My Life with Kangaroos: A Deaf Woman's Remarkable Story

1. Kangaroos as Yet Undiscovered

1 1 Kangaroos as Yet Undiscovered A THIN skein of cloud has spread over the delicately blue sky illuminating the red-tiled roofs of our Swiss town on the Rhine River. I am nearly three years old. Getting out of bed, dressed in a shirt and pants, I stand at the half-open balcony door, where a waft of cool air brushes past me. I sense the coming of a beautiful, warm sunny day. Then I run off to the bathroom, where I bend and stretch and twist, reveling in the joy of being alive. In so doing, I feel my body and look at myself and run my hand through my curly hair. Suddenly Mummy is there in front of me. She smiles at me lovingly and strokes my head. Astonished and a little taken aback at her total nakedness, I become aware of my own flat chest with its two tiny pink points—I’ve discovered myself! These are the first, consciously recorded pictures in my memory. Apart from these there are others that are witness to many long walks through the hilly countryside with my mother or with the governess until my little legs were so tired that I had to be placed in the baby carriage. My first intense impressions of color, form, and aroma were such that one night they made me dream how and from where I had “suddenly” appeared in this existence. Weightlessly and devoid of a body, I hovered in the air above wonderfully green woods and fields in the warmth of the sun under a blue heaven and was nothing more than pure, receptive feeling. 9781563685590_My Life with Kangaroos.indd 1 4/8/13 11:04 AM 2 MY LIFE WITH KANGAROOS AS OFTEN as I could as a child, I watched the interplay of change and variety in the sky. What impressed me greatly was the infinite kaleidoscope of color variation. These impressions were so strong that I dreamed from time to time that the clouds changed their colors to pinkish-red, orange or yellow-brown. On one occasion when I was out on a walk with Auntie,1 we were surprised by a storm. Bewildered, I looked at Auntie’s face, pointing first at the clouds and then at her black dress because at that time I could make neither sounds nor words. On later excursions, after I was able to form short sentences, I absorbed the mountains, the sky, and the clouds and was made happy by the alpine flowers. Up in the hills I would say, “Sky moves. Clouds move. Sun moves.” If the mountains were shrouded in mist, I would say, “The mountain has gone.” On one of these walks I witnessed my first sunset. Just to watch the fiery red sun sink behind the horizon was a profound experience for me. “The sun has fallen into a hole!” I cried in great excitement. 1. Auntie was my teacher and nanny. Auntie Rosa Hunziker, Peter (on her shoulder), and me. Auntie loved to take Peter and me for walks outside. 9781563685590_My Life with Kangaroos.indd 2 4/8/13 11:04 AM Kangaroos as Yet Undiscovered 3 All That Shoots Forth, Ripens and Blooms I SUPPOSE it must have been during one of those childhood walks that I first immersed myself so deeply into the microcosm of nature that I quite forgot myself. It was hot at the time, and the poppies bloomed a deep, bewitching red along the paths and edges of cultivated land, but even in the fields, standing there among the yellow corn, their brilliant signal could be spotted at many places. In order to initiate me a little into the secrets of nature, my mother opened one of the large, green buds to show me the still tightly folded petals inside—a sight that transported me with delight. From then on I discovered the as yet unrevealed inner life of these buds. I looked at them all, large and small, and as I did so, the same brilliant redness met me. The repetition was a kind of meditative ritual , if one can use such a term to apply to a child, but the fact was that it worked in a way to gradually change my consciousness. Something withinmeopenedmyeyestotheworldinminiaturetoseemoreexactly and receive what I saw in a spirit of devotion. In this way, I learned the stages of growth and development of...