A Writer's Notebook, Day One-Thousand-And-Fifty-Three

I recently finished reading James Tate Hill's recently published memoir, Blind Man's Bluff.   Hill is a graduate of the same MFA program that I attended, and, though we were never close, I do think of him as a friend, if not a close one, so, perhaps I am a bit biased.  It is a joy to see him doing well, I will admit, but even were it just a random book that fell into my hand, I know I would be struck by it.  I have wanted to write about my experience with this book, but have been having difficulty putting my thoughts together.  The book is one that I found incredibly moving and thoughtful.  It describes the author's journey towards self-acceptance.  As a teenager, Hill began to experience severe vision loss as a result of a previously undiagnosed condition, and dealt with this, for many years, by minimizing his lack of vision and faking his way through situations without divulging the truth.  The book captures the true fear of being uncovered, the want to be normal, to not be pitied or dismissed.  It depicts, beautifully, how the fear of not being accepted by others is so often a manifestation of not accepting one's self.

For me, personally, there was a great deal that really hit hard.  I was shocked, in a way that may be a bit odd, by how much I recognized of my own experiences.  The oddness of this connection comes from a certain inversion of circumstance.  In Hill's case, he is trying to downplay a disability, keeping it hidden, in mine, the issues I deal with are not easily seen or accepted, but in many cases, the result is the same.  Hill, for example, discusses his difficulty taking a bus.  He can't read the map and asking for directions without divulging his difficulties is pointless.  Even when he does ask, over the phone, for a description that he, as a person who couldn't read the transit maps, could use, it was not practical for him to follow.  He wouldn't even be sure he was taking the right bus.  I have lived with similar fears.  As a person who has difficulty with both directions and with general spatial acuity, I find taking public transit, unless it is a route I am already extremely familiar with, stressful.  When I ask for directions, it is usually too complicated for me, especially as I am never certain about which direction is right or left, and maps are befuddling.  I am not certain I can capture the sense I had, as I read, of recognition, as I know it seems quite different.  In a similar way, I read about the fear of having to sign a document or fill out paperwork.  I've spoken before of my difficulty in this area.  I once was yelled at by a secretary for my check being sloppy, had a professor in college who knew of my dysgraphia force me to do work by hand then make a point of insulting my handwriting in front of other students with the comment that "you will never get a job with handwriting like that."  

The journey that the book covers is not, though, on the deepest level, about disability, but about learning to accept oneself, and of the way that recognizing your reality can remove limitations instead of creating them.  It is clear that, by gaining the strength and wisdom to share the truth of his condition with others, Hill was freed from so much of what had been holding him back.  He became capable of negotiating his needs and wants, of creating equitable relationships built on genuine understanding, and found that others did not see his condition in the dire terms he had internalized.  The real road block was not the condition itself, but instead, the unwillingness to fully accept the reality it, and, equally, the fear of trusting.  Hill assumed, as many do, others would judge him for his disability because he judged himself.  We are quite lucky that he not only overcame those issues but he was able to distill that journey into words.  I know that I, for one, am grateful.