This was originally published by Birdee Mag in 2014. I am republishing it here because March 3rd is World Hearing Day.
I still remember the name of the girl who called me ‘Picasso’. It started one morning, as I was walking in to school. ‘Hey Picasso!’ she shouted, and she laughed. I didn’t get it. I wondered if it was a nod to my artistic ability. That couldn’t be it, since I didn’t have any. Hm. She did this a few more times, and I till didn’t understand, until she asked ‘What’s wrong with your ear?’ Finally, I got it. She was thinking of Vincent van Gogh, the painter who cut his ear off. I was four years younger than her, in year six, and I knew she had the wrong painter. I didn’t correct her.
I was born with just one ear. My left ear looks normal, and then my right looks weird. Odd. Different. We call it my ‘little ear’. As a kid, it was a lot more visible, I guess. Your head is smaller, and your ears are more noticeable. Kids mentioned it a lot. ‘What’s wrong with your ear?’, ‘Did your parents cut it off?’, and ‘How did you lose it?’ were asked with increasing frequency as kids became older and bolder. I answered their questions — most were only asking out of curiosity. Some were mean. The ‘Picasso’ girl sticks out in my mind, however. She was four years older than me, well into high school, and for some reason felt the need to mock me for something far…
