 "Photo: Michel Bafondoko/The Mirror")
On March 12, 1980, newly born Chris Johnson suffered three incidences of oxygen loss, causing him to develop Cerebral Palsy and be confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his life. But, while the tissues of his brain may have been damaged, the thoughts inside it have not.
"People see this little guy in a wheelchair, and they just don't think he has any cells," his father, Eugene Johnson, says.
A double French and English major, Johnson recently published a personal essay in French entitled "Blue Fish or Fragments of a Young Handicapped Man." The essay deals with his struggles living with his disability.
The essay is broken into seven chapters or "fragments" that deal with a different facet of Johnson's life. The first fragment, "My Body, My Monster," began as a poem.
"I was inspired by Frankenstein's monster," Johnson says. "It's a commentary about myself, my body."
The idea began while Johnson was a student at the University of Montana. During the finals of his sophomore year there, he suffered a psychological and emotional breakdown from the stress of classes and the strain that he was putting on his body. He returned to school two years later, but was again overburdened by his workload. He did not return again for four more years.
It was during this time that the idea for the poem came to Johnson, but it would be about five years until it would actually be written. Johnson returned to school in the fall of 2007 and, full of newfound confidence, decided to take pen to paper.
"I felt that I had enough background in French to write it, but I was still reluctant to share," Johnson says. "I still wasn't really confident that anyone would get it, understand it, appreciate it."
One of the first people to read it was Johnson's French professor and mentor, Michel Valentin. Impressed with the story, Valentin sent it to a friend who was a film-maker in Paris, who was also inspired by it and asked Johnson to draft it into a script. Excited by this prospect, Johnson began planning changes to his poem. His plans were put on hold when he was struck by yet another tragedy.
Last August, his mother contracted a nearly fatal strain of Legionnaire's Disease. Because his mother lives in Slayton, Minn., Johnson decided that he needed to be closer to her. He looked at colleges in the area and decided that Augustana was a good fit.
The film was put on hold during the transfer but, while browsing the Web one day, Johnson found another way to make his story heard. It was in the recommendations section of
Google Reader that Johnson stumbled upon a blog for a publisher in Paris that allowed writers to submit works to be published on the site.
"I thought it sounded kind of cool," Johnson says. And so he revamped his poem into a work of prose and added the other chapters.
"[The essay] begins with internal psychology and my self-perception and then moves into external perception," Johnson says. "It's also just a lot of random stuff I do."
After the essay was sent in, it was chosen for publication in the Web site's annual journal. It was the only non-fiction piece to make it in.
"I really feel blessed with everything that has happened," Johnson says. "I just appreciate that people recognize that in spite of being disabled, I'm a pretty intelligent guy and I can contribute a lot. At least I think I can."
Johnson hopes to do a reading of his essay in the spring and will also be presenting another one of his essays on one of Shakespeare's sonnets at a symposium in St. Louis.
And as for the movie?
"It's still in the works," he says.
7 comments
Keep up the good work and the positive attitude Chris!