Disinterest

RantWoman's spiritual compost heap feels VERY well aerated after this weekends gathering for Pacific Northwest Quarterly Meeting. This is not because RantWoman's proposed interest group was received to grand acclaim.
http://rantwomanrsof.blogspot.com/2011/09/interest.html

It was not even because RantWoman's interest group took place.

That's right. NO ONE signed up.

Okay, okay. RantWoman is not automatically distressed. For one thing, RantWoman would NOT necessarily mind in the least not needing to talk about much on her mind.


RantWoman was having Star Treklike distortions in the space time continuum as reflected in the clock on RantWoman's cellphone so RantWoman did not linger very long to wait for anyone to show up without signing up. One Friend made excuses about childcare but RantWoman would not have been ready to interact with children anyway. RantWoman was very glad to get to go to an interest group with John Helding about more of the weekend's theme.

But back to disinterest. RantWoman had no way of knowing about disinterest in advance so RantWoman prepared by UNapologetically inflicting more email on a large number of people who already find RantWoman the embodiment of email immoderation. Who says RantWoman knows when to quit? Here are RantWoman's inquiry and the results:



Subject: What do you want to know / would you come to an interest group about....
Hi Friends

This email is a request for input The bottom of this message is a description of an interest group I will lead at Quarterly Meeting, that is unless I find a way to get from Lazy F where I need to be on Friday night to Yakima for an interpreter training (on handling trauma issues, oddly enough) on Saturday 9/24. Chances are I will make the interest group and this is a request for input.

Awhile ago my clearness committee suggested I talk to children in our Meeting about life with vision loss. For a few different reasons I am clear that it would be better to start by talking to adults.

What would you most like to know about my experience?

What do you find bewildering about interacting with me?

What worries or observations do you have?

Is there someone else you wish I would ask

I DO NOT apologize for email. For one thing, you writing me back helps me keep track of things in a format I can search MUCH better than my notes in my ever scarier handwriting. I am happy to receive phone calls as well but another reason I like to start with email is that I am frequently awake later than many Friends and need to make effective use of my own time.

Also I am having to tell different people the same things over and over, including arguing various variations of "that could not possibly be a problem because we are so sincere, already spent so much time doing it wrong, think we understand based on..."

Some of the time this repetition is just exhausting. Some of the time I come away feeling drained the same way I feel drained when I have had to interpret for, say, a series of appointments with a trauma survivor and an attorney, the trauma survivor getting restimulate having to relive the story once to tell it, once when the attorney has mashed my interpretation into the kinds of sentences that legal entities understand or need to hear and I have to sight translate to check for corrections, and then the survivor has to repeat the story AGAIN in front of third parties of varying levels of awareness, hostility, eptitude / ineptness, responsiveness... Only now it's my story....

So I would like to get to clear messages much more widely understood and to get there as directly as possible.

Anyway, I mean it about wanting to hear Friends questions. I do not particularly promise to get to all of them in one interest group but I am happy to hold and work with them. Depending on interest, I am happy to consider doing a session at UFM either before or after the Interest Group at Quarterly Meeting.

Thank you for whatever observations you are led to offer.
RantWoman


Subject: Re: What do you want to know / would you come to an interest group about....
Dear RantWoman

If I were coming to your interest group, the thing that first occurs to me is talking about body language - in committee meetings, business meeting, even worship. I think this is a really hard thing for folks to get (and remember!). Your comment in Business Meeting yesterday about nodding as a way of showing approval was very helpful and appropriate. (Business Meeting had just approved something with everyone nodding but a question arose about whether the decision got recorded. RantWoman was uncertain and stood up without waiting to be recognized and had a short rant about bus drivers nodding and grunting and Quakers not even grunting. Giving examples would be great. Would you even consider a little role playing with most folks blindfolded?

I have found your comments about kids running around to be another very important and useful comment, since we don't think about it.

I hope you do get to give this interest group and look forward to hearing about it.
Sincerely,
Weighty Friend who has also previously earned a less respectful Nom de Blog.

Dear Weighty Friend…,

Thank you for your suggestions and observations. First a process point: THIS EMAIL DOES NOT REQUIRE IMMEDIATE RESPONSE. This came in as a reply/all to everyone on my original To: list. I am aware of others' grumbles about email AND I mean to take this partly as an invitation to tell a number of people the same things at the same time and to give you the option of clicking or not clicking on the individual blog posts. That way, if I grumble about how exhausting it is to have endless one on one conversations and if you want to talk amongst yourselves, you are at least all starting from common information.

Second, I do not particularly apologize for the length. In fact considering the freight train of matters frying my nerves this week, I hope you will appreciate my comparative restraint. On the other hand, if you want to unload some more cars....

--Body language? It's not exactly body language but everything to do with non-verbal communication. On one hand, I ask people to tell me when I offend them because I am pretty sure I achieve that more often than would be preferable and REALLY cannot read faces and am lost without verbal feedback.
The other aspect of not reading faces though is in a number of situations I have possibly misinterpreted another speaker (I need to talk to one person in particular) or I have felt like lots of people are inappropriately unresponsive to or show serious lack of awareness about something emotional where some kind of acknowledgment of difficulty or complexity would be entirely appropriate. The illustration I have used a couple times is a bit from I think Monty Python and the Holy Grail where everyone is seated at some kind of wedding and some knight shows up and starts hacking off hunks of people while the guests just keep doing whatever and do not even react. Ask me about exact situations in person or consider whether this perspective might shed light something you have experienced.

--At my proposed interest group I will do some of the things I do when I run other meetings as well as a couple additional things.

--Here are a couple blog posts about my experiences in meetings. Meeting for worship has a whole bunch of links below separately.with some links to follow
http://rantwomanrsof.blogspot.com/2011/06/interrupt.html


meeting for memorial, but still
http://rantwomanrsof.blogspot.com/2011/07/agnes-schmoe.html


--A miscellaneous item about running into people, my white cane and a certain much-discussed Friend's ministry of audible eye-rolling.
http://rantwomanrsof.blogspot.com/2011/06/not-blind-that-we-know-of.html


--I do not think I want to consider role-playing at this event but given enthusiasm I hear, I will hold in future consideration for a number of reasons:
--blindfolds are only one form of representing different non-standard visual experiences. Here are a couple blog entries about my experience specifically:

http://rantwomanrsof.blogspot.com/2010/08/do-it-yourself-eye-surgery-and-plague.html


http://rantwomanrsof.blogspot.com/2010/12/worse-auntie-grow-your-own-lava-lamp.html


--I am nowhere near centered enough right now about a number of topics to lead a roleplay exercise. I will do well to stay centered enough to talk and do not want to think about ways of handing out alternate vision experiences.
A couple years ago, I was part of a presentation about disaster preparedness for people with disabilities.
http://rantwoman.blogspot.com/2009/04/super-duper-powerpoint-festival.html


http://rantwoman.blogspot.com/2009/04/taxed.html


http://rantwoman.blogspot.com/search?q=pantyhose


Before my presentation I got to go to a really great disability simulation exercise put on by someone at the Hearing Speech and Deafness Center. I am more inclined to find a forum where someone from outside can be invited to, say, UFM than to try it on my own.

I think I should stop here for now. If you have made it this far, thank you for reading. I am happy to talk in person or by phone—or not.

In the Light
RantWoman

(Dear RantWoman….two more votes for roleplays. RantWoman is not even sorry but she is for the moment unequivocally ON STRIKE about blindfold-themed tour guide service.)


Dear RantWoman,
I would love to know the spiritual path of how you are coping with your vision loss. What are the ways that you 'work around' your vision stuff.
Sometimes I get off on tangents when listening to you because sometimes you seem to be (my perception-not necessarily reality) off on tangents when talking.

Good way to go about the discussion!
Friend Peacemaker
"The only enemy is someone whose story you haven't heard."


Dear Friend Peacemaker

That's a nice question. Thank you for asking.

The rest of this is LONG so read it in chunks if that is easier. It does NOT require immediate response.

I have a whole blog, two really about things to do with the intersection between spritual and practical. I still have some really big THIS IS HOW I FEEL things in my drafts folder and right now I am really insistent about "please do not try to tell me how I do or do not feel." Feelings are feelings. What I do or do not do about them is another thing. But right now I am just trying to stay centered most of the time and ride through gaps between what I have figured out and what others around me have any clue about.

Here are some blog links
http://rantwomanrsof.blogspot.com/2011/09/racism-and-privilege-workshop.html



http://rantwomanrsof.blogspot.com/2011/08/believe-and-be-healed.html


http://rantwomanrsof.blogspot.com/2011/07/healed-blessed-jesus.html


http://rantwomanrsof.blogspot.com/2010/05/path-to-spiritual-perfection.html


http://rantwomanrsof.blogspot.com/2010/06/allergic-to-joy-and-peace.html


Lots of people talk about tangents. Sometimes I am bored or trying to hold onto the right sized pieces and not overwhelm others with what is on my mind. That is not nice to the other half of a conversation, but I have to start where I am. The Overwhelmed point is NOT trivial: I can tell people get overwhelmed lots of different ways and I would not mind in the least not having all these overwhelming circumstances about my life. But sometimes I really mean it about this is my reality. I get to live it all the time. You all just get to visit. Here are some suggestions to help us cope!

Surveys say vision loss is the disability a lot of people fear the most. I have had bad eyes my whole life so I have a whole bunch of different issues but sometimes I have all I can do managing my own stuff and I just have to let other people deal with their overwhelmed feelings other ways. Sometimes I think people underestimate how much simple things matter.

Sometimes I think I try to wander away from topics that are hard or painful or where the first thing that comes to mind is formulated in ways that would not necessarily be the most helpful in a given conversation. Or when there are multiple ways to say something and I do not have energy for the most confrontational even if it is entirely true. But if I wander away in public, especially if something REALLY hurts I might actually NOT want to talk about it right then and there.

To be honest, sometimes I resent the hell out of the off-topic issue. During last year's nominations process EVERY TIME I tried to bring up something to do with dsability it got declared off topic. That is only one of several really clear reasons I would not just resign! Basically, EVERYONE almost has made some of the same mistakes over and over. I do not really expect perfection but there is ALL kinds of room for improvement.

Plus I get to get in people's faces about the same topics in multiple parts of my life so at least I get to be consistent. So we need to hold this subject in the Light for awhile and work on other stuff.

But THANK YOU again for asking.

In the Light.
RantWoman