A few months back I went to Haverford College to help my dad with an event in conjunction with the anthology of disability poetry that he co-edited, Beauty is a Verb. I love when the universe seems to come together through small nuances, which is just what it appeared to do that night. When we showed at the event location, I found sticky notes posted all over with little sayings and motivations, basically centered around loving and accepting oneself. While the anthology focuses on physical disabilities, and these seemed to focus more on mental health, I loved that those showing for a reading whose topic centered around disability came in to mini notes of acceptance and love.
I meant to post this months ago (like the following week), but I guess better late than never. Here are some examples of the notes that I found.
Aren't they awesome?! Just reading them while going over this post makes me feel better.
If you were to leave a sticky for someone else, what would it say? If someone were to leave a sticky for you, what would you want or need it to say?
I meant to post this months ago (like the following week), but I guess better late than never. Here are some examples of the notes that I found.
Aren't they awesome?! Just reading them while going over this post makes me feel better.
If you were to leave a sticky for someone else, what would it say? If someone were to leave a sticky for you, what would you want or need it to say?
I agree that the environment at the center for the poetry reading at Harverford College was a very inviting one and it was interesting to see the stickies around. Clearly they were doing some work in mental health. Thanks for the plug for Beauty is a Verb. It is actually not all that irrelevant to your blog since there are some writers in it like Denise Leto whose laryngeal dystonia insures that nothing that comes out of her mouth is what she was trying to say when she said it, and many of the writers there stress the importance of community.
ReplyDeleteYes, I thought the mental health work they were doing was a great coincidence (I assume it was not intentionally coordinated) to the reading. That's a very good point about some of the conditions that kind of "cross over" between mental and physical conditions. As well as the importance of community. Plus, I think people with both mental health conditions and physical disabilities can relate to being "different" (not sure what other term to use) but not wanting it to define them, to be held back by it, or to have everyone try to "fix" them.
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