A Struggle to Communicate

Imagine that you cannot speak.

 

You cannot control your arms to sign in order to communicate that way.

 

You can listen and learn and you understand what is going on aound you, but you cannot respond. You cannot react. You cannot join in.

Imagine that you want to express yourself, and though you cannot, there is a way. A device that could help you, but it is denied to you. It is too costly.

Now stop imagining, because this is true. This is the reality for 12-year-old Celyn. She cannot speak, she cannot sign. There is a device that would give her a whole new lease of life, that would make an enormous difference to her quality of life. But these things don’t just drop out of the sky: they need to be paid for. Put yourself in those shoes again, and ask yourself if any 12-year-old should have to go through life unable to communicate.

 

Fortunately, there is a way to help: here is Celyn’s fundraising page.

Discoveries

I’ve been a bit adrift following a blizzard of activity to meet a deadline. So I decided to do a bit of electronic decluttering and reorganising. My files aren’t very organised to start with, and I’ve got bits and pieces of writing, journals, notes, fragments, everywhere. So I’ve been opening documents and seeing what’s inside. And I found this, a list of words at the start of a summary about some collaborative reflective writing about mirrors (pun intended). I have no idea why I wrote this list or what I was thinking when I picked out those words and placed them in this order, but I love the poetry, and I love the way you can insert your own punctuation to create different meanings depending on how you group the words. Here they are:

Think
Write
Time
Light
Mirror
Like
Really
Dark
Thing
Metaphor
Just
Space

My first poem with them, just playing, is:

Think, write.
Time, light.
Mirror, like really dark thing.
Metaphor.
Just…
Space.

And what if I put them in alphabetical order and then group them anew?

Dark
Just
Light
Like
Metaphor
Mirror
Really
Space
Thing
Think
Time
Write

Dark:
Just light,
like metaphor.
Mirror, really, space thing.
Think time.
Write.

I think I prefer the first one.