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1. Hands
- Gallaudet University Press
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Pleasant words are as a honeycomb, Sweet to the soul, and health to the bones. —Proverbs : 1 Hands Ilooked for my mother at the window. She waited for me to appear every afternoon on my return from school. I was five years old and warned not to cross the cobblestoned street until she waved me on in sign language. I raised my hand to the second story of our brownstone building to see her smile me home. She put her head out the window, looked both ways, and when she was certain that the South Eighth Street trolley car was nowhere in sight, she signed sharply in the language of the deaf, “Come now!” I raced across the street secretly pleased that she did not scream as the other mothers did from Brooklyn windows. Her language was silent and did not shame me. Men were standing in front of our building in small groups, hands in their pockets, with nowhere to go, mothers with young husbands and babies, all waiting. I didn’t understand that they were waiting for the Depression to end, that they had their own shame. I wanted to be invisible that afternoon. My Beginnings When I went inside, I stopped at my grandparents’ apartment, wanting to talk to one of my father’s young sisters, wanting to keep the sound of speech with me a little longer. My Aunt Sylvia came to the door. “Hi, Ruthie, hurry upstairs, your mother is waiting for you, you don’t want her to worry, do you?” I was afraid of the dark wooden staircase but that wasn’t why I lingered before climbing it. Once I entered our apartment, the door closed on the hearing world. My voice became the voice of my hands and I became a deaf little girl with ears that could hear. I walked up the brown narrow flight of steps slowly, into the rooms we called home. The hallway was long and narrow, windowless . One naked ceiling bulb gave it light. I rushed past the bathroom, down the corridor, past the square skylit kitchen, into the light of the front room facing the street with two large windows , and into my mother’s presence. “Hello Momma,” I mouthed. She read my lips. She hugged me with her thick warm arms, smelling like Momma, sweet with the scent of Oxydol soap. “I finished washing diapers. We go out soon. Fresh air good. I get baby Freddie.” “I have to pee, Momma.” “Hurry up, I need go shopping. You talk at meat store for me. Please tell butcher not cheat me, like last time. Too much fat.” I cringed at the unwanted burden of speech. “All right,” I signed, “I’ll be quick.” I didn’t say what I felt. I couldn’t name the feeling. Instead I smiled and walked with my mother to the door. She settled my two-year-old brother into the faded blue wicker carriage, took my hand and said in her shrill voice,“Hold carriage here, we push together.” Her strength bumped the carriage down the steps one at a time until we reached the street. [54.144.95.36] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 21:33 GMT) I loved our side of the street. The old brownstones nestled together . Mothers were out with their children. The older girls marked the street with chalk preparing the afternoon potsy game. It was years before I knew the game was a Brooklyn version of hopscotch. The boys knelt at the curbside playing with their prized marbles and called them “immies” and worried about their patched pants. Families lived their afternoon lives on the street. It was playtime. And South Eighth Street was a vast playground. We walked down the street. My mother never stopped to speak to a neighbor; she moved regally, nodding her head, glancing at the familiar faces. She was dressed, coiffed, immaculate and beautiful . I was clean, but not beautiful. My tiny horn-rimmed glasses covered my crossed eyes. My mouth was closed to hide the missing front teeth I’d lost in an acrobatic somersault. My father tossed me in the air one night in play and I landed teeth-first on our brown enamel kitchen table. I heard a neighbor say, “Hello, Mary, how are the children?” I tugged at my mother’s skirt. “Mrs. Eisen says to tell you hello.” “Without breaking her stride, she lifted one hand from the carriage and said,“Tell her...