Late to The Party

 

Dear Diary,

I am late to the party.

The woman sitting opposite me, furrowed brow, hair that could use a good cut and tissue box between us.. listens.

I tell her the story of 'that job.' The one where I felt nauseous every day, a head in a vice kind of feeling, paralysed by mental overload, unfathomable spread sheets, unable to undertake rudimentary office tasks with ease; unable to see errors in documents, incapable processing what is being said in the endless meetings and transposing those words into minutes and into columns. 

Unable to function.

Unable to pull on all my usual techniques of navigation, glide easily from the macro to the micro and distill information into salient points, unable to pull on my greatest asset - my charm, my ability to read a room within seconds and navigate incredible outcomes and events.

Swilling in disorientation, unable to apply the usual of approach of being able feel the end game on a cellular level and reach the goal effortlessly without having to say how I did it, knowing the navigation points without needing to name them.

I am late to the party.

Very late.

Failed exams again and again.

I can't spell many words.

I don't understand grammar.

I learned to write properly when I was 15.

Adapting to the right hand world in a left handed way.

I can not remember names.

I can not write down phone numbers without hearing it 3 or 4 times.

I can not contain more than one instruction when being given directions..

And I can not read large tracts of text on screens.

BUT

I have a super strength emotional intelligence and empathy that is off the charts.

I can see a suburb from a great height and know how to weave in opportunities for connection through government and organisations, without being able to say how I can do that.

I see and feel texts in shapes, particularly novels or essays.

I find creative approaches to everything, and that is everything to me.

I can cook with a finely tuned instinct, no recipes, just feeling the way the ingredients meld.

I get a strong feeling in my left hand that indicates there is flow and assurance that the desicion I am about to make is the right one.

I can distill large tracts of text into a few words.

I write creative works that are short and to the point.

The focus of all my work is on doing good work, creating connections, empowering others.

*

The woman sitting opposite me, in a small room on St Kilda Road, pushes the tissue box closer to me and asks..

Has it every occurred to you that you are probably dyslexic? 

The rush of relief comes strong and fast.

*

I'm sitting in the classroom knowing that I will fail at everything..

A sister taunts me for not being able to spell.

A workplace admonishes me for not being able to take minutes in columns and for not being able to see errors in all that I have written.

 *

I want to write I really do.

I sit opposite my writing mentor back in 2016..squirming.. I tell them, I want to write - but I can not spell and I don't understand grammar or tense. My head is bowed with shame.

You can tell a story, that's all that matters. The rest of it an editor will fix, the mentor reassures me.

*

The dictionary definition of dyslexic surely must be

To carry shame, about the things you can't spell.

*

I am late to the party.

I write some stories.

I complete a masters by research in creative writing.

I publish two books.

The anxiety thaat there may be errors in each book is nauseating.

*

I find a podcast, Lessons in Dyslexic Thinking

I listen to episode after episode as I walk for miles, stopping sometimes,  tears of relief springing when I hear famous people talk about their dyslexia.

The host describes dyslexic thinking, and astonishingly declares in every episode, that being dyslexic is a super power and employers value dyslexic traits.

*

I am 58.

I am late to the party.

I crank up the music

And rise up from the mantle of shame...

JUSTINESLESS.COM
I TEACH WRITE PERFORM STAND-UP COMEDY

WORKSHOPS BOOKINGS HERE

The Talking Booths

 

When I was a kid I used to love taking a pile of pennies and going into a phone box to call cousins and ask if I could visit them.

The smell of a phone box, like damp cardboard.

Massive phone books, the A-Z of everyone who ever was. 

An encyclopaedia of names, we were all there.

A mess of brown bubbles, where someone tried to burn a hole in the window of the phone box. 

The phone books, crumpled and curled at the edges, like a thousand hands have searched for a mam they haven't seen for years, a cousin gone missing or maybe even a child they gave away.

The phone box was a whole world , away from the elements. 

Breath hot against the mouthpiece. 

I never thought about germs that could be harboured there.

Over time phone boxes were decommissioned.

*

In Australia there is an occasional hooded booth, where you can make free calls.

I was with a friend recently, waiting for a take away, they 'dared me' to make a prank call from a phone box. 

I rang my daughter, put on a silly accent and asked if they had ordered a vindaloo curry. For a moment it was just us caught up in the silliness of the prank, oddly exhilarating. 

*

Across the world pillar box red phone booth are reconditioned, made a little larger, a tiny table, two chairs. 

A simple instruction, JUST TALK. 

The only sign required.

The phone box becoming TARDIS like in its potential.

*

I read and re read Shrill Notes by a loud woman, passages about rape jokes told in bars fuelling the greater fire.. 

The man who trolled Lindy West ended up talking to Lindy. He changed. Lindy changed. 

*

Wars rage.

The world fragments again and again.

Before another missile is fired. 

Can leaders please make their way into a phone booth.

& 

JUST TALK

.

*