When I was eleven an adult made fun of me. I was “helping” my father with a documentary that his university was making. The documentary was about learning disabilities. There was a particular segment involving motor skills and being able to learn basic abilities such as telling your left from your right. I was going to be the “normal” kid whose reactions they could use to compare to the kids with the disabilities.
Up until this very moment in my life my childhood had been a childhood like the ones that Norman Rockwell painted. Before this moment it’s hard to remember anything really that negative in my life. My life was just this happy, aimless wandering, playing, being in the sun. Being happy. Eating mielie-meal.
There were a few blips of course; breaking my moms new vase when she expressly told me not to play near it, and the two spankings I got for it (one from each parent, and the only time my mother ever did). There was the first day at school and the fear and the almost tears. The pain of seeing a new classmate break down in full on sobs for an hour. The realization that I didn’t want this interruption in my perfect life. In fact, I never did reconcile that feeling about school and it wasn’t until high school that I found value in school. And then I only did because there were girls. And I love girls.
That moment in the TV studio changed everything, it’s the moment when adulthood began for me. I know I was lucky. My parents had protected me emotionally. I grew up knowing about the world, about apartheid and how wrong it was, but it was all on the surface, as it is when you’re a kid like I was. In my life there was no emotional negativity. That’s a great credit to my parents. There are kids who grow up knowing nothing but heartbreak and pain and fear. I grew up being naive and unaware.
But that moment for me was the shattering of any illusion that existed. I was ying on the floor of this TV studio, spread out like a little star. There were cameras and grown ups I barely knew. My father was off somewhere in a control room I couldn’t see because of the glare of the lights. And there was this voice giving me instructions through the speakers. ”Wiggle your pinky finger on your left hand. Wave your right hand. Touch your right hand to your left ear.”
And there was me. Terrified. Because I knew something that I had hidden. I was eleven and I couldn’t tell my left from my right.
So here I was being exposed. Not just in front of these people but in front of my father. And it was mortifying. I could hear the giggles as I constantly screwed up. I got flustered. I messed up again. And then the lights went out and some man thanked me nicely but I knew I’d really fucked it up. I knew he was thinking I was stupid. My head hung in shame.
My Dad greeted me as I left the studio and thanked me politely and escorted me to the ‘green room.’ My face was hot with heat and I’m sure that underneath that messy white blonde hair was nothing but glowing red skin. I didn’t say a word. I pretended to read the sports section of the newspaper.
And then came the moment. I heard my father out in the hallway. One of his co-workers was laughing and said “Jesus, you’re kid did worse than the retarded ones.” And I didn’t hear my father say anything. He didn’t defend me. Or maybe he did and I didn’t hear. We never talked about it. But I’m 38 now and it still hurts. I guess he was probably just as or more embarrassed than me. His stupid kid who couldn’t do something 4 year olds could. I know they got another kid in and probably never used my footage. It was just a little heartbreaking and humiliating.
I’m thinking about this because I’m still on a mission that started that day. I’m sitting here with my life kinda upside down and not knowing where to go and what I’m doing. I know I’m not happy and I can’t figure out what to do or how I got here, a million miles from my family chasing some dream that is not only increasingly irrelevant but also very unlikely to occur.
I’ve made excuses about how I love what I do and how I have ambition. But I have ambition only so far as it goes proving to everyone, and mostly to me, that I am not stupid. I am smart. And I’m doing a job in the public arena because that what as many people as possible will know it. And damnit, it’s a curse and a waste of time.
Lots of people think I’m smart already. I did well in school before and after the TV studio incident. I can’t say why exactly I couldn’t tell my left from my right — and I’ve spent years after that incident struggling to remember and learning visual cues, which in fact I still have to use today because I still struggle with it.
I just have spatial relationship problems all around – I can’t tell how low a ceiling is (my bruised head is proof), how big a pot I need to cook a certain amount of food, or how big a container I need for leftovers. I struggle with objects that are moving through space towards me, like cricket balls for example. I went to eye doctors and specialists when I was younger and determined to be a pro ball player – because I knew that I couldn’t bat as well as I should because I couldn’t “see” the ball right. Does it mean I’m dumb? No. It means I have my dumb moments that I can’t get past.
I didn’t go on this rampage to prove that I was smart or to overcome anything more than a personal stigma that in the big picture of my life, let alone the world, is so minor and irrelevant. This fight has just happened quietly behind the scenes while inside me it’s eaten away at my self-esteem. It’s one of the things that tripped childhood into adulthood. The first feeling of being fragile. Of being a human.
