That's a line from a great song called "Signs" by The Five Man Electrical Band. It's a good song. You should listen to it! (Not the Tesla version.)
Another great line goes, "And the sign said, 'Everybody welcome, come in, kneel down, and pray.' "
It's a somewhat appropriate introduction to what I'd like to write about in this entry-- not so much signs, but sign language, particularly what I witnessed while I was in church one day, and what it makes me think about my own future.
While my family was on vacation in Orlando, we picked the closest Catholic church to our hotel to attend Sunday Mass. It seemed like any ordinary church until I realized at the beginning of the service that a small section of about three to four families was singing the opening hymn in sign language, led by an extremely charismatic looking young woman (maybe late 20s or early 30s).
I was completely fixated on this occurrence, and, admittedly, had a hard time focusing on and listening to the priest's words while they were being signed silently right in front of me. I've always been fascinated by sign language. My parents were convinced that I was deaf as an infant, and bought all sorts of sign language books before taking me to a doctor to have my hearing checked. Turns out, I wasn't deaf, just unresponsive to loud noises and apparently uninterested in what they had to say to me. Of course, I grew out of it after a couple of months, but the sign language books were there throughout my childhood, and although I never pursued any further learning courses, I can sign a few random vocabulary words and beginner sentences.
However, this has almost nothing to do with what I really found fascinating. The signing absolutely beautiful-- I have never seen people "sing" in sign language before. That blew me away. But even though I stole a few glances at the families signing as a group, I could barely take my eyes off of the woman leading the signing. She gave off this aura of beauty and happiness and, without saying anything, let it be known that she truly loved what she was doing.
The joy on her face while she was signing for this small group, the expertise she showed at a relatively young age, the familiarity with the people she was leading, the delicate beauty of the actual signing-- she just looked completely, undoubtedly happy. She looked like she had found her calling in life and put her whole soul and being into translating the world for these people.
I don't know her life story or anything beyond what I saw for those sixty minutes in church. Maybe she's completely miserable with her home life or she's rude when she speaks out loud or she has a short temper or something not so perfect. But from what she was projecting in that church, I have a hard time believing those other possibilities. She had the face of someone who has found joy in what they do.
I want that. I really, really want that. I'm scared that I'm going to wind up miserable at a job in an office somewhere that I dread going to every day, like I have for the past two summers that I worked internships. I want to be happy with what I do. I want to write. But I know I can't support myself or a family like that, at least at first, so I've got to make some sort of compromise.
How do I find the joy in what I do everyday that this young woman has?
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