Chris Stanton

Definition and Deflection and Dyslexia

What does being a dyslexic mean to someone learning he is one at age 42? Very little, and I am speaking with the exclusive authority of being me. What does it mean to a lad having so much trouble learning to read that a private school kicked him out, but then a public-school teacher provided him patient attention? Life changing good! In this case I am speaking of my younger brother, a wide-ranging avid reader, with an unconventional problem-solving mind.

I became a dyslexic at the age of 42, the result of running into my senior year high school English teacher. She was an exceptional teacher. In the course of our conversation, she told me that I was the most dyslexic student she ever had. I asked why hadn’t she told me? Obviously, she understood I was asking why hadn’t she helped me? She said she’d told my parents at a teacher conference, “and that didn’t go well.” She figured smart, affable me would acquire a secretary and I would be fine.

I had been married three years when my wife announced, as revelation, “you know all those (Odd? Crazy? Funny? Sad?) stories you’ve told – they are true!” I’m still married, so I cannot divulge how downhill that conversation went. My teacher encounter ten years later was no revelation to my wife; she had been telling me I was dyslexic forever.

Soon after I had the teacher encounter, my wife and I picked up my older brother at the airport. We stopped for lunch. In the course of our what’s-going-on-in-our-lives conversation, I told the story of learning I am dyslexic. That factoid revision was angrily scoffed at by older brother. No good comes (later in life) from opening the dyslexic closet.

I think my brother assumed dyslexia was synonymous with illiterate. I think he also took it as criticism, since I had asked him and others for help when I was a kid and was blown off. They had their lives; I wasn’t their job. I am a middle child; what can I tell ya.

So how does a kid go from being the dumbest kid in class in grades 2 through 7, and graduate from a university? Seventh grade in public school was brutal, too, but there I had friends. I knew in 7th grade the school was seriously considering holding me back or diverting me into “special education,” but I tested way above their expectations on a battery of tests.

The best class I ever had was University Freshman English. The teacher, a middle age woman, announced, “all writing assignments will be about a subject of your choosing. If you lack a fascination, you will neither be a good writer nor a good thinker.” She was an enthusiastic delight, visiting each student asking the same question, “What are you trying to say?”

Renvyle Revisited, an Irish Odyssey

Renvyle Revisited, an Irish Odyssey is a book available on Amazon. It’s autobiographical coming of age stories. The revisited concern two of my uncles visiting family in Ireland, and my meeting locals who’d known them 30 and 20 years earlier.

Renvyle Revisited I wrote in my 50s after abruptly losing short term memory.

I was in a tennis ladder match when the transformation happened – vision went strange, body seemed to be seeking a new center of gravity. It was like being shot, but without bleeding, pain, a sympathetic opponent or a fleeing hitman. The transformation came in waves that evening. I would sit on the court and wait for the wave to abate. The occurrence of waves may have continued over a longer time frame. I have no memory of the feeling beyond that evening, and a couple relapses years later.

I offered a default. My tennis opponent pissed and moaned about paying for unused court time. I relented, thinking I would quickly lose or collapse. Once in play my focus was on the ball to the exclusion of all else. I had no idea of score, or if I was serving or receiving. My memory was momentary. My reasoning was intact. Between points, I took clues from my opponent’s behavior and responded accordingly.

I discovered without strategy, desires, fears, personalities, or other thoughts in mind winning points quickly seemed automatic. It was me and the tennis ball. How much of life would be improved by living in the moment? Who’d guess losing short term memory would be a gift? Concentration and focus to the exclusion of all else was amazing. I would spend an expanding minute (that may have gone on for hours) engrossed in a problem or reading a book. Minutes, maybe moments later, I’d not remember the problem or the book.

I’d wake in the morning with a vivid bit of visual long-ago memory. I’d write it, which would link with more memory and hours later the stream from events would end. I was surprised reading what I’d written later. Not only numerous pages, but the fragments constructed to a theme. W.B. Yeats may have called it “automatic writing?”

The downsides were huge. I would get in the car and drive two blocks, then realizing I had no idea why or where I intended to go. Scraps of paper with past destinations littered the passenger seat didn’t help.

A friend shocked by my weight loss suggested cancer. I had gone from 182 to 136 pounds. Over the phone, my doctor’s diagnosis Graves. A blood test the following day affirmed.

The Meaning of Answers

After our daughter was born, I took up reading Boole.

She didn’t speak beyond a few action (nouns) words until age three. Once she began to speak, she spoke in complete sentences with a Boston accent. We lived in San Diego. By age four, mysterious she’d taught herself to read. We suspected Shel Silverstein’s books and tapes were in play. Daughter’s friend’s mom asked, “What enriching mojo are you practicing? Have you exposed her to Mozart?” Daughter responded, “Mom listens to Motown.” Reading Garbage Delight and similar funny, playful and spooky books was what we did. She was a Silverstein savant.

She delighted herself and us reciting Shel’s poetry with all his dramatic wicked joy.

According to Boole, learning gives our lives meaning. A child is never too young, and you will never be too old to smile, play and think.