Something about our kitchen table.
Over the years, a lot of life has happened around it. We have hired caregivers there, held staff meetings there, worked through problems, planned podcasts, dreamed up new ideas, and had conversations that started out being about one thing and somehow ended up somewhere entirely different. There is almost always coffee involved, usually somebody coming or going, and occasionally a cat who believes whatever is happening is really about him.
Meet the Author and Poet
So it seemed appropriate that we were back at the kitchen table when author, poet, and artist Allard Broderick, author of Wallpaper Dogs, joined us for a conversation on The Shining Beautiful Series Podcast.
This particular afternoon was quite a gathering. Four generations were represented around the table, each of us bringing different experiences and perspectives about disability, mental health, family, art, and life. Reilly the cat positioned himself right in the middle of things, apparently deciding that a conversation this interesting required his supervision.
Allard came prepared to talk about some complicated subjects. His poetry and artwork explore trauma, autism, Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), mental health and healing, and he has found a way to use creativity to help other people better understand experiences that are not always easy to explain. During our conversation, he shared some of his artwork and read his poem, “504.”
What struck me, though, wasn’t simply what Allard had to say about his own life. I found myself watching Allard with Mikelle.
Allard adores Mikelle, and the feeling is clearly mutual. But something beyond affection feels particularly meaningful to me. Allard respects her and recognizes Mikelle as another artist who has something to say.
Mikelle, of course, doesn’t use poetry to tell her story. She is nonverbal and communicates through her iPad, facial expressions, gestures, and the cues those of us who know her have learned to understand. She also communicates through her art. Through Access Gallery here in Denver, Mikelle has become a selling artist whose work has been exhibited and purchased by people who see something in what she creates.
Allard’s artistic world looks very different from Mikelle’s, yet sitting across from one another at that table, none of those differences seemed particularly important. They shared a mutual recognition that I am not sure I can fully put into words, and maybe I don’t need to.
I have spent much of my life around systems that work very hard to help people with disabilities communicate, participate, and become included in their communities. That work matters enormously, and technology has opened doors for Mikelle that I could hardly have imagined when she was young. Still, after all these years, I sometimes think we concentrate so much on teaching people with disabilities how to communicate with us that we forget we have some responsibility for learning how to listen to them.
Art gives us another way to listen.
That afternoon, Allard’s poetry gave us a glimpse into experiences we have not lived. Mikelle’s art and communication gave Allard a way to know more about her. Four generations around the same table brought histories and assumptions that weren’t always the same, yet nobody needed to convince anyone else that their way of experiencing the world was the right one.
We were simply curious about one another and had a conversation.
Allard has some exciting things ahead. On October 13, Indie Earth Publishing House will release The Spell Jar: The Rituals We Remember, an anthology containing two of his poems. He has another book signing featuring his Wallpaper Dogs book on October 17 from 3–5 p.m. at Barnes & Noble in Glendale, and an audiobook of Wallpaper Dogs, voiced by Gabriella Cavallero and engineered by Dillon Gibson, is expected by October 17. Stop by…we will be there, too!
Those are wonderful milestones, and I am excited to watch what comes next for the multitalented Allard.
Still, when I think back on our afternoon, I suspect what I will remember is something much simpler: four generations around an ordinary kitchen table, a writer sharing his poetry, Mikelle shining in that unmistakable way she does, Reilly making certain he was part of the gathering, and Torie, our Gen Z team member, giving us her unique perspective. All of us having enough time and curiosity to hear one another a little differently.
Maybe we need more kitchen tables like that.