Being "Different"...........by Joyce Oroz

As a long-time mural artist 

and author I have written 

articles and interviews 

about fellow artists and 

writers. What surprises 

me most about these people 

is how many of them are 

dyslectic or were dyslectic 

as children. I don’t have a PHD

behind my name, but I have 

taken my own survey on 

the subject because….

you guessed it, I’m 

dyslexic—not so much these 
days as a senior adult but very 
much growing up. Reading, 
writing and arithmetic were the 

scariest things in my preteen world. I hated school and 

the embarrassment of trying to read out loud in class. 

My attention span was minus zero and I couldn’t even 

play the kazoo.

In the second grade I decided, the heck 

with school and walked home, one mile 

along the edge of the Big Basin Highway. 

Mom just about had heart failure when 

she saw me. I thought it was cool to be 

home and see what she did around the house while 

my brother and sister were at school. I remember 

Mom trying to teach me how to tie my shoes. 

I just didn’t get it, so when I was alone I figured 

out a way to get the job done. To this day I have 

never seen anyone tie a bow the way I do.

The one thing that saved me and kept me in school 

was art. I was able to draw and paint pretty well 

at an early age. I won the Smokey the Bear poster 

contest in third and sixth grades. When the three 

R’s became too much for me, I would retreat 

to my coloring books, clay sculpture and day-dreaming.  

Being dyslexic is tough on young people. One must 

think “outside the box” in order to keep up with 

one’s peers. Dyslexic people work twice as hard 

to accomplish half as much. But as we age we 

are blessed with a creativity brought on out 

of need. Some of us find happiness and success

 in the “Art” world, some in creative writing 

and others invent things. Dyslexia can be a great 

gift once a person makes it through school—then 

the learning begins. All the information thrown at 

us in elementary school and high school suddenly 

makes sense.

Dyslexic people often 

function very well in 

today’s computer world. 

They are the inventors. 

Their spelling might be 

sub-standard, but there 

is no limit to what their 

creative, inventive minds 

will come up with next. 

I discovered there is a 

lot of dyslexia in my 

family, many 

“late bloomers” such as me, 

thankful for the odd gift 

of being different. The gift that keeps on giving—

sorry for the cliché.