Excerpt from BUT YOU LOOK SO NORMAL: Misplaced and Discovered in a Listening to World 

by Claudia Marseille 

PROLOGUE  (977 phrases)

It was the day of the citywide elementary and center college monitor meet, and I used to be elated that I’d made the reduce, one among solely two college students at our college. At age eleven, I used to be a great athlete and really quick, and I used to be thrilled to have the prospect to compete towards different sixth and seventh graders from throughout Berkeley. I’d skilled laborious for at the present time. For weeks after college my trainer, a soccer coach, drilled my good friend Mark and me laborious on our college playground, yelling at us to dash quicker, quicker! Day after day I pushed more durable and more durable as I raced Mark—the one child in our college who might run quicker than I—and I might really feel myself getting higher. I additionally relied on Mark to assist me navigate the listening to world. Like my brother Elliot, Mark was very attuned to me. On the playground he confronted me immediately and clearly repeated what had been stated, rigorously explaining the place we had been to line up, how far we’d be working, and who had taken first, second, and third place.

Now standing within the heart of the sector, I surveyed the bustling scene, and to my shock I didn’t see anybody I knew. Athletes carrying their college colours stretched out on the grass or jogged in place, excited households settled into their seats within the bleachers, coaches with clipboards dashed right here and there. My coronary heart thumped in anticipation of the second once I’d launch from the beginning line with the pack of runners, dash neck and neck alongside different contestants fiercely decided to beat me, after which, lastly, stretch into the end to interrupt the tape. That morning, I mounted my cumbersome listening to help with an additional strap to make sure it wouldn’t fall off from the place it was clipped to my undershirt. I used to be prepared.

I used to be looking forward to my mom and father to see how briskly I might run, and I seemed throughout, anxious to identify them within the crowd. Looking out the obtrusive sizzling metallic bleachers, I lastly noticed them sitting throughout the sector from one another. Their fraught divorce had left them with no need to take a seat collectively, even to indicate united assist for me. My father seemed grim and formal in his darkish wool swimsuit, and he wore a handkerchief on his head, every nook tied with a knot, which created a kooky little hat to guard him from the solar. I watched him wipe sweat from his brow and questioned, why on Earth would he put on a heavy swimsuit on such a sizzling day? Far throughout the sector from him sat my mom, wanting cool and chic regardless of the sweltering warmth, fumbling for one thing in her purse.

Within the distance, I noticed a coach yelling directions into an orange megaphone as sprinters started to line up for races, however I couldn’t perceive a phrase he stated. I had skilled at my acquainted elementary college playground, and I used to be completely unprepared for a way the monitor meet would unfold on this unfamiliar place. I nonetheless didn’t see anybody I acknowledged, and I started to panic. Was one among my occasions simply now about to begin? The place ought to I’m going? Mark! I assumed. Mark will inform me what to do, the place to go. Frantically, I whipped my head round on the lookout for him, however he was nowhere to be discovered. Then, as children began working, I stood frozen, a bit statue in the course of the sector as races whirled round me. Coaches darted about, herding children and lining up racers. Athletes whizzed previous me as they took their locations, ran their races, and whooped with pleasure after they received. However no person requested if I wanted assist. Nobody appeared to note that for nearly an hour I hadn’t moved from the place I stood inflexible on the monitor.

Lastly, it was throughout. As everybody streamed off the sector, I noticed my father within the distance, slinking away by the far exit. My mom was ready for me by the bleachers, and we walked slowly in the direction of the automotive. She seemed involved. “Why didn’t you run in any of the races?” she requested.

I burst into tears. “I’d no concept the place to line up! I couldn’t perceive the person with the megaphone or what any of the children had been saying.”

My mom nodded and murmured sympathetically, however that was the tip of the dialog. From the bleachers, each of my mother and father had sat and watched me simply stand there. Why hadn’t they run throughout the sector, grabbed me, and guided me to an grownup in cost? Why didn’t no less than one among them acknowledge that I used to be in bother and wanted assist? And now that the humiliating occasion was over, there was no exploration of what had occurred, why I used to be so misplaced, and what could be finished to spare me such disgrace sooner or later.

As my mom drove us house, I cried quietly within the seat subsequent to her and gazed out the window on the fixed exercise and clamor that made it so troublesome for me to listen to or perceive individuals round me. A motorbike roared in entrance of us, a bus screeched to a halt to our left, a truck beeped insistently because it backed up on our proper. Each time I used to be amidst these sorts of metropolis sounds, all I might hear was the great clamor. And more often than not, inside areas weren’t a lot better; as I sat subsequent to my mom, the rumble of our automotive made it nearly not possible to grasp her except she turned to face me, which she couldn’t do whereas driving. Tears ran down my cheeks as I noticed, as soon as once more, how terribly alone I used to be. Day-after-day I struggled to grasp. There was a lot I used to be lacking. In the meantime, virtually no person was listening.

© 2024 Claudia Marseille

BIO:

At age 4, Claudia Marseille was recognized with a extreme listening to loss.  With dedication and the assistance of highly effective listening to aids, she realized to listen to, communicate and lipread. She was mainstreamed in public faculties in Berkeley, CA. After incomes grasp’s levels in archaeology and in public coverage, and eventually an MFA, she developed a profession in pictures and portray, a career appropriate with a listening to loss. Claudia ran a high quality artwork portrait pictures studio for fifteen years earlier than turning into a full-time painter. Her work are represented by the Seager Grey gallery in Mill Valley, CA, and will be seen at www.claudiamarseille.com.  

She has performed classical piano a lot of her life; in her free time she likes to learn, watch motion pictures, journey, spend time with buddies, and attend live shows and artwork reveals. She and her husband dwell in Oakland and have one grown daughter. 

Discover out extra about her memoir, However You Look So Regular: Misplaced and Present in a Listening to World, due out in Could from She Writes Press, at www.claudiamarseilleauthor.com, www.fb.com/Claudiamarseilleauthor, www.instagram.com/claudiamarseille,   www.linkedin.com/in/claudia-maseille-49620384