In ASL class today it was our first day of being required to tell our stories in sign. Pressure was on, I'm gonna tell you what. I did okay, held my own, at least until I told the story of my 10 year old black and white dog named Boudreaux - even my teacher was impressed, not with my finger spelling but with the Cajun name my dog carries around. My hand hurt after telling that story.
Then I got home and a guy came by and I spent the late afternoon making mezuzahs. It seemed like the right thing to do.
4 comments:
You could have signed the song Iko-Iko. That would have a been a trip.
The phrase "Jock-a-mo fee-no ai na-n" would be a bit of a problem. Twice rapidly.
To get through the difficult phrase, you grab the wrist of your spelling hand and hold it solidly in place in front of your chest, and spell the the shit out of that phrase. Like a Selectric typewriter.
If you practice it , practice, practice, practice, practice, practice, compulsively throughout the day like a maniac, then it flows like water without even thinking. You'll have trained your hand to do your thinking for you. You no longer think in terms of individual letters, rather think in syllables and your trusty hand faithfully performs for you. Without you thinking about forming them.
As a teenager over a winter I spelled my own thoughts concealed in my coat pockets as I walked along. Both hands at the same time.
Then I encountered the phrase "Someone won some money" and the way my thumb bounced around the other fingertips to form those specific similar letters formed a pattern that made me go, "Holy shit, so that's how ALL the letters should be."
Of course, the object was to learn as many words as possible to eliminate the fingerspelling as much as possible.
Then you notice so many times the letters are used to form specific words.
You end up not spelling much at all and use only words and avoid spelling. It's like, "Oh man, I have to spell. I lose this time. Can't think of a good word that works."
Then you notice the words are used to help form a pantomime that shows your story.
And you use less and less actual words, and more and more variations and personalizations of words, more acting out a scene based on systems of words, with words as armature for your structure, used to buttress and to clarify the actions, and fingerspelling to be highly scientifically literally specific. You learn to paint a picture using signs and facial expressions.
That's why Bell's Palsy is such a bitch.
Arthritic hands, too.
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To make the house a home put a mezuzah on the door;
To make the home furnished there's Boudreaux on the floor.
Thank you, ricpic, your poetry, as always, captures the moment.
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