Learning to Sign

I have decided that I LOVE sign language.

I am right now, learning sign language and I am having a ball. Well, except on test days, when I get myself worked up into an overanxious frenzy.

Other than that, I am learning how to communicate in a new and different way and I am challenging my brain to rewire itself. At times, it's painful. And a bit frustrating.

I feel like I'm standing on the ocean's edge, my toes in the surf, and I can see how very large the ocean is and how deep and how much MORE there is to it.

That's how I feel with learning to sign. I can get by pretty good now. But there is so much MORE to learn. New signs. Faster signing. And it would be really nice if my comprehension of finger spelling was just a tad bit faster.

But for the most part, it's going well.

My teacher is grand. She is a wonderful lady who makes it engaging and fun to learn. She tells us stories. "True stories" she calls them and we watch her sign.

She is one of those rare deaf people who speak as well as sign. So she speaks to us...but now, as we are progressing in class, she's talking less and less. And I sit, intensely concentrating on her hands, her face, reading her face and body language.

That's what sign is, you know. It's difficult to lie in sign. Your body gives you away anyway, and with sign language, you MUST use your body. Your face, your hands, your shoulders, your upper waist to create this...this...field in which you show your feelings, your thoughts, your beliefs.

She tells us of how hard it is to be deaf. How hard it is to be a deaf person who can also speak. She's caught between two worlds. Sometimes, it's good. And sometimes, it's frustrating, it's heartbreaking, it's enough to make you want to throw up your hands and go, "Enough! I'm tired of this shit! Enough!"

As someone who has never "fit in" to the dictates of society, I understand how she feels. As someone who grew up as a minority in a town of white folk, it's a double understanding.

I think we all speak our own language at times. I think it takes effort to want to learn someone else's language and not feel as though they must learn our own. Sometimes, we speak the same way. We all want Love and acceptance. We all want to feel safe and treasured. That doesn't matter if you live in the slums of India or the slums of Detroit. It doesn't matter if you have all the money in the world or if you struggle each day, living hand to mouth.

Pare us down to our elements, take away the pettiness and the distractions and all of us are the same, really.

It saddens me to see people forget this. It saddens me to see people divide themselves by colour or creed or moral belief. It horrifies me to see them act out on it. War. Genocide. Hate crimes. Abuse. Intolerance.

I wonder, sometimes, what would happen, if we took away all the voices. If we took away all but one way to communicate, and that by signing to one another. You can sign Hate. But you can also sign Love.

So I continue in my studies. It is my goal, someday, to be fluent in sign language. Someday, I'm going to use my knowledge of sign language to open doors, to stop abuse, to offer hope and help.

I can sign to you, "I like you." I can sign to you, "I Love you." I can sign to you, "You are beautiful."

Do you want to learn? I can show you. It starts like that. Words linked together that make people smile, that make them feel good, that make them...change.


I'm standing at the edge of the ocean, this is true, but I'm wading in deeper. I know the dangers. But I think it's worth the risk.


K.