Mathru School for the Differently-Abled
Saturday 1/18/14
This is the speech I wrote for the harvest festival celebration earlier today:
We have a harvest holiday in America called Thanksgiving. But I think your harvest festival is a lot more fun. I also think your food is way better than McDonald's hamburgers, and I love your clothes. I hope you like my new sari.
Ms. Muktha has asked me to tell you about myself and my mosaics. I was born deaf, but my deafness was not diagnosed until I was almost five years old. Before they figured out I was deaf, doctors told my parents that I was mentally retarded. My parents didn't believe I was retarded, and got me hearing aids instead.
With the hearing aids I could hear, and learned to talk. I went to regular public schools, graduated from high school with good grades, and went to college. When I was in college, I had a routine eye exam for reading glasses, and found out that I was going blind from a disease called retinitis pigmentosa, or RP for short. The combination of RP with deafness that I have is called Usher Syndrome.
After I graduated from college, I worked as a newspaper reporter, a legislative aide for the US Congress in Washington, DC, and also for the California State Legislature in Sacramento, California. I also worked for a large water management agency, and had my own consulting business in agriculture, water and environmental issues. I went to law school, graduated with honors, and passed the California State Bar exam on my first try. I practiced water and environmental law, and some disability law.
Seventeen years ago, when I was practicing law, I discovered I had a brain tumor. The surgery to remove it also removed the hearing nerve to my right ear, damaged my facial nerve on the right side of my face, and damaged my salivary glands and tear glands, so that I now have a severe dry eye problem, which is why you see me putting drops in my eyes all the time. The brain tumor made my hearing and vision problems a lot worse, and I had to stop practicing law.
Now I have s lot more fun practicing mosaic art instead. I am a lot blinder now, but I can hear better because of my cochlear implant. Even though my life is very difficult in many ways, I am happy. I don't think I'd be any happier if I still had good vision and I was still practicing law.
Before I tell you about my mosaics, I need to tell you about the bees. For three nights in a row, my room was invaded by a bee. I didn't think much of it the first time i happened, but by the third night, I had to find out what is so special about bees.
I found that bees symbolize a lot of things, including love, fertility and productivity, royalty, and the sun. But most significantly, bees are known for being aerodynamically impossible. Their bodies are too big for their wings. They fly anyway because they beat their wings harder and faster.
In other words, by working harder and beating their wings faster, they achieve the impossible and they fly.
And this is what Mathru is all about. India has a long impossible way to go before it is a good place for disabled people, but by working harder today, Mathru and its supporters are already making life better for disabled children in India. More important, Mathru is teaching its disabled students to work harder and smarter, so they can learn to make better lives for themselves.
Which brings me back to mosaics. A mosaic is a magic single piece made up of many little pieces, just as life is made of many days and experiences. The mosaic process is magic, too. The materials are hard, and the pieces have to be broken in order to be put together.
I love teaching my mosaic technique to students with disabilities like me, because we know what it is to be broken. Our LIfe challenge is to pull ourselves together and be whole, to make good lives for ourselves anyway. It's a special joy to watch someone make their first mosaic, and realize that if they can do that mosaic, they can do just about anything they're willing to work on.
Thank you for listening to my story, and for letting me be a part of your story.
Saturday 1/18/14
This is the speech I wrote for the harvest festival celebration earlier today:
We have a harvest holiday in America called Thanksgiving. But I think your harvest festival is a lot more fun. I also think your food is way better than McDonald's hamburgers, and I love your clothes. I hope you like my new sari.
Ms. Muktha has asked me to tell you about myself and my mosaics. I was born deaf, but my deafness was not diagnosed until I was almost five years old. Before they figured out I was deaf, doctors told my parents that I was mentally retarded. My parents didn't believe I was retarded, and got me hearing aids instead.
With the hearing aids I could hear, and learned to talk. I went to regular public schools, graduated from high school with good grades, and went to college. When I was in college, I had a routine eye exam for reading glasses, and found out that I was going blind from a disease called retinitis pigmentosa, or RP for short. The combination of RP with deafness that I have is called Usher Syndrome.
After I graduated from college, I worked as a newspaper reporter, a legislative aide for the US Congress in Washington, DC, and also for the California State Legislature in Sacramento, California. I also worked for a large water management agency, and had my own consulting business in agriculture, water and environmental issues. I went to law school, graduated with honors, and passed the California State Bar exam on my first try. I practiced water and environmental law, and some disability law.
Seventeen years ago, when I was practicing law, I discovered I had a brain tumor. The surgery to remove it also removed the hearing nerve to my right ear, damaged my facial nerve on the right side of my face, and damaged my salivary glands and tear glands, so that I now have a severe dry eye problem, which is why you see me putting drops in my eyes all the time. The brain tumor made my hearing and vision problems a lot worse, and I had to stop practicing law.
Now I have s lot more fun practicing mosaic art instead. I am a lot blinder now, but I can hear better because of my cochlear implant. Even though my life is very difficult in many ways, I am happy. I don't think I'd be any happier if I still had good vision and I was still practicing law.
Before I tell you about my mosaics, I need to tell you about the bees. For three nights in a row, my room was invaded by a bee. I didn't think much of it the first time i happened, but by the third night, I had to find out what is so special about bees.
I found that bees symbolize a lot of things, including love, fertility and productivity, royalty, and the sun. But most significantly, bees are known for being aerodynamically impossible. Their bodies are too big for their wings. They fly anyway because they beat their wings harder and faster.
In other words, by working harder and beating their wings faster, they achieve the impossible and they fly.
And this is what Mathru is all about. India has a long impossible way to go before it is a good place for disabled people, but by working harder today, Mathru and its supporters are already making life better for disabled children in India. More important, Mathru is teaching its disabled students to work harder and smarter, so they can learn to make better lives for themselves.
Which brings me back to mosaics. A mosaic is a magic single piece made up of many little pieces, just as life is made of many days and experiences. The mosaic process is magic, too. The materials are hard, and the pieces have to be broken in order to be put together.
I love teaching my mosaic technique to students with disabilities like me, because we know what it is to be broken. Our LIfe challenge is to pull ourselves together and be whole, to make good lives for ourselves anyway. It's a special joy to watch someone make their first mosaic, and realize that if they can do that mosaic, they can do just about anything they're willing to work on.
Thank you for listening to my story, and for letting me be a part of your story.
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