Deaf Ears Ring

Prologue

Have you ever decided to listen to a song differently than you normally do? You decide to pay a little more attention to the bass or drums than you normally do, and the next time you hear that song, you never hear it the same way again. I guess that's sort of the metaphorical way that you could describe my situation...

Let me start over. Picture this:

You're an artist. You're...a painter, we'll say that. You're a painter. Your life revolves around color. Color is a part of you. In a way, it's almost all you know. Sure, you have other hobbies and interests, but painting is your passion.

You love to use bright, vibrant colors in your art. You can paint anything from portraits to landscapes to abstracts. Over half of your life is consumed by your art because it's the thing you love more than anything else in the world.

You almost can't remember a time when you weren't painting. Art is your life. Art is your passion. You are art and art is you. To paraphrase some of our lyrics, 'you live it, you breathe it, you crave it'. It's your everything.

Then, you meet this...person.

And suddenly, everything changes.

You and this person hang out quite a bit and get to know each other. You tell then you're a painter and new friend only sort of understands what that means. It's just hard for them because this new friend of yours is blind. They've been blind.

It's not like you can show them your paintings, because your friend can't see them! You can't really describe your paintings to them either. You have a painting of a flower? That's cool, but your friend doesn't know what flowers look like. You painted a portrait of a person? Great. But your new friend here doesn't have an understanding of what human faces look like. You have an abstract painting of just a bunch of rainbow splatters? Awesome. But your friend has no concept of the word 'rainbow' or even color for that matter. They don't even know what a "splatter"is! They literally have zero understanding of the very thing that makes up your entire life.

Your paintings are going to be displayed in an art show. It's a big accomplishment for you and you're pretty pumped about it. You and this blind friend of yours have grown pretty close over the time that you've known each other, and you don't want them to feel like you don't want them feel like you don't want them to be part of such a big part of your life just because of their disability.

So, you invite them to the art show.

They agree to come, hesitant, but appreciative that you invited them. They care about you and want to support you.

So the night of the show comes. You're very proud of yourself and happy that your friend came. Nevertheless, you hear a lot of whispers from other people that are there. "Who would invite a blind person to an art show?" "A blind person at an art show? That's ridiculous!"

You find yourself feeling self-conscious and a little foolish. In attempt to protect yourself and your friend, you tell everyone that you and this friend aren't really all that close with each other. This, for obvious reasons, hurts your friend very much and the two of you get into a bit of a fight. It gets resolved and you eventually get your friend to understand, but the whole thing was still very dramatic.

They more time you spend with this friend of yours, the closer you get with them. However, the more successful your paintings get, the more focused you are on them. You're quite literally having to live a double life here because your friend who you love can't understand your paintings, but you have to keep painting because it's your passion and your job. And painting is all you know.