April 25, 2016 - 21:45
From what I remember, this day was a lot different from some of the others. The other times that I went to CCW, I was paired up with one particular artist who I ended up spending a lot of time with and assisting in various ways, but this time I ended up spending a lot of time with around four to five people. The way that I work best, though, is by focusing on one person, so I did spend a little more time with one person than the rest.
When I walked in, I was immidiately confronted by Emma* whom I had met the last time that I was at the center. I was surprised by how well she remembered me from the last time (though she did not remember my name, understandably, she immidiately connected my face with a conversation that we had about her favorite hip-hop musical artists). She was working on something fiber arts related, which is the station that I have been assisting on, so I sat down next to her to talk. She turned to me with an immidiately sad, glazed over look and said, "my dad just died." I said, "wow, I am so sorry. That must be truly awful for you." She talked a little bit about her father after that, saying repeatedly, "they want me to go and visit his grave. I can't do that! I just can't do that!". I validated her feelings as best I could, saying back to her that if she doesn't feel ready to do that, she shouldn't. As she was speaking, Jessica, the teacher for fiber arts, came around and requested that Emma go back to her needlepoint work, saying that she would feel better if she focused on something else. A few minutes later snack break started and I went over to talk to Jessica. I mentioned Emma's recent tragedy and Jessica said, "oh, that's not recent. He passed almost a year ago. Emma uses that when she's feeling particularly vulnerable, when she wants to elicit some kind of emotion from someone new."
I was a little taken aback by this information. Looking at it from Jessica's standpoint, I can see why she explained it that way. She sees Emma on a daily basis, and is a constant recipient of Emma's emotions and mood swings that come with her disability. Because this happens quite often (I'm only seeing it this once) Jessica must explain it in some way so that she can be the best teacher and mentor for Emma alongside Emma's disability. She offers Emma a constructive solution when she's talking about her father: to keep working on her art so that she can channel her emotion into some kind of project, a creation.
When I come in and see Emma's reaction this way, I am struck by the concept of queer temporality and how it can play into both disability and the way that we process the loving emotion that is coping with a tragedy. To explain: queer temporality is the complex concept that queer people experience time spaces differently; because relationships are not built around the basis of construction but rather pleasure, queer time is slowed down or sped up according to the queer experiencer. I think this queerness concept can be applied to disability. I see Emma, as a disabled woman, as sometimes navigating emotional time and space in a different plane. In essence. This idea that grief and healing is supposed to be experienced in a particular sequence: "denial - bargaining - depression - acceptance" is both neurotypical and heteronormative. Emma's grieving experience does not remain within these bounds.
Because I was only seeing Emma for a short period of time, I spent a lot of time with her, and walked her to her seat at lunchtime at the end of the session. One of the lunch workers shouted out to her, "Emma! Stop taking advantage of nice people." I wasn't sure what to make of that - I didn't particularly feel taken advantage of.