Neither-Nor: A Young Australian’s Experience with Deafness

21. Whatever Happens

21 Whatever Happens Dad drove me from Bendigo to Melbourne’s Tullamarine airport on the morning of the January 9, 1998. I was feeling the effects of the two bottles of red we shared the night before while looking at the hundreds of slides Mum and Dad took on their 1967 trip to the United States. Many of these featured Mum posing in her suede leather jackets, tartan skirts, and dark glasses in front of landmarks like the Golden Gate Bridge and the Rockies. I could see why several people had likened Mum to Audrey Hepburn. Their taste in clothes and textures was similar. I also understood why my dress sense had always been so different from Dad’s. I had Mum’s “eye” and her intuition. The sun was rising in the east, and it was impossible to ignore the feeling of déjà vu when crossing the Great Dividing Range. Five years ago, I had taken the same route to start a life in Melbourne but today, I was going to the other side of the world. Dad appeared apprehensive when we walked into the transit lounge of the airport. He respected my wish to work in a Deaf school, but he also feared I may totally commit myself to the Deaf world. All the years of hard work he’d put into giving his son the best opportunity to integrate into the hearing world, his world, could become undone and wasted. Would I forfeit my chances of being “normal”? “Whatever happens,” he said, “I know you are better prepared to deal with this experience than when you first left home.” I nodded, “It’s something I have to do.” “Just remember that if you don’t like it, you can always come back. You’re not signing your life away.” The thought of not being established in some professional manner, of having spent all my money on simply existing in another country, and re146 turning to restart my life in Australia began to frighten me. It was England or bust. ❖ After seeing the “boot” of Italy as clear as a three-dimensional map during the descent from the air to Rome, I met most of the people I would be touring with over the next three weeks at Leonardo da Vinci airport. I got the vibe that we would be acquaintances merely. They were an assortment of middle-aged couples and three women my age who were standoffish. At mid-afternoon, we arrived at our hotel, which was a three-minute walk from the white-marbled Trevi fountain. The streets swarmed with human life. Jean-Luc, the tour guide, explained this was a centuries-old local custom of the passiagata, where Romans walked through the streets socializing and shopping at twilight. The different sounds didn’t bewilder me. I had the advantage of being immersed in what the poet William Wordsworth called “eye music.” It was amazing to see evidence of more than 2,000 years of civilization—ancient stone carvings coarse from centuries of wind, rain, and recently the black acid of pollution. Ironwork and bronze sculptures were awash with turquoise oxidation. There were smooth and meandering paths, worn down with the tread of hours upon days, months upon years of human feet. Cats were everywhere. There was a chill in the air reminding me of cool mornings waiting for the school bus at home. Rome appeared theatrical and wonderfully choreographed. Foot police wore the most elegant clothing, belying the seriousness of their profession. The wail of sirens often preceded the cars and motorbikes of the carabinieri racing through the narrow streets like in scenes from action movies of the 1960s. Even more incredible was the thought that just 150 years ago, native Australians roamed my homeland, while the pillaging White race— my forebears—were well on the way to colonizing the land. As we had a guide, it wasn’t necessary for members of our tour group to understand or speak Italian, but many did attempt to communicate with the locals. Such attempts usually consisted of physical gestures that weren’t understood, eventually forcing them to acknowledge the futility of their efforts. Some in our group appeared threatened by this. They were accustomed to using their hearing to orientate themselves. They w h at e v e r h a p p e n s 147 were experiencing deafness of a kind. Watching...