I saw a wonderful thing Sunday, two strong and gifted and creative women At the Open House, each impaired or challenged in the way in which they communicate with the world. They met for the first time at the farm, they began talking easily and comfortably, but then got stuck and had to find a way around a word.
This photo captures that moment of connection and revelation. And friendship.
The woman on the left is Donna Wynbrandt, an artist and friend and the photographer George Forss’s partner in life.
Donna has a schizo-effective disorder, she has cognitive difficulties distinguishing fact from fiction and sometimes experiences manic mood swings and depression. For many years, Donna was a street person, living outside in New York and other cities. She says she loved that life, she gave it up when she could not run any longer.
She and George are powerfully connected to one another, theirs is a soul and creative connection, they are an inspiration to many and a constant source of support for one another. Donna does pencil and ink drawings, Maria included her work in the Open House Art Show. We love Donna’s drawings, there are many in our home. Donna is a natural communicator, she is highly educated, articulate and intelligent. She is extremely self-aware, but also can be difficult to understand at times, her moods can be unpredictable, her conversation sometimes deliberate and even circular.
Deborah Glessner, on the right, is a member of the Open Group At Bedlam Farm, she is also a friend and a retired librarian who worked and lives in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. She is an animal lover, especially dogs and horses, and is now a very talented and serious professional photographer. Her work was also part of the Open House Art Show and was offered for sale in the Studio Barn. We have a bunch of her photos in the house also. Deborah has had a profound hearing loss almost all of her life. Like other hearing impaired people I have known, Deborah brings an exquisite sensitivity to her work, she sees and hears things almost everyone else misses, she feels the world in a deep way.
When I first met her, she advised me that I didn’t need to shout – “people are always yelling at me,” she offered with a smile – I just needed to look at her and let hear see my lips move, she said. She described herself as a person with “profound” hearing loss, but adds “I always hope people see me as Debbie – as a normal person with, oh, by the way, a hearing challenge.”
Deborah is a very skilled lip reader, but there are some words it is hard for her to make out. I learned to be careful to look directly at her when I was speaking to her, not simple for a mumbler like me. When these two met, neither was aware of the others condition or impairment.
I saw the two of them communicating at the pasture gate and I heard Donna raise her voice a bit, and then she began spelling out a word. I asked Deborah what the word was, what had happened at that moment:
“I was telling her about a horse that would unlock the stall doors and let all the other horses in the barn out. And one day the owner came out and all the horses were gone! Donna said the horse “wanted” his friends, and I wasn’t getting “wanted.” So she spelled it and then the light shone — it was a revelation. We finally and successfully communicated.”
Donna could not remember the context of the word, but she remembered the same moment of revelation, “the moment I knew we were good friends and were delighted with one another.”
The photo, one of a dozen I shot in rapid sequence, caught the precise moment of intimate connection and revelation, you could see it in their faces.
Donna spelled out each word with her hands, and the two then connected in a very visible and powerful way, they both connected with one another and became instant friends. This was such a beautiful thing to see, two human beings breaking through difficult barriers through good will, faith, honesty and patience, this is the great and often unrealized power of human beings to talk to one another and be understood.
I will never understand how and why it is possible for these two determined and loving – and impaired – women to make this kind of connection, but not possible for most of the leaders of the world, or our political leaders to find a way to communicate with one another. I think of Washington politics, or violent conflict, or the wrenching drama of the New York carriage horses where people simply cannot find a way to talk or listen to one another. Donna and Deborah remind me of the hope and promise that lives in the soul of every human being, it is a gift for any photographer to stumble across a moment like this, and to capture it.