I’m no writer . . .
LOL. Honestly I was invited here by a female friend who is, and that’s awesome. I’m an artist and photographer but other than the occasional insightful, righteous rant on social media and time spent as a legal secretary I’m actually dyslexic. I hope I don’t disappoint others. I’ve spent a great deal of my life feeling like the ultimate outsider. I’m not from the U.S., I’m a transplant from Canada, arrived here about 45 years ago at the age of 11. Just old enough to notice a difference but not quite old enough to know what exactly it was.
From as far back as I can remember words were never my strong suit. Because of family issues I was placed into foster care at age 4. I reacted by becoming a functioning catatonic. I spent 9 months of my life not uttering a single word until my Grandfather rescued me and after a few months of love and care brought me out of my silent world and introduced me to the world of creativity, of color and imagination. I was in love with being a ‘maker’. I could make my feelings SEEN. I COULD BE SEEN.
As you can probably imagine all this stalled me making my first appearance in public school. I wasn’t enrolled until the beginning of 1st grade where, because of the superior quality of the Canadian educational system I was quickly diagnosed as being dyslexic, another reason that making images was going to be my preferred form of communication. An entire year two hours every day after school was spent on coaching me to be better than the dyslexia. Later I was further diagnosed as Attention Deficit Disordered. Even so, when I got to American schools my I.Q. amongst other things were tested to know how to place me (as I had lost a few months at the end of fourth grade laying low while my parents sorted out my residency status in the U.S.), so it was a sort of a surprise to learn that my I.Q. was 140 and I was placed on the ‘gifted track’. I was later diagnosed in adulthood with dysthymia, a depressive condition, which considering all been through by that time wasn’t all that big of a surprise, although it’s mostly genetic.
Since I left my dear Grandfather behind and came to the U.S. it’s felt like one long odyssey, a trial, a series of tragedies, traumas all at the hands of mostly men. Yes that makes me a feminist, throw whatever adjective before that you like, but I’ve reached every single one of my observations honestly. I’ve also become quite the socialist as living in Los Angeles, no place have the class divisions and frictions been MORE grossly in your face. I’ve also taken all this intellect I was blessed with and focused it on learning more than a little of a grab bag of statistical, psychological and general knowledge about what keeps things so completely dysfunctional in the U.S.. At times I’ve felt like the cultural anthropologist studying the U.S., if only it hadn’t so completely sucked me in and done a number on my own life I might have been able to maintain a little clinical objectivity. Oh well take my views, my writing, my rants for what they’re worth. Now if only I could figure out how to add a few photos, and maybe some real authors might like to use some of my work.
