is what happens a lot of times. Many would rather not upset others. They'd rather sit down and let the world of the hearing roll like it is "supposed" to be than to break the hearts of those who refuse to accept us the way we are. Yea, let's just keep supporting the lie.

She looks out the window and pretends to fall asleep. Father and the old man are still talking while I slowly crawl back to my passenger car, find my seat, and soak in that sinking feeling that I'm a dog who's master was done. The tricks have been shown and the treat given, which was meeting another dog. I thought about it all the whole way down here to Terlingua and I hope and pray that Geneva is happy today wherever she may be. Maybe she got a better hearing aid and went to a better speech therapist. Maybe she got a cochlear implant and that helped her speech and hearing in many ways. Maybe she swallowed a pill and became hearing!

Halleluia!
Maybe she did.

That, however, will never erase the memory of the fact that we both felt pretty shitty during and after that encounter on the Copper Canyon train nor will it change the fact that she may never learn to communicate with another deaf person who uses American Sign Language because she was drilled, both literally and figuratively, to subscribe to the idea that it is better to hear and speak than it is to use an effective American Sign Language with all people, both hearing and Deaf.

Just a story for me friends,..
Back in Terlingua and it feels good!

la paz,
Jeffrey