---JOMany things are changing. While I was crafting my letter of confession, I learned that my parents were taking their first class in sign language. After thirty-three years as a deaf person, there is still plenty of room for memorable firsts. Seated in a busy restaurant with Mom, Fred, and the Woodhouses, I had the indescribable experience of sharing a private joke-in sign language -with my father. Too many other things stay the same. The deaf and hard of hearing people who share their lives with me at the Resource Center still don't have enough services, and I still don't have enough time. I don't know if I'll ever be able to accept that there's only so much that can be crammed into twenty-four hours each day. Patience was never one of my virtues. I like the epitaph Robert Frost chose: "I would have written of me on my stone: I had a lover's quarrel with the world./I I plan to be cremated , so I invest in people as a permanent epitaph. Their dreams are mine. While writing this book, I was surprised to find out that I am not a bad person. I always felt that I somehow lacked key ingredients and therefore suffered from gaping character flaws. During the past two years I've taken personality tests that 191 Seeds of Disquiet seemed to confirm it. The results used all these words that sounded negative, but true-suspicious, restless, stubborn, questioning authority, causing action, good at managing trouble . Fortunately, I'm still going to the cabin for weekends, and during my stretches of quiet reflection I've figured out that without these traits I never would have done anything positive. What a relief it was to find out I could stop carrying the baggage of being born bad! It's amazing how easily a kid's head can get messed up without anybody realizing it. The disparaging remarks I heard at a very young age, made by people who compared me to my sister, had always stayed with me, my personal albatross. They got heavy reinforcement after I became deaf and everyone who failed to communicate with me walked away with facial expressions I read as disgust. How was I supposed to know that they weren't always disgusted with me? Later I compounded the mistake by continuing to compare myself with other people and always coming up short. I could never find peace with myself. I'm beginning to find it now. One of my sign language students, Lessa Schwenk, gave me a copy of the Rutgers Creed. At this point in my life I feel it is an utterly perfect set of rules to live by, and it is a fitting closing for my book. 192 [3.230.76.153] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 15:05 GMT) The Rutgers Creed I make this pledge which I shall keep at every age in every circumstance despite anger in the face offear to my sisters and brothers whether they resemble me or not please me or not love me or not I will, in every act of life cherish human rights seek reconciliation and give love. Seeds of Disquiet 193 ...