Kate Wilson

Simple Pleasures

This picture was taken over the summer, when my friends and I went abroad for a music festival. One of the many misconceptions I face is the idea that I cannot enjoy music; people are always surprised that my hearing aids are Bluetooth, and that I use this feature nearly every day! I’ve always found this frustrating. Listening to music, going to concerts and making friends is a great outlet for me, and I place great emotional value in lyricism.

Deaf people also face huge barriers travelling abroad that I’ve rarely seen spoken about, like remembering to bring batteries and chargers, and navigating our way around - things our hearing peers just do not have to consider. If you had told me that one day I would have the opportunity to engage with both of these interests at once, I would’ve been amazed!

All that said, going abroad to a music festival was a very personal thing for me. I remember being so happy to be there, exploring Barcelona. We were hungry and walked past this frutería - a fruit store - selling fresh, ripe fruit. I remember thinking what a simple pleasure it was, emphasised more by being in such a beautiful place for an amazing weekend. Despite all the misconceptions about me and my identity, of what I ‘can’ and ‘cannot’ enjoy. It was great.

Poetry

Poetry for me, has always been a really big outlet.

If I had a bad day, I would go and buy a new poetry book, and I could sit and read the whole thing in one sitting. I would always come back to them, and I had favourite poems and favourite poets, and Raymond Antrobus is one of them, obviously, he's a really well-known Deaf person. I think he's awesome. I would love to meet him, because his poetry has been really inspiring to me. It definitely encouraged me to write about my experiences with deafness.

Some of them I wrote and even published, which was really cool to be able to share in that way. I remember really resonating with this poem and all the questions that people ask you. Sometimes people ask you really helpful questions and questions you think, "Oh, I've never thought about that." A lot of the time you get questions that are ignorant or sometimes even unkind. And I remember really liking that poem, and I took that picture. And that cafe as well, was something of a safe space for me.

Touch

A friend and I had gone swimming really early in the morning in the sea and I love doing that, I love going swimming. But obviously, my experience is completely different, because I have to take my hearing aids out before I go in.

And I'm a big sensory person, especially with touch, I always have been. When you can't hear anything, you pay a lot more attention to what you can feel and see around you. I remember you could feel the rocks get bigger as you went out, because all the smaller ones had washed up onto the shore, because they're lighter. I just remember reaching down and feeling, this feels awesome, it was just nice to touch.

The other part of it was that I was surprised how understanding the other girl was…if someone wants to talk to me without my hearing aids, it's generally quite intimate, like they have to come very close to my ear and speak right into it. It's kind of hard to go up to someone's ear while you're swimming…she was really understanding about it. And there was no pressure to talk, she was just so easy to relax around. I came to that realisation that actually people can be really nice about it. It's just about being around the right people, rather than it being a me problem.