One of my inspiring experiences here in Israel was at the Canadian Embassy, a screening of Bonnie Klein's "Shameless: The Art of Disability". Both on screen and in the room, I encountered such shining examples of creative living. A dancer who became disabled, and didn't for a moment think she'd stop dancing. Like Bonnie's own "Slow Dance", this woman has crafted an exquisite dance form with the body she has now. The director of a deaf and blind theatre group talked of her standards. She expects only excellence - why should her theatre troop be held to any reduced standards than the very best? In counterpoint harmony to this notion of creativity, the line in the film that has spoken to me loudest, resonating clearly in the year since the Tel Aviv screening, was the response of Michael, Bonnie's husband, when he was asked why he didn't consider leaving her after she became disabled following a stroke. Michael's impulsive response, which they both laughed at, was "Poverty of Imagination". They laughed, but think about it. Poverty of imagination in the right places is what enables creative living. There are givens that we don't question, canoes that we don't rock, commitments that we don't have the imagination to even think of changing. Poverty of imagination grounds us and stabilizes our trunks so that we can reach our creative branches higher, higher.
I am waiting to find out about these pictures, sent in haste by my mother after a visit with Bonnie and Michael Klein. Magic to me, the number of people that our family has visited with, both in Israal and in Canada. The mandala is round.
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