Johnny Depp

Who is watching the trial? I have watched a huge chunk of it. I don’t have great Internet at home and I don’t have cable TV. So I am watching what I can, when I can. 

I saw a portion this week that was Johnny Depp talking about his left eye. He said most people’s eyes are spherical in shape. Depp said his left eye was not spherical but rather oblong. Because of this, he said his brain never learned to use his left eye. He said he is legally blind in his left eye. 

[Photo, courtesy of Vanity Fair. Shows Johnny Fox on the witness stand in the Fairfax County Circuit Court in Fairfax, Virginia. Johnny is wearing pink rimmed glasses with blue lenses that match the knot of his blue tie.]

I see him put on his light blue glasses. I know I have always closed my right eye so I don’t see double when I am reading. But when I type, I tend to shut my left eye. 

I guess I was expecting to see Depp shut his left eye when reading the computer monitor, but he doesn’t. I guess he just doesn’t see out of it. It’s fascinating to me how many different eye issues people have. We all do our own quirks with these vision and eye issues. I have trouble seeing out of my left eye, and I do the flickering eyesight, which overwhelms me with information and forces my brain to block out large portions of what I am taking in both visually and auditory.

He is an extraordinary actor. I have been a fan of his Mad Hatter character and his character in 21 Jump Street, and of course his Captain Jack Sparrow character for years. I wasn’t aware of all the other movies he was in, though. I have seen him in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. He did a great job, but I wasn’t a fan of that version of the movie. I also wasn’t a fan of the Sweeney Todd, Demon of Seville movie. 

It’s an interesting thing, when your eyes don’t work like “everyone else’s.” It makes you look at the world differently, laugh at different kinds of humor, find creativity everywhere you look. 

Regarding the trial, and I am treading carefully here, I have learned that too many people are abusers, and too many people have been victims of abuse. I believe any gender can be abused, and I believe any gender can be the abuser. 

It breaks my heart to see a victim tell the truth, even if it means bringing out their own skeletons from their own closet, and to see the abuser sit there on the stand, lying and believing they are getting away with something. 

May true justice prevail. 

Guard and Visual Memory

So it turns out that I have no visual memory. Imagine getting to the end of a paragraph of text, and you have no idea what the beginning of the paragraph said. 

School was full of that kind of thing for me. I would read and re-read and re-read, sometimes for 20 minutes - the same paragraph and still have no clue what I had read. It was so frustrating. 

I had been a ballerina from about 2nd or 3rd grade through my junior year in high school. I loved it! 

My sophomore year in high school, I went to try outs for A Midsummer Night’s Dream. I wanted to be one of the dancing fairies. I figured I had enough dance experience and I could do it. 

They showed us some choreography out in the hall. And I just KNEW I wouldn’t be able to learn it so quickly. They gave us about 20 minutes or so to work it out with each other. I didn’t know where to turn or how to get help. 

When we got on stage, I missed a turn or did the wrong thing. Then I blanked out. Then I ran backstage and just started crying. I was hysterical, frankly. I was so discouraged. 

Some really great gals came and told me to try again. They were so re-assuring. I knew I had messed up. And I knew I couldn’t do better. I knew other gals on that stage deserved to be able to be those fairies and I would flub it up. 

I didn’t go back out. I ended up doing makeup for the production. When the next production came out - “Little Shop of Horrors,” I played keyboard for it. (I’m a musician too.)

So, now I am a mom of two teen boys. My older boy has been a competitive dancer in his past. He is amazing. He learns choreography the first time he sees it. He always has. He amazes me. It must be so wonderful to see and understand something the first time you see it. 

He hasn’t done competitive dance for a while now. But he is a senior in high school and has discovered guard. 

Tonight, I went to a rehearsal for their upcoming competitions. I got to take photos of the kids. 

My son has told me that when the coach shows them new choreography, the coach tells the students to practice, and the coach walks away. The students turn to my son and he teaches it to them. 

He has visual memory. That’s amazing. I am so glad my son doesn’t have to deal with my disabilities that frustrate and drain my energy all day, every day. I am so tired of fighting to do things, and others do them so easily. And it’s because my eyes just don’t take in what others can see so easily. 

Please don’t ever take your own eyesight for granted. It’s a valuable tool. Worthy of being appreciated. 

I hope you get to see many beautiful things today, and maybe these photos of my son will be one of those things.

 

Taking a break

There is so much going on in my head, in my area of the country, in my country, in the world. 

I cannot organize thoughts right now to write on this blog.

I hope everyone is safe and staying healthy.

When I find I have more to say about my vision issues and can organize my thoughts, I will resume writing. 

Reach for the Stars

I have been doing a lot of thinking lately. Ok, well, my brain actually never shuts off.

One thing I have been thinking about (am constantly thinking about) is how much I miss my dad. I think about him every day. I think about him often. And I would just like to indulge my own emotions here and share some tidbits about my dad.

[A photo of my dad and me. He is wearing a yoyo t-shirt. Photo from October, 2014]

My dad was Stuart Crump Jr., also known as: "Professor Yo-Yo." He lived in the Washington, DC area his whole life. He would say "I'm the only Yoyo in Washington who knows what he's doing."

My dad entertained audiences at The White House for the Easter Egg Roll. Many years he did that. My dad entertained at The White House for the 4th of July event on the White House Lawn; an event for staffers. One year, after the war in Iraq known first as Desert Shield, then changed to Desert Storm, the soldiers came home in a big parade. My dad and I marched in a parade, doing yoyo tricks, to welcome home the soldiers from Iraq.

My dad entertained at countless schools, birthday parties, Bar Mitzvah's... he taught yoyo classes annually at the International Juggler's Festival in Las Vegas. He competed in countless yoyo contests, winning many in his age group over the years and over the various age groups.

My dad's entire goal in life was to bring happiness and joy to people around him. My dad inspired hope for a happy future. My dad, I feel, embodied kindness and hope to the nth degree. I believe that everyone he met, considered him to be a friend of theirs. I believe my dad felt absolutely the same way about them.

My dad was a single dad of me until I was 8. Then he married my step-mom. They had 3 boys together who are all a lot younger than I am. I feel like they are my full-blooded brothers. I love them all. My dad was so proud of all of them.

My dad was a Boy Scout. My dad never made Eagle. My dad said, "if I ever have a son, I want him to be an Eagle Scout." Guess what. All 3 of his sons became Eagle Scouts. All 3 of them can also wield a yoyo with panache.

My dad left a legacy behind him of yoyos. He was awarded the first trophy for a Lifetime Achievement Award from the yoyo community. It is housed in the American Yo-Yo Association museum in Chico, California. My brother who lives out there visited it a few weeks ago and sent me the photo of the trophy with our dad's name on it. I am so grateful that my dad's legacy lives on in various ways.

In addition to being a delightful entertainer, my dad was a prolific writer.

He wrote for his school yearbook in high school. One of the years, they made their yearbook into a record / an LP. A vinyl record. To be played on a turntable / a record player.

My dad took countless sports photographs. Every day since 7th grade he carried a camera with him. He always hoped to see a UFO some day. He wanted to be sure to have his camera with him when he saw it. The only day he didn't carry his camera was the day he married my step-mom.

Many of my dad's sports photographs won awards. Many were in the school yearbooks for high school and his college - Brown University. Many were in local papers.

One photo my dad took was of a Brown University student who did a prank. President Johnson was riding in a motorcade, visiting Providence, Rhode Island. My dad went and saw the parade, and snapped a photo of the President in the motorcade.

After he developed the photo, he realized that one of the guys on the car was a Brown University student. The kid was dressed in a suit and tie, same as the bodyguards. At some point in the parade, the kid just ran out from the crowd and hopped on the car like he belonged there. Yikes! My dad got a photo of that. I believe it ran in the local paper of the day. Quite the scandal of the day!

Another photo my dad took was of a student doing the long jump at a track meet, and as his arms went up and over his head, the framed a United States Flag over head quite nicely. My dad planned the shot and sat there. He waited all day to capture that photo.

My dad called that photo, "Reach for the Stars." It was one of his favorite photos he ever took. It's really neat looking. That photo is in my book, "Mere Creativity." You can purchase it on Amazon.com:

So, with my dad's yoyo shows, one of the things he always said at the end of every yoyo show was, he would do a "Shoot the Moon" yoyo trick. It's a dangerous trick that brings the yoyo very close to your face. My dad had a scar between his eyes from a red Duncan Butterfly yoyo that he used when he was learning the trick. He would do the trick, "Shoot the Moon," and say, "Reach for the Moon, because if you miss, you'll wind up among the stars."

My dad wrote so many books on yo-yoing. He also wrote books on other topics too, but I will share those in a future post or 5. Probably more than 5. Knowing me. I have a lot to share about my dad, and folks like learning about him.

You can find many of my dad's books on Amazon.com too:

I have been wondering recently what vision issues my dad had. I know he had near-sightedness. I know when I was a girl, that he would close his eyes and say, "I'm resting my eyes."

I know his prescription was much stronger than mine is. I know he had cataract surgery when he got older. I wonder if he also had spatial issues like I do, or other vision issues. I know he respected that I had vision issues. I will write about that in the next blog post.

Anyway, I just wanted to share a little about my dad. I have more to share, but this blog post is way long at this point, so it's time to close.

As any good stage person would say: "Always leave them wanting more!"

And, as my dad would say: "Just say 'YO!'"

Happy Birthday, Grandpa

My grandfather just turned 99. He is local to me. We had a big family gathering to see him. He is Stuart Crump, Sr. (My dad was Stuart Crump Jr. Please note: my dad never used that comma before "Jr." He just didn't like it. My dad was a rebel.)

[Grandpa and my puppy, Lady Bella Luna.]

My extended family was there - aunts and uncles, cousins, distant relatives I rarely see.

I just want to share something I learned from one of my aunts.

Backing up, though:

When I was maybe ages 4-6, I went to the eye doctor. The eye doctor put heavy black plastic-framed eyeglasses on me and showed me a 3D image of a butterfly. I remember waving my hand over the image, trying to get it underneath the butterfly.

He also showed me numbers to test to see if I am color blind. I was never color blind, although, come to think of it, I should probably write a post about the time I was scared that I was possibly going colorblind. Haha, another blog post for another day.

One thing the eye doctor told me was that while my eyes were fine, I had a lazy eye. He had me wear plain glass glasses with tape on the side. I have shown a photo of this on another, earlier blog post. He also had me walking around, wearing an eye patch. That's super embarrassing when you're a little kid, by the way.

Another thing he had me doing at home was that my dad was supposed to hold up his fingers and have me follow his fingers together: left .......... right .......... up .......... down .......... left .......... right ...........

Well, as I have been doing some thinking about all of this, as I have been doing vision therapy for a few months now with Dr. Davis' team. And I got to wondering if what I did as a kid was vision therapy. I didn't think I had anyone to ask. My dad is gone. I haven't spoken to my bio mom now in 5 years (it's mutual, and it's a long, sad story). I didn't know if my grandpa would know.

In other words, I have felt sad that I didn't know if I could ask anyone in my present about whether or not I did vision therapy as a little girl.

So, back to my grandpa's 99th birthday party. I was sitting there, next to my grandpa who was holding my puppy girl, Bella. He loves Bella so much.

I forget why I brought it up, but someone must have asked me, "what are you up to these days?" and I answered, "I am going to vision therapy."

My aunt was sitting next to me. I remember when she and my uncle were high school students, dating in probably the late 70s and early 80s. She has been in my life a LONG TIME, in other words.

My aunt spontaneously piped up and said, "well, you did vision therapy when you were 6 years old." I turned and looked at her and felt so incredibly grateful that she knew this! I said, "it WAS? I was wondering that!"

And she said, "Well, sure. You wore a patch on your eye. I remember you had a lazy eye. And your dad did exercises, I think, with you at home."

Wow - she knew and remembered things that I also remembered. I had no idea anyone knew these things!! I told her I didn't know that was vision therapy; my dad had only said, "eye doctor." I knew I had an eye doctor. I didn't know he was a vision therapist.

I am just so happy that when I was a little girl, my dad took me to vision therapy, to try to get my eyes corrected.

It turns out that with the knowledge that exists now, they would never patch someone's eye. They used to patch the strong eye so that the weak eye (the lazy eye) would have to do more work. It would force that eye to be more strong. All it did, though, was encourage my eyes NOT to work together. Fast forward 40 years, and my eyes don't work together. Which is what we are correcting now.

My vision therapist was so excited to hear from me at my last session that I had vision therapy as a kid. I was excited to tell them. It's cool to see how far vision therapy has come in the last 40 years!

We still do that left .......... right .......... up .......... down ........... They do still patch my eye, but only for short periods of time and only for very specific reasons. After patching one, they will patch the other.

So, to finish this up - happy birthday to my grandpa. And thank you to my Aunt C for knowing that I had vision therapy as a little girl and for telling me so matter-of-factly about it. I like getting answers to questions that I don't even know who to ask about. 

Life gets in the way sometimes

I guess I haven't posted a blog update last week or the week before. Life got in the way 2 weeks ago. And then the next week, I may have been trying to sort out what to say about how life got in the way. But ... you know what, it doesn't really matter. On the scale of life, I had things to do. I am sure you did, too. I had emotions to feel and things to think about and stuff to do with my teenage boys who are taller than most men I meet. Sooner than I would like, they will launch and I will be able to sit around all day and write nothing but wonderful blog posts.

So, I hope you either didn't notice my absence, or you took a nice break and did something wonderful. I will begin posts again next week. As soon as I am done typing this one, I will start working on the next one. It should run next Monday, as usual. Although I am thinking of switching to a Wednesday schedule. My vision therapy days are on Tuesdays. I usually leave those with a bunch of blog posts swirling in my head and Mondays doesn't seem to be a day that is working for me to consistently post. It is strategically the furthest day from my Tuesday therapy as it could be. (or is it the closest?)

I hope everyone is having a lovely year. We are almost done with Month 1 of 2020!

Last night, I looked up at the cold winter sky and saw so many constellations. The sky was brilliant. I hope you will consider going out to see if you can see the sky and constellations. They really are quite beautiful. I was in a neighborhood that is just filled with light pollution and I could see all my favorite constellations. That sort of floored me, to be honest. So even if you live in a light pollution area, go look at the night sky. Make up your own stories about what's up there if you don't know the ancient stories about Orion & Pleideas and Taurus ... Cephus and his baby goats ... Canis Major and minor ... the Gemini Twins named "Castor and Pollux." And - do you happen to know what "Betelgeuse" means? It's kind of funny once you learn it.

[A black background with white and colored stars in the formation of the Orion Constellation and also the Big Dipper. Image courtesy of: https://i.ytimg.com/vi/G3tFtyUnnlA/hqdefault.jpg]

Ok. Signing off this post. See you next time. Thank you for reading my blog. Feel free to drop a comment any time. I love comments. 

End One Thing, Start Something New

As I embark on this journey of wearing new glasses and learning how to see (and how to walk!), I am also in a major shifting area in my own personal life. I have a lot going on. Every day for me has a lot going on.

[This is a photo I took of a sugar maple tree; the leaves are vivid orange and the cyan blue sky peeks from between the leaves in a few small places in the photo.]

I haven't blogged this last week (has it been two weeks now?) And I sincerely apologize for that to my brand new readers.

I am not yet ready to share on this blog the other thing that I am ending and beginning, but it's a big life change I am going through.

It is interesting how sometimes life gives us a few different angles to see things from. I am learning to use my eyes together. I am looking forward to leaving this double-vision thing behind. And I am leaving a major part of my life as I type this, and looking forward to my next chapter. Two different things going on at the same time - just like having double vision.

I look forward to leaving behind the double-vision so I will have clarity and happiness with my new future looking forward.

Thank you for understanding about my lack of recent blog posts. I have a ton of posts in my head that I want to write; I hope to get them out of my head and in to this blog as soon as I can breathe and get it really revved up and starting.

PS: Does anyone know how to use WordPress so I can type posts but they can be scheduled for a future date? I can't for the life of me figure that out. And it's slowing me down with production.