Our purpose in this issue is to look “through the eyes of 2e” — to try to gain a better understanding, through the creative work they produce, of what the 2e experience is like for twice-exceptional young people.
Perhaps through their art and writing we can gain insight into how they see themselves, how they relate to the world, and how they feel others see them. Someone who has given voice to how the world looks through the eyes of 2e is Samantha Abeel, known and honored for her writing and speaking. She describes what it’s like to live with the combination of exceptional strengths and significant challenges in the introduction to her second book,
My Thirteenth Winter: A Memoir, written in 2003 (Orchard Books):
I am twenty-five years old and I can’t tell time. I struggle with dialing phone numbers, counting money, balancing my check-book, tipping at restaurants, following directions, understanding distances, and applying basic math to my everyday life. I also struggle with spelling and grammar, and remembering combinations of movements in athletics and dance. I cannot read a note of music, even though I’ve participated in choir since elementary school.
I have been diagnosed with dyscalculia, a learning disability that affects my capacity to learn skills based on sequential processing, such as math, spelling, and grammar. Living with a learning disability has created many challenges, and I
have often felt frustrated, confused, and alone.
However, my learning disability has also afforded me a unique view of the world and has taught me some important lessons. It has forced me to always look for, and be open to, creative solutions, and not to take even the simplest of tasks for granted. Through the many individuals that have helped me in my life, I have witnessed the full meaning of compassion and empathy, and it is because of them that I now move in currents of self-discovery and possibility. My learning disability has taught me always to look for potential and to see people as beautiful individuals waiting for their gifts to be recognized. I have come to see everyone as learning disabled and gifted.
Below is a poem from her first book,
Reach for the Moon (Pfeifer-Hamilton Publishers, 1994):
Self Portrait, by Samantha Abeel (August 07, 1994)
To show you who I am
I crawled inside a tree, became its roots, bark and leaves,
listened to its whispers in the wind.
When fall came and painted the leaves red and gold
I wanted to shake them across your lawn
to transform the grass into a quilt, a gift spread at your
feet,
but their numbers eluded me,
so I turned a piece of paper into my soul
to send to you so that you might see
how easily it can be crumpled and flattened out again.
I wanted you to see my resilience,
but I wasn’t sure how to arrange the numbers in your
address,
so I danced with the Indians in the forest
and collected feathers that fell from the eagle’s wings,
each one a wish for my future,
but I lost track of their numbers, gathered too many,
and was unable to carry them home
so I reaped the wind with my hair,
relived its journey through my senses, and
felt its whispered loneliness, like lakes in winter,
but it was too far and you could not follow me.
Now I’ve written out their shadows
like the wind collects its secrets
to whisper into receptive ears, and I
will leave them at your doorstep,
a reminder of what others cannot see,
a reminder of what I can and cannot be.
For more information on Samantha Abeel, see
Judith Halted’s interview with her in the April,
2005, issue of 2e Newsletter.
