Between One Transformative Year and the Next

The world didn’t end in 2012, but it left many of us in a different situation than when the year began.  That’s how it was for me, partly because I was determined to make it a differenty year, and partly due to some surprises.

 

To help make this a different year, I worked with a life coach who helped open my mind to new possibilities and eliminate stumbling blocks in my life.  Before long, I felt a shift in my thinking and how I saw myself.

In March I had my first taste of success as aninspirational speaker when I took Second Place at a regional Toastmasters International speech.  The award was nice, but the real payoff was having people tell me later how much my story had touched them.

A few months later I was asked to serve as president of the local Toastmasters slub.  At first I shied away from the idea, but saw how it could help me grow in several ways in addition to speaking.

In May I attended an intense traning for people aspiring to get high-paying public speaking engagements.  My mind lit up with all the information, ideas, and connections I made.  It was my first time in L.A. and I had some extra free time to see some of the place.  I loved it.  Watch out, Los Angeles, I'll be back one day.

But I had a big health flare-up midway through theconference.  I got so sick I had to be taken to the emergency room, where they discovered my blood sugar was through the roof.  I was admitted so they could run tests on my transplanted pancreas.   It looked fine, but I had several gall stones.  The pancreas had just worn out.  It was depressing to be hospitalized so far from home and learn that 14 years of non-diabetic freedom had ended.

I flew home, had my gall bladder removed, and tried to adjust to being diabetic again.  I’m getting better at it.  More about that in future posts.

In September I attended a book marketing seminar in Philadelphia but had time to do a little sightseeing too.

I attended the 30 year class reunions of both high schools i attended.  It was really tough changing schools halfway through 11^th grade.  Seeing both groups of classmates after all that time helped me put that part of my life in perspective.  Time and maturity helped, but doing that at this stage of the game caused me to edit my memoir and soften the tone in that section.  It also helped me rewrite history so that several people are better, more likeable people—including me.

My memoir!  Ifinally finished it!  I started writing it in 2006 and got sidetracked with some other writing projects and some health issues like cancer and whatnot.  Now it’s being formatted and will be published soon.  

That’s why I expect 2013 to be AT LEAST as transformative as 2012 was.  This will be the year my life story will be put on display for anyone to read.  It will be the year I do paid speaking engagements.  It will be the year I watch my web site WhatMaesUsStronger.com grow and possibly launch the line of books related to it.

I’ll be cancer-free two years in early 2013, which means I can get on the transplant waiting list for a new pancreas.

2013 is the year I expect to come into my own and live up to my full potential.

My L.A. Odyssey: Part One

It was a strange couple of week even by my standards.  I’m certainly not the first one to be transformed by a couple of weeks in California, but this was all more than I bargained for.  Hold on tight, this is probably the wildest ride I’ve taken you on yet.  I’ve broken it down into a few easily digestible parts.  You’ll be glad I did once you’ve finished reading all of it.

I went to L.A. for James Malinchak’s Big Money Speaker BootCamp.  To save money on air and hotel, I booked it all through Allegient Air.  They only fly between LAX and XNA (NW AR Regional Airport) twice a week, so it gave me a couple of free days before the conference.

My friend, Johnnie, put me in touch with his firend Kerry in L.A.  He had heard about all the plot twists and turns of my life through Johnnie and had wanted to meet me for a long time.  We hung out one evening and went to Venice.  We found a plce to eat, walked on the pier and I got to feel/smell the ocean breeze.  He said there were surfers in wet suits not far from us, but they were beyond where I could see.  It was nice just to be there and I was determined to enjoy it my way—by taking in a much as possible with my hearing, sense of smell, and touch.  It all confirmed I was in California and not the Ozarks.  I’d forgotten what no humidity felt like.

It was nice hanging out with a laid-back Texas native who lived in Dallas at the same time I did, though we didn’t know each other then.  He’s been in L.A. since the 90s but that accent is still intact.  Maybe I would do the same thing if I were him.  It turns out a lot of people out there think it’s charming.

On the way back to the car, we stopped and patted a blue parrot sitting on a rail between the sidewalk and an outdoor dining section of one of the many restaurants.  He was very tame and I figured he’d probably been photographed more often than some Hollywood celebrities.

It was a Wednesday night, so the usual myriad of oddballs parading around Venice Beach weren’t there.  I was looking forward to seeing as much of that as I possibly could.  We drove under the Santa Monica Pier.  By this time it was getting too dark to walk out on it.  I was glad to get a little taste of L.A. before getting to work.

It was time for me to get back to the hotel and preregister for the conference.  I didn’t want to deal with a mob the next morning at 8:00 am.  It was time to get in gear for the conference, which I was sure would be intense, informative, and tiring.  But I knew I was taking a giant step toward the future I want.

Do me a favor--please follow me on this blog.  You'll get automatic updates on new posts and my L.A. experience has lots of surprises as well as life lessons.

The Ghost of Vision Past: The Pain of Remembering

Over the weekend I attended a conference in Memphis.  It was the first time I’d been there since 2001, when I lived in Little Rock.  Some friends invited me along for an overnighter including a show at the beautifully restored Orpheum Theater, followed by some nightlife fun.  If you like architecture and you get a chance to see a show there, do it!  Even if you’re not interested in the show, it’s worth it.  I don’t get over there often.  It’s at least a five-hour drive from this part of the Ozarks.

It was one of those conferences with “breakout” sessions going on in different meeting rooms.  You look at a schedule and decide which one looks like your best bet or take a break if none appeals to you.  You can mingle in a common area and nibble the finger food set out on a long table.  Sounds simple enough, right?

It was simple for me back when my vision was better.  Now I have to use a high-tech magnifier (it cost $600) to read the schedule and get help finding the room I needed.  Finding a seat wasn’t hard, but seeing Powerpoint presentations was impossible.  Sometimes I could tell what the speaker was was talking about on the screen, other times I couldn’t.  I needed help identifying food set out on the snack table and again during the buffet-style meals.  People were happy to help, but it made me self-conscious to slow down a line of hungry people behind me.  I made it a point to get in line early, not only because view a buffet line as prey, but also so I could find an unoccupied seat without having to roam around a crowded dining room with a plateful of food.

While making polite conversations with others at my table, I also had to identify food, spear it with my fork, and mind my table manners.  At one meal, the salad was overloaded with olives, which I hate.  I had to eat several because they were In my mouth before I knew what they were.  By the end, my food was jumbled up together on the plate and I thought back on the brief phase I went through when I was a kid, when I didn’t want any of the food to touch each other.

But, the biggest and most isolating change that happened when my vision wosened in 2003 was losing the ability to recognize faces and expressions more than a couple of feet away.  Because of that, I can be very alone in a crowd—even when people are extremely warm and friendly, like they were last weekend.

I have an excellent sense of direction, an internal compass that almost never fails.  But, in order for it to work, I need to get a good look at my surroundings.  To get to my room from the elevator, I had to make a couple of sharp turns and it left me disoriented, then frustrated, then angry because I can remember when things were easier.  Sunday morning, I wanted breakfast and remembered the nearest restaurant was across a four-lane street and was buffet-style.  Not worth the risk.  I found a small room on my floor with vending machines.  The one with food was framed in bright lights so I had to lean in and squint even more than I usually do.  This particular machine had a flashing keypad, though.  The bulb didn’t have a short.  It was designed to light up a row at a time in quick succession, giving it the look of a slot machine that paid winners in sweet and salty snacks.  Do they really need to lure people—particularly Americans—to a vending machine with flashing lights? 

I gave up and went back to my room, glad I had snagged a cookie from a table the day before and saved it.

I wanted to look around at the urban landscape of a bigger city, even if we didn’t drive through any particualry interesting parts of it.  I wanted to be able to navigate the common areas without it feeling like an expedition.  I wanted to find the Men’s Room all by myself like a big boy.

Yes, people find me inspiring, and I hope that continues.  I’m comfortable around the house and around the town where I live.  Being in unfamiliar places is more work for me now.  I work harder to see things.  I have to commit things to memory faster.  I come back from a two-day conference exhausted, physically and emotionally—because I can remember when life was much easier.  I was legally blind before, but barely.  I got around with little trouble.  Even my friends occasionally forgot I had vision problems.

Today, I’m starting to feel like myself again.  I’m at the brink of an exciting future that includes speaking engagements, a published memoir, an inspirational web site, a YouTube channel, and probably more income to go with it all.  I’m focusing on that as best I can, letting The Ghost of Accomplishments Future save me from The Ghost of Vision Past.

Mister Magoo Goes to Philadelphia Pt. 2

World Café Live is a restaurant and live music venue in the same building as an NPR station.  It’s an interesting way to showcase talent and combines two of my favorite things: eating and live music.  I ordered a sandwich with a side of eggplant fries.  They were good and tasted kind of like sweet potato fries.  Now I’m wondering how many other vegetables would taste good cut into thin strips and fried like that.

The first band was Zydeco-A-Go-Go.  Alan happened across an authentic Zydeco bar in LaFayette, Louisiana last summer while on vacation—one of those places tourists don’t usually know about.  I like anything Cajun.  Laissez les bon temps roullez!

Next, a blues band named The Dukes of Destiny took the stage.  The harmonica is my favorite blues instrument and they had a great harmonica player.  The lead singer sounded like a big black girl, which is never a bad thing when it comes to blues.  Alan informed me she was white.  It took a while, but I finally could see he was right.

It was interesting to see a blues band up North.  I know it’s popular in Chicago, but it was born in the South.  It occured to me that jazz, zydeco, country, gospel, and rock-n-roll were also invented in the South.  We’ve exported more culture to the rest of the country than they care to think about.  You’re welcome, y’all.

During a break, the harmonica player came around with a clipboard to get e-mail addresses.  I bought a couple of CDs from him.  The zydeco band and blues band each did another set before we left around midnight. 

Sunday we visited the Philadelphia Museum of Art.  It’s a big place and we saw only a small part of it.  My favorite part was the medieval armor.  It would have made me claustrophobic to wear that stuff.  Alan was good about reading the information to me next to pieces I wanted to know more about.  Lucky for me, I could get pretty close to most of the paintings and see the detail.  I’m glad I can still see well enough to do that.

There were some impressive old stained glass works, colonial furniture, and old Japanese, Chinese, and Korean art.  It had been too long, I realized, since I’d had a culture fix.

Stained glass at Philadelphia Museum of Art

On the way out, I had my “Rocky pose” photo made on the steps.  If you don’t know what I’m talking about, ask someone or rent the movie.

On Monday, we took a walk in Valley Green at Wissahickon Park where Alan rides his bike.  There’s an old inn from the 1850s still in operation.  The hills made it seem like it wasn’t in the middle of a big city.

My time in Philly was drawing to a close, but there was still one thing I had to do before leaving: try an authentic Philly Cheese Steak sandwich.  I love a good Philly.  It’s my default order when I go to a restaurant with a long list of sandwiches on the menu and nothing jumps out at me.

We went to Pat‘s King of Steaks, which is a well-known Philly place.  Up to this point, everyone I encountered had been very polite to me.  Alan said it must be because of my disability, because that’s not how everyone there acts.  At Pat‘s, there was an impatient, East Coast, big-city kinda guy working at the window who barked at people to order and keep moving.  Finally!  I got treated just like a local and, for once, I enjoyed being served attitude with my food.  It was all outdoor seating, which would have been great if it had been about ten degrees warmer.  The cheese on our sandwiches wasn’t even melted.  I told Alan he needed to try a Philly in Arkansas, where it’s served on a buttered, toasted bun.  In this part of the country we find a way to make everything more fattening and better tasting.

After eating, we drove around the working-class Italian neighborhood near Pat’s.  Alan pointed out where a Mafioso was gunned down several years ago.  Then it was time to go to the airport.

The same guy who escorted me when I arrived took me to security on my return.  On the plane between Philadelphia and O’Hare, I thought about how I need to get out more.  In some ways, I had dreaded the trip, thinking it would tire me out, that flying with my vision as it is now would be stressful.  But, I had gotten a healthy dose of the city—the kind of life I’ve missed since having to leave Austin in 1991 when my vision and kidneys started failing.  It was good to be reminded that I’m not as cut-off from the world as I think I am.  I’ll probably never have the fast-paced urban life I had in Dallas, when all I had to do was show up at the airport, flash my airline ID, and hop on a plane.  But, there are still plenty of things to experience, places to see, and people willing to assist me with all of it.

At O’Hare, I got to ride on one of those motorized carts.  The driver had to beep the horn at distracted people in the concourse, oblivious to us behind them.  That would be a fun job—a nice combination of people-watching and power.  Then I was on a much smaller jet back to XNA.  I overheard the familiar accent of Northwest Arkansas.  Shortly after landing, I found out this part of the state had been shaken by an earthquake centered near Oklahoma City.

It was a well-timed vacation in more ways than one.