I said the words “I’m Sorry.” to someone who was not really there, and heard the response “What are you sorry about?” from my wife. Her question drew me from the dream, my heart pounding in my chest, a light sweat on my skin, and I realized: it was a dream, only a dream. My response was “Oh, nothing.” and a short pause later “I was reading poorly.” came from my lips with the realization that an old nemesis had returned from my unconsciousness to haunt me in my sleep, and at three o’clock in the morning I was now wide awake and nauseated at my inept response to the dream state confrontation.
The dream was an odd one: I arrived late (of course) to an all staff assembly and was told to go up to the front table where a short play was taking place in which I had a part. I went to sit down and saw the stapled sheets lying there on the table in front of me. A woman from our financial department, whom I get along with well, was leading the play. She had just finished a portion of dialog with someone down the table to my left when she turned to me, just sitting down, and said “And what happened next Mike?” placing me at the forefront of the assembly’s attention. I made up a response saying it aloud as I fumbled through the pages. She asked another more pointed question in turn leaving me no room for an ambiguous response. The person to my right said, in a hushed but clearly audible voice “page 36. Your line.” and I fumbled to the page, saw the all to familiar distorted text and started my slow interpretation of the mangled words.
You see, what my eyes show me on a page is different than what other’s eyes apparently show them. What I see, depending on my restfulness, are the letters of words distorted, overlapped, shifted to the side or vertically, some greyed out. It’s quite confusing and my brain takes it in and does it’s best to interpret the words as seen by others. So, I started reading from the page, slowly; restating or revising words as I went, losing all sense of natural flow. Quickly the queues from the audience came, coughs, sighs, shifting of positions in chairs, and my childhood nightmare was again upon me. With mounting anxiety and embarrassment I said I was sorry to the audience, breaking the fourth wall, but in truth only to the one sleeping beside me.
My second grade teacher discovered there was something amiss with my reading, and this turned into years of improved reading groups, specialists, and visual therapy which bore little results in the end. Like many, I have a disability that affects my reading. This means I read much slower than the average person, and in grade school it meant embarrassment, anxiety, and sometimes utter frustration any time we were reading aloud in class.
You remember, we would all take turns reading a paragraph and then it would be the kids turn who read slowly and threw off the cadence that everyone else seemed to hold. I was the slowest, and the one who struggled most. I was that kid. Amid your frustration with me (the sighs, the shifting in seats, the recognition that I was responsible for ruining the mood: what mood there was) you tried; you asked if you could read it for me, slipped me the words when I took to long in deciphering them, or just glared with a look of consternation on your face.
Oh, and this is still something I struggle with today. When I read aloud at play tryouts, when in a group reading out of a book, I still struggle and fail you. But that’s on the first read.
The theater has given me a chance to make the words my own. I’ve learned to practice line after line, and make the words come out more natural and give you a moment where you want to believe I am someone I’m not. Someone brave, or funny, or intelligent. Thanks to the great folks in our community theater, they have entrusted to me the gift of illusion.
In 2019 a friend asked me to be the lead in a play she wanted to do. I agreed not realizing that my part on stage had lines on all but 5 pages of an 87 page play. It was daunting, and I’m sure my fellow actors wondered about my friends wisdom in casting me in that role. But in the end, it worked. Oh, the actors around me bailed me out of some holes I dug right there on stage during the three performances, but we pulled it off. For these performances, hopefully, the audience saw me not as I am, but as whom I was portraying. At these moments the frightened, embarrassed kid did not exist.
But tonight, there he was again from the deep recesses of my mind he was back and bringing with him all the anxiety felt those many years ago. With my chest still pounding I realized, I have already confronted this menace. I have played a lead part on stage and regardless of the outcome, had delivered pages of dialog to an audience as someone who was not me. I had acted, and transformed the jumbled words on a page to a character if only for a brief time.
The confidence of knowing that I am not bound by a disability is a gift the theater has given me.