Proverbs 20, Verse 12
"If you have good eyesight and good hearing, thank God who gave them to you."
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CHIPPED WISDOM:
I got my first pair of prescription eyeglasses in fifth grade, but I think I actually started needing them two years earlier. I even took the socially frowned upon step of taking a pair of cheap plastic red Mickey Mouse sunglasses, poking the dark lenses out, and wearing them to school. They had little Mickey Mouse emblems on the temples, but otherwise I thought they looked sharp. You know, like something Elton John could have gotten away with. Mrs. Henderson, on recess duty one day, told me to take them off before I got hit by a fifth grader.
But I didn't just want glasses, I really couldn't see. I complained to my mother that I couldn't see the blackboard (we had blackboards back in 1987, but they were green) and that the picture on the TV looked fuzzy and that it was hard for me to see my face in the barber's mirror while he was cutting my hair.
"There's nothing wrong with you," she said to me, "you're just a little theatrical."
The test done by the school nurse in fifth grade at the health fair proved otherwise. Maybe "health fair" isn't the right word. I don't know what the hell it was, really, but I remember they herded us all into the room where they did the book fair, (maybe that's why I call it the "health fair") and they gave us each a rectangular punch card divided up into sections. One was for vision, one was for hearing and there were other sections, too, for-- I don't know what-- penmanship? White blood cell counts. I don't remember. But there were four or five stations that we each had to visit. They had the machine with the headphones that made beeps and you were supposed to raise your hand when you heard a beep in your left ear and all that other business. I liked the hearing test a lot, and I thought about how sneaky the test was-- like, were they really trying to fake us out? Would they make a beep start in your left ear and then do a Doppler kind of thing where, just as you're raising your left hand, they move the sound to your right ear?
I aced the hearing test despite my burgeoning paranoia, but the vision test didn't go so well. I triumphantly brought home the note from the nurse recommending an ophthalmic examination and placed it smugly in front of my mother on the kitchen counter. She thinned her lips.
"Don't look so disappointed," she said.
A week later, we were in the car going to the eye doctor. At last, I had gotten proper validation. There was actually something wrong with me-- it was exhilarating. I almost peed on the Oldsmobile's seat cushion on the way to the optometrist. Once we arrived and I met this guy, the excitement waned markedly. He was as big as a condominium and he smelled like the inside of a pawn shop trombone. His breath, which he made sure to provide you with a ample dose of, was rancid and tobacco-hued and his teeth were the color of old newspaper. His gut was shaped like the hood of a Volkswagen Beetle.
Okay, okay, you get the idea.
One last thing, though-- his paunch completely covered whatever genitalia that might have at one point existed down there, but he was constantly adjusting the longitudinal aspect of the crotch of his pants during my examination which, of course, was conducted with the lights off. I made the mistake of complimenting him on his three piece suit, which he probably purchased at William McKinley's garage sale.
"You're a very precocious youngster. Do you know what 'precocious' means?" he asked as he leaned in towards me with some ophthalmic instrument or other.
"Yes," I replied, pretty sure I was about to be molested. For some reason, my mother had seen fit to stay in the waiting area, probably because all three of us couldn't fit in the exam room. Regardless, it left me alone in there with this malodorous walrus.
"If I can just get through this," I told myself, "I'll get to have glasses."
And I got through it. I'm pretty sure the sweaty, heavy-breathing optometrist didn't rape me, or if he did I've successfully repressed it, and anyway, a couple hours later, I had my first pair of eyeglasses: gold-colored double-bar specs that would have looked half-way decent on your average octogenarian. I was in heaven.
I've gone through maybe forty pair of glasses since then. I suppose it didn't help that, for three years, I worked at an optical shop and have remained solid friends with the manager, who still gives me frames and lenses at-or-near cost. I've had designer, knock-off, vintage, antique, plastic, metal, and everything in between. The latest frames are plastic Tart Arnels from the 1960s, brown up top, clear plastic on the bottoms. I love them. For how long? Hopefully a very long time-- they were expensive, even for me. I am extremely fickle with three things: watches, cars, and glasses. Why? I don't know. My wife often jokes, "I'm glad you're more consistent with how you feel about me than about your watches, cars, and glasses," and I am too. I talked to my therapist about the everchanging items on my wrist and my face and the car seat beneath my ass. He was kind of flip about it.
"You get bored," he said.
Wow! Only $50 for that? What a steal!
I can remember trying to convince my mother early on, around late elementary school and early middle school, that I needed to see a therapist. That something was wrong with me. I got the familiar refrain of "There's nothing wrong with you," and "you're just a little dramatic" and got sent on my way. It seemed odd to me then as now that, in the face of some pretty obviously aberrant behavior, my mother was content to stick her head in the sand until some clinical or authoritarian voice told her otherwise. I wonder how I'll be as a father, when my children come to me claiming to be sick in the head or the heart or the eyes. I guess I'll have to struggle hard against the impulse to ignore or reject, because looking up and looking in is scary. And they're only seventeen-and-a-half months old, and I'm scared already.
You are an extraordinary writer. I know this because you always were, and it is a gift were given like a muse. Similar learning to play the piano by ear at a young age and then taking lessons to hone your skill. Everything one learns is a language, one learns to speak with varying degrees of fluency. This is the a theory of knowledge, where language is the key ingredient. A good example of this is cooking. Using a recipe piece for a cook is like playing a piece of sheet music to a musician. When making a cake for example, various techniques and equipment are implied in the instructions. One is instructed to "cream the sugar and the butter." This means using an electric kitchaide stand mixer, or hand held electric mixer to beat them until the sugar is totally dissolved into the butter, and a certain consistency and color is achieved. But the recipe rarely tells you this. You must know the language of baking to follow the instruction. The same goes for music. There are symbols, and instructions that tell you how to play the melody, harmony, and other elements. The same can be said of mathematics, or sports. You "speak" the language of writing, and you have done so from any early age, regarding this language as important enough to perfect through study, and practice to improve your gift.
ReplyDeleteDo not give up therapy, but perhaps give up your Doctor. Your problems, like most are due your parents, and yours in particular have been shouldered by your mother's inability to deal with guilt. Her guilt is a product of her parents, who always saw her lacking. She felt compelled to live up to their opinion. We are all victims of this, in some way or another. But it is she who said you're being dramatic when you needed glasses, which for you was a very annihilating event for you. She was of course unaware of this at the time, but you weren't, and you have never forgotten it letting it shape many events in your life. As a mother, I would have done the exact opposite. I would have said, "gee if your not seeing the board at school, we must investigate this immediately". I would have taken you to a cool optical shop with a neat, young DR. that had all the latest cool frames. I would have embraced it, and moved on immediately. But your mother was the product of her mother, who would also have seen it as "what do they know?" and gone to some old man. Your parents and uncles had old crusty dentists, Drs, and other professionals which your grandmother considered the right thing to do. Why? Because that's what her mother did. So their prejudice and lack of experience in life reflected enough to become an agony for you.
Continued
DeleteBelieve it or not, I grew up with a similar situation, terrified of the pediatrician with his terrifying penicillin needles, the dentist with their horrible needles of novacaine that I was subjected to because these Drs. where "friends" from the country club.
I too was always viewed as lacking, as I did not pursue a lucrative career, and because I came from Kentucky, which immediately put in the "slow" category in elementary school, due to my southern drawl. Being with the slow kids, made me looked upon by my teachers as not as bright, and it dogged me throughout school, as I was not given the challenging work I should have had. This resulted in my getting an inferior education. A self fulfilling prophecy. My parents were right. about my career choice. However, I suspect like many, I went to school far too young to even understand the meaning of being going to college for an education. Who would know anything of such life lessons, at 17, 21, 24? We only know what we want to do after we learn what we didn't like doing. For most of us, one is too old or stuck in a pattern of emotional and financial responsibilities to pursue what one really wants to do.I include almost everyone I know personally, but I have known a few rare exceptions. Much to your credit, a great number of the people who pursued their real calling, did it later in life, ie after child rearing, and earning a living in whatever agonizing field they had committed to in college, and only after doing it, realize how much they resented it, or found it tedious and mind numbing.
You will take delight that the people I have met who do finally live their dream calling are authors. This is good news for you, and your enormous talent.
On the subject of education I will also impart some personal wisdom. College is a total waste of time for young people. The importance of college is not the learning, but mainly the experience of learning. Living away from home and being exposed to diversity is the experience. The "name" of your school too often signifies who you are. This sounds shallow, but in reality it is true. That is why where one goes to school matters. It is a label that does carry cache, either correctly or incorrectly. A school immediately gives society a label they recognize.If one is unhappy with that label or student body, they can transfer or go to a graduate school that reclassifies them. Today, things being so competitive, these labels have been reorganized mostly by majors. One school is better in say journalism than business.
All that being said, you must view your parents in their proper perspective, and know that it is your mother who was subjected to horrible things that she can not live with without a miasma of guilt and repression. As a young father, you have the power to change such views and guilt, by having a much more lighthearted and modern view of life, and perhaps suggesting that your parents, and family as a whole could benefit from some serious therapy to overcome the grief that has been a recurring theme for you all. Guilt is a wasted emotion, and very difficult to root out. Do not pass it on to your children, and reconcile it as something that happened in your life that you can and will change. This may be a bold and unwanted observation, but I have witnessed this nightmare as both an insider, and an outsider, and true to myself I have the courage to do battle with it. You do too apparently, and I applaud your efforts through your blog, and seeking therapy to shed some light on these issues. Keep up the good work.using your talents and abilities to put things in perspective, and strive to not let it crush your spirit. Please know this is written with love and compassion, not criticism or moralizing.
I have spent far too much time on this (4 hours), so consider how important you are to me.
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