Wednesday, October 1, 2008

THE GREEN HILL FAR AWAY.

I’ve always been a worrier. I worry about upsetting people, hurting them by accident either physically or emotionally, losing them through death or because they no longer want anything to do with me and getting them into trouble of some sort when they go out of their way to help me.

It began in childhood – All this worrying. I listened to the radio a lot even then and once heard on a programme which I was far too little to understand that someone was due to be deported from somewhere or other, to somewhere or other. I realised that “deported” meant being sent away, removed from all that one knew and possibly loved and thanked goodness it wasn’t going to happen to me. Or was it?

When I was at school assembly one morning I heard our Headmaster tell us we were to be given deportment badges. We had what was known as “remedials” at school in order to correct the bad posture which many blind children and adults come to that adopt because they don’t raise their heads in many cases as there’s nothing to look at. Also they don’t see how others sit, stand and walk so just tend to do their own thing. “Deportment badges”! I thought. “Oh no! Where will they send me? Who to and when”? The rest of the assembly was a blur as I struggled with the thought of possibly getting one of these badges. Considered one of the most developmentally delayed and least competent blind children most of the teachers had ever seen I needn’t have worried. I’d have never been considered worthy of a little plastic badge which has a pin which pricks a finger or five as you try and put it on. Probably they wouldn’t have even considered I’d have been able to work out how to put it on till I was at the legal age for marriage at least! Then I heard him say:

“And the last badge goes to”

(Whoever it was)

“Whose deportment, hands up anyone who can tell us what deportment is”

At which point I piped up:

“Being sent away sir”,

And everyone laughs and he once more told me how stupid I am.

“Deportment”,

He went on,

“Is posture! Posture you understand and we all know why June doesn’t know about posture don’t we”?

Everyone laughed,began to fidget and was glad it wasn’t they who had been singled out for ridicule and scorn. I was determined not to cry. Then we stood for the final hymn.

“There is a green hill far away without a city wall”.

I went to my first lesson wondering how it could possibly be that hills had city walls and how this one was without one. Who knocked it down? Did someone forget to build it? Did they run out of bricks? Then a teacher stopped me and said:

“What made you think deportment had something to do with being sent away”?

“It was on the radio, Miss”,

I replied.

“They said someone had to be deported to somewhere or other”.

“Oh you silly goose! Mind you if you can remember a big word like that at your age and you’re listening to programmes like that all is not lost”.

I then asked her whether green hills had city walls. She probably looked puzzled and astonished but asked me what I meant. I repeated the words of the hymn:

“There is a green hill far away without a city wall”.

Still laughing but not spitefully, she told me that without in this context meant the opposite to within so it meant the hill was outside the city wall. I smiled. Then the germ of an idea was born – Two ideas in fact. From then on I was going to assume the role of class clown. I knew how my stupidity had caused much mirth amongst the other blind children around me and this is a role I’ve stuck to all my life. However miserable and hard done by I feel, however low and depressed I get (not often these days), however hard things get, as soon as I’m outside my front door and in other people’s company I make them laugh deliberately. Not by falling over the chairs and low tables or sitting on a cream cake placed on said low table instead of sitting on the chair but by cracking the odd joke against myself and telling them funny anecdotes about my crazy old guide dog or when I’ve been caught talking to inanimate objects thinking they’re people standing beside me. The other idea that formulated itself then in embryonic stage, was that I was going to be a writer. I’d show them that indeed the last shall, if not get to be first, climb a lot further up life’s ladder than they ever gave me credit for. It isn’t conceit which made me feel like this but a desire not to be thought of as irritating blind trash which they thought would never climb out of the garbage can. The “green hill” of success has been a steep hill to climb and I’m not at the top yet but if I ever am, I hope I will still have enough humility to reach down and say to another blind person:

“Here! Grab onto my arm and let me give you a hand up”! Of course I shall still worry – Worry in case both of us fall back into the abyss of hopelessness where my Headmaster threw me, worry that my written thoughts will hurt or upset people and maybe that some poor little unsuspecting child in a school somewhere in the future will be thinking:

“I can’t find the green hill of success on my geography map or atlas Miss! Where is it”? And, horror of horrors! This poor little soul may be another blind child whose teachers think them a dunce or an idiot so let me anser your question little one. The green hill of success is attainable with hard work, help and a lot of luck. You have to walk twice as fast to get half as far but you’ll really achieve something in the process and learn that what doesn’t kill you will make you strong.

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