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One...
a willow tree sways in the wind.
Two...
water splashes over smooth rocks in the stream.
Three...
a wren bird sings out from somewhere high above.
I wake up in silence every day.
I live somewhere between sound and silence.
It's a lucky thing I suppose,
to be able to choose which world I want to be in.
When the doctor put in my hearing aids for the first time,
I cried a lot.
They felt strange, and none of my friends had them.
But when we stepped outside the office,
a world of sound hit me.
I heard the birds for the first time,
and the wind,
and the cars driving by.
As we walked around, I asked what the strange tapping sound was.
My mom told me it was my own shoes hitting the pavement.
At that point, we realized just how many sounds I had been missing out on.
1986,
it's a warm October night and my dad leaves his hotel in Girardot, Columbia.
He joins his friend at a restaurant, where he sees my mom for the first time.
You know, that will love at first sight thing.
She only speaks Spanish,
so their friends do all the translating.
They hang out as much as they can for the next few days
and by the end of the week, he proposes to her.
She says no, convinced that he's crazy.
He goes back for her seven times,
and two years later, they get married in Miami.
Another two years later, I was born.
My dad was so thrilled.
He brought me home in a limo.
When I was three, my dad bought a farm in Oklahoma,
and he built a home for us there
I don't think they realize this,
but my parents were both really good at teaching me about life.
Our farm became a classroom.
I learned how to fish
and watched my dad make meals from what we caught.
We went camping and trail riding in the mountains.
My dad showed me every new calf that was born,
and I remember watching a cow give birth to a beautiful baby,
as the Sun was setting and the moon was rising.
We named him Moonlight.
My mom taught me about the arts and culture.
She took me to museums, and the theater, and concerts.
I learned to play piano...
...to ice skate
...to paint
We went to Columbia often, and I learned about my heritage.
We used to sit outside at night and look up at the stars.
She would point out one of the brightest ones
and tell me that was my abuelo,
looking down on me and watching over me.
My dad's creativity and my mom's love for the arts
sparked a love for creating in me.
Because of who they are, I was born an artist.
In the 90's,
hearing tests weren't done on newborns.
My parents noticed I didn't hear them sometimes,
but thought that maybe I was just too distracted in my play.
Around 12 years old,
my eye doctor noticed something different about my retinas.
I was then to a specialist
and got diagnosed with a genetic disorder
Usher syndrome.
The doctor told me that there was no way of knowing,
but that I should be prepared
to lose my sight and most of my hearing.
I was so young.
I didn't fully understand what that meant for my future.
My parents hid their devastation very well.
I didn't know this until I was older,
but after I was diagnosed,
my dad sobbed behind my back for days.
We flew to Columbia,
and my mom quietly hoped that the plane would crash
and that we would all die.
She thought that I would have an incredibly hard life,
and the future seemed unbearable.
As I got older,
fear started to creep in.
I tried to imagine a world without sound
or light
and wondered how I would be happy.
It was a heartbreaking feeling.
Some nights I would stare at a picture of my mom's face,
trying to commit every detail to memory.
When my friends and I would go camping,
I would look at the sky
and ask if there were any stars out...
Hundreds- they would say.
I usually couldn't see a single one,
and I felt as if I lost my only
connection to the grandfather that I never met.
Eventually, the practical side of me
began to tell me
art wouldn't be an option down the road.
I suddenly felt the weight
of everything stacked against me,
and the future, which had once seemed so bright,
now scared me.
And then I heard about pottery classes at a local art studio
and started going once a week.
Ceramics was so discouraging at first
because no one starts out good.
No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't hide the
imperfections of my pieces.
I wanted to create something that was
clean
polished
unbroken.
Perhaps this was what I had wanted in my own life.
When my instructor looked at my first batch of cups,
he picked up the worst-looking one.
As he held it up and pointed out the
curve left behind by my inexperienced hand,
he went on to describe its beauty.
He told me about Wabi-Sabi,
a Japanese concept which embraces the beauty of the imperfect
simply because it's unique.
There would never be a cup exactly like it,
and that was the moment I fell in love with ceramics.
I was just like that cup.
For the longest time,
I had believed that one day not being able to see or
hear the beauty of the world
meant that it would no longer exist.
This isn't true.
There have been times in life
when I thought the people around me were
deaf and blind to the important things in life.
The most beautiful things in the world can't be seen or heard,
they are felt with our souls.
My mom told me recently she knew there was a reason that she and my dad met.
Two very different people,
worlds apart,
who happened to carry the same recessive gene,
were brought together to bring me to life.
There is a reason I have this life.
This disease has given me a healthy sense of urgency in life,
an urgency to look closely,
and to hear others,
and to breathe,
and to absorb as much as I possibly can.
I love the sound of our cows running towards my dad,
mooing in anticipation of dinner.
I love the musical Spanish that fills the room
when my mom is reunited with her sisters.
I love the sound of rain coming down outside,
and I love the sound of my wheel spinning
as I sit down to make something new.
I wake up in silence everyday.
I live somewhere between sound
and silence.