When I was in the tenth grade, it became clear to my new teachers that I had some problems with reading and writing. The word dyslexic had yet to be invented. So, once again I took my place in class as the slow kid. And to make it worse, I needed glasses. There was no way in hell was I going to say anything about needing glasses. I did not want any more attention pinned to me.
It wasn’t long before my dad caught on that I was having difficulty seeing. So, in the tenth grade, I became that kid – the slow kid with glasses.
I had done really poorly in the tenth grade. So badly, in fact, I had to take summer school to catch up. I became that kid: Slow/glasses/summer school.
In that summer school, the teacher was this older man with a kind face. The class? Seven jocks and me. Great. That’s all I needed – to be bullied for the whole summer.
One of the assignments that summer was to go home over the weekend and write a poem. Ah, geez, I thought. I don’t know how to write. I learned the hard way. How many ways is life going to kick my ass?
I went home, went into my room and sat staring at a blank page for a long time. Two hours later I emerged with what I hoped was a poem. I was so scared. I’d have to stand up in front of the class of thugs and read my poem.
The next day the teacher collected all of the “poems.” He said he would review them and the next day we would “discuss.”
The next day, I was prepared to be humiliated. As it turns out, the teacher’s kind face did not fail me. He stood before the class and said, “There is one poem I am going to read for you now. He began to read.
‘Twas once upon a midnight hour, I sat direct my fireplace.
And watched a flame laugh and dance, and giggled at the shadows it cast.
Then ‘twas more of serious mind, this was the beginning of its time.
A lonely man, a flame on wood, dances alone – ‘twas not good.
Then like magic another flame appeared, one much farer that he.
Together they danced, for they would be, the start of a new eternity.
I was frozen in my seat. He had read my poem. He was going to let the whole class laugh at me. My eyes weld up.
“First of all, I would like to say that, for the assignment, this poem gets an A. I would like the student who wrote this poem to raise his hand.”
I sat frozen.
“That’s fine if you choose not to. Well done.”
He proceeded to read the next poem.
What the heck just happened, I thought. What the hell?
On the long bus ride home, I was stunned. I didn’t know what to think. I felt like I should be happy. But I was afraid to. I didn’t have any talent. I was so confused. And, although I’m sure that the teacher wasn’t being unkind, it went against what I thought about myself. Strangely, I was embarrassed.
The following years before college it became clear that I had a new medical condition called dyslexia. I wasn’t slow. I just needed to learn other ways to learn beyond letters jumping around on the page. It sounds like a great ending to my story. But the fact of the matter is, some real damage was done by that time. I had a whole lifetime of not being able to manage words and numbers very well. Even to this day, I am an extremely poor speller, my grammar and punctuation are horrible, and, as a hateful friend of mine, Mark, never ceases to remind me, my syntax is awful. So, of course, by the time I got to college, I decided I wanted to be a writer.
Actually, wanting to be a writer, even with my handicaps, is not that unusual. I know a couple of brothers. Both took piano when they were young. The older brother was brilliant, but he hated it. As soon as his parents stopped forcing him to play piano, he stopped. The younger brother, on the other hand, loved it but was horrible. He is now a concert pianist.
Another “case study,” if you will – Lauren is an organizational expert. People hire her to come into their homes and organize it. She makes a bundle of money doing that. When I went to her house, it was shocking. Piles of mess everywhere.
I guess the moral to this story – don’t ever let anyone define who you are.