Living in a disabling world
▫️In these encounters, I knew with perfect clarity that if I wanted this person’s help, I’d have to ask for it, loud and clear. Direct gaze, firm voice. “Can you please open the gate for me?”
I don’t always have the surplus energy for this. I know that the physical effort I will expend in opening the gate is an order of magnitude larger than what I’m asking of this other person, who can slide the bolt effortlessly, push and pull the gate with barely a thought. But I also know that the physical effort I’ll be expending can be less strenuous than the emotional effort of saying the right words in precisely the right way.
▫️What does the utopian city look like, the one in which I participate “on an equal basis with others”? I have an inkling I can envision the broad sidewalks and the spacious metro cars departing from perfectly level platforms. I can see, just about, the absence of barriers that are clearly barriers, leftovers from a time when being able to walk was an absolute requirement for citizenship. What I cannot see, cannot think into being, is a world where there is no greater effort required of me than of the average person, whoever they are. Where the difference between us is erased and I, driving my large, black, powered wheelchair, blend into the crowd