STORYTIME TAPESTRY

The Newsletter devoted to spreading love and cultural awareness throughout the world

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Special Treat ??“ Carol Roach

Oct 24, 2005? 

The First Time I Saw The Light

Carol Roach

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There are some people in this world who see everything around them. Then there are people like me who hardly see anything at all.?  I once read a joke basically describing two fishermen sitting in their boat estimating when the fish would bite.?  The first fisherman sat with his chart and made various calculations.?  Very proudly he announced, ???Judging by the time of the day, our position in the stream, and the number of times the fish have bitten so far, my guess is that the next fish would bite right about now.???? 

The second fisherman simply responded, ???Not yet.???

The first fisherman was very perplexed. He did his calculations and yet he was somehow wrong.?  The fish did not appear on cue. He had been so sure of himself; his powers of observation were phenomenal. Yet, he was still wrong.

The second fisherman did nothing. Instead, about ten minutes later he simply said, ???My guess is that the fish will appear now.?  Seconds after he mouthed the words, a fish did hook onto the rod.

???How did you do that???? The other bewildered fisherman asked.?  ???I didn??™t see you making any calculations and yet you have been right every time.? 

The man responded, ???I don??™t need calculations, I can feel when the fish are near.???

This example illustrated the difference between an astute observer and an intuitive person.?  I am the latter.?  I don??™t see my way around my world, I feel it.?  For example, some people will see danger approaching, I will feel it.

Some people are lucky to have both powers.?  As a child I was feelings all the way, today I have some powers of observation but still, the intuitive side of me is far stronger.

To illustrate how bad my powers of observation can be, I will tell you a story about my first boyfriend.? 

Wendell had a car.?  He would take me driving every Sunday afternoon.?  It was one of the things we liked to do.?  One day we went shopping for a birthday present for his mom.?  There were hundreds of cars in the parking lot and we couldn??™t remember where he parked the car.?  He asked me to go in one direction to look for it while he would go in the other.? 

???I can??™t.????  I said.

???Why not???? He wanted to know.

???Because I don??™t know what your car looks like.???

He couldn??™t believe what he had just heard.?  I had been in this car several times and I couldn??™t describe it to him.?  I couldn??™t even tell him what colour it was.?  When he asked me the colour I said, grey, the car was actually a muted light blue.

It was not that I walked around blinded by the world, I just was not very observant.?  I had so many friends that relied on charts and diagrams to understand their world just like the fisherman in the story, but these things were lost on me.?  One of my friends, also with a learning disability, said she needed charts with lots of colour to make sense of what she had to learn.?  Charts and colours were totally useless for me.? 

When I went walking with friends and they pointed to a flower and said how magnificent, the colour was, or how the shape of the petals were in perfect symmetry, I just nodded.?  Frankly it really didn??™t mean much to me.?  But when someone handed me a flower and said I picked it just for you, it meant everything to me.?  I felt loved.? 

Having said all that, there is one occasion, I remember where I was actually mesmerized by light and colour.?  It was the 80??™s and I had lived through the psychedelic generation, while not paying much attention to bright colours and the crazy fashions of the time.?  Although I had once own a pair of hot pink ???hot pants??? as they were called, they were a gift from my boyfriend.?  I would never have picked them out myself.?  I hated the bright oranges and fluorescent greens.?  I hated all the weird colours.?  I was a basic black kind of woman and I still am today.? 

In the 80??™s, I belonged to a single parent association and to help out, I worked the dances.?  I never was much of a dancer.?  I was much too self conscious for that.?  Most of the time, I worked at the door. Since I hated to dance, I didn??™t mind staying there all evening. However this particular evening, I did sit down to have a drink with a few friends.?  They were used to me sitting all night and got up and danced as they pleased. I didn??™t mind one bit.? 

The room was dimly lit.?  I don??™t know if it was the rum and coke I was drinking, or if something changed inside of me, but I was transposed into another dimension.?  I kept starring at the strobe light overhead.?  I watched in pure delight as the lights flickered back and forth across the ceiling.?  The kaleidoscope of colours mesmerized me.?  The tempo enraptured me.?  Instead of watching the dance that took place on the floor, I preferred the dance which was happening on the ceiling.?  I couldn??™t help myself.?  My eyes were fixated upon the show above my head.?  It was magical, it was wonderful, it was surreal, and I was enchanted like never before.? 

I must have been gazing for quite awhile as I did not see my friends coming back to the table.?  I remember one of the saying, ???Earth to Carol, Earth to Carol, we are here.???

???Oh??? I responded,??? ???I didn??™t notice you were back.???

???Would you stop looking at the ceiling and talk to us.??? Another friend answered. ???You have only been coming to this dance for over a year now. You would think that you never saw the strobe light before.???

The truth of the matter was I never had.

Carol Roach

winterose@videotron.ca

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A Native of Montreal, Quebec, Carol is a graduate of Concordia, and McGill University.?  She holds a bachelor in psychology and a Masters in counselling psychology.?  Carol Roach is a published writer and newsletter editor.?  You can purchase her book: Picking up the Pieces: A Woman's Journey at www.publishamerica.com, or www.amazon.com.?  You can also go to your local bookstore and order it there as well.?  Carol??™s second book: Angels Watching Over is currently looking for a home. Stay tuned for details. ? 

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If you are interested in other stories feel free to join her newsletter: Storytime Tapestry at: http://subs.zinester.com/98907 , or email her directly at winterose@videotron.ca and she will be glad to accommodate you.?  Carol enjoys email and responds to every inquiry.