The passages below invite careful reading of both texts—invaluable for all of us who wish to possess, as a Polish mother suggests in her letter in our "Open Dialogue," "new eyes, not eyes of shock or pity, but easy eyes, eyes of sympathy toward every disabled person."
I felt it: I am abnormal. The movements of eyes examining every corner of my being taught me this. One gaze fixes on mine, then lowers itself to find the proof it seeks: "the handicapped."
In trying so hard to escape the cruelty of certain encounters, I cut myself off from affection, from comfort. In protecting myself excessively from gazes that condemn and humiliate, I end by closing even the eyes that love.
So I became enslaved to the gaze of others. Little by little I denied my body the right to be different.
There are smiles that wound, compliments that kill. Pity wounds more than contempt. Yes—no pity. Every day I meet that condescending look, that believes it is pleasing me, perhaps in all sincerity, but denies my freedom and denies me ipso facto.
Freeing oneself from the wounding gaze demands a self-trust that is acquired painfully and risks crumbling quickly before insistent eyes.
Many times I have noticed that when I pass through a group of people, they fall silent. Their bearing becomes stiff, rather like when people remove their hats as a funeral procession passes. Once I am past, the conversation resumes.
Eyes I meet for the first time spy on me, become enemies. Even if they do not know me, they reveal the dark part now familiar to me, accepted and overcome among my friends.
The test of the gaze is not always lived easily. Too often it becomes a real drama. And learning to free oneself from it may be the most delicate apprenticeship of all.