Stacyverb

A friend, a tool, a part of my body

For obscure reasons, since seventh grade, I’ve given every wheelchair I’ve used the same name: Fred. Recently, I acquired a new Fred. It’s lightweight, handles beautifully, and was a bargain besides. As happy as I am to have it, though, the changing of the guard from one Fred to another is always a bittersweet transition.

All Freds must retire eventually, and my previous one had a good run of eight or nine years. A while back, the vinyl on his armrests started to crack and peel, so I gave them a makeover with leopard-print duct tape—an embellishment that garnered compliments from strangers almost daily. By the end of his term, Old Fred was in pretty rough shape—torn seat, bolts that wouldn’t stay tightened, rubber tires beginning to crumble.

I wonder how many miles I put on him. Besides routine activities like going to work and running errands, Old Fred and I had countless adventures together. We wheeled across the Golden Gate Bridge, explored Mayan ruins, and tackled mud season in Vermont. Many, many times we off-roaded over terrain he wasn’t built to handle, and he always rose to the challenge.

We went to rock shows as well as rocky outcroppings. We twirled around the dance floors of Nashville honky tonks, a Mexican disco, and weddings and reunions from coast to coast. We once modeled for a book about style so I could school folks on the challenges of dressing for a seated lifestyle (spoiler alert: high heels won’t make you look any taller).

Old Fred also rolled with me into a Tennessee hospital room to say goodbye when my father-in-law passed away. On another terrible morning, together we held Nacho Kitty in my lap as she was euthanized.

A wheelchair is just an inanimate object, right? Except it’s not. It’s a tool, and an extension of the user’s body. Transitioning from a familiar wheelchair to a new one feels strange at first. I don’t know what comparison I can make, to explain it to somebody who doesn’t use one. It’s kind of like a new pair of shoes, or a new car, but also like a new…I don’t know, roommate? Pet? This new…entity…becomes your constant companion.

This isn’t the time for a lecture about why expressions like “confined to a wheelchair” and “wheelchair-bound” are outdated, insulting, and generally just plain inaccurate. But I will say this: using a wheelchair has never made me feel restricted. The barriers and obstacles of the able-bodied world have often made me feel restricted, but to me, the wheelchair itself represents freedom. Without it, I’d be limited to…what? My house? The constant pain and frustration of trying to make my body do something it can’t do—namely, walk?

As I write this, Old Fred has been parked in a closet for about a month. Although I’m not using him anymore, I can’t quite bring myself to let him go yet. Soon I’ll donate him, maybe to a non-profit that needs him for parts, or to someone who can use him in an art project. (A previous generation of Old Fred went into show business when I retired him, becoming a prop for a local theater company.) He’s earned some rest.

Another era has begun, and my new Fred will be with me for whatever experiences come next.

Songs About Girls With Wheels

It's a time of change around here. I find myself unemployed this summer, which presents some challenges for sure, but also gives me time to focus on writing and submitting.

 

This week I'm very pleased to have a piece of flash fiction in Atticus Review's music issue. This story, “Songs About Girls With Wheels,” is one of several short pieces I’ve been working on that feature protagonists in wheelchairs.

Although I was born with a physical disability and have been writing most of my life, I always resisted writing about characters with disabilities because 1) living with a disability is so normal to me, it’s not something I dwell on. (There are so many other subjects I’d rather think/talk/write about.) And 2) I didn't want to get pigeonholed as a “disabled writer.” I never wanted people to expect me to write about that.

Eventually, though, I realized that if I want to see more representations of people like me, I should create some! This story is part of that effort. I hope it presents a different perspective that makes readers look at the world in a slightly new way. Enjoy!

Write what you know--or don't

I've been spending some time this week going through old writing files, looking for any long-hibernating pieces that I might want to finish while I have some uninterrupted time in Vermont next month. Meh...didn't find much worth pursuing. I realized I'm much more interested in finishing the first draft of what I started during Camp NaNoWriMo 2012, and working on another story or two that are bubbling in my brain.

In a lot of those older pieces, I was playing it very safe. My main characters tended to be people who were a lot like me--women around my age who'd gone to college, were creative in some way, and a bit rootless. Sometimes they were idealized versions of me--braver, or more talented, or with more resources. All pretty typical, young writer experiments, I suppose.

These days I'm working on some things about people who are very different from me. An old man. A very young married woman. People who've lived their whole lives in one place while the world moves around and past them. This writing is definitely more an exercise in imagination and empathy than in ventriloquism or wish-fulfillment.

Interestingly, one thing I've never done is write a story about a person in a wheelchair. Yet, I get frustrated at how rare it is to see any well-developed characters in wheelchairs, and that's largely because the few attempts I see at depicting such characters are created by people who...well, it's not their story.

So if I want a character like that to exist, a story like that to be told, maybe I should be writing it myself. But then the minute I create a character in a wheelchair, won't people assume it's just a thinly-disguised version of me? Probably. SO TRICKY.

Still...they say (you know..."they") every writer has at least one story that only she or he can tell. Since I've never seen a story like mine, maybe that's the story I should be telling. But it feels too obvious! It feels like cheating! I'm just now getting comfortable telling stories about people who aren't like me! Just thinking about this is making me throw a tantrum!

That's probably a sign that I'm onto something....

Frida

As I was saying the other day, I nearly got kicked out of the High Museum because I was fawning over Frida and was reluctant to leave when it was time for the museum to close.

I can't remember how/where/when I first learned about Frida Kahlo and her art, so I have no idea which fascinated me first--her life story or her work. That seems fitting, in a way, because the two are really inextricably linked. Frida took up painting as a young woman while she was in bed recovering from serious injuries she suffered in a bus accident. Even before that, she had leg problems because of childhood polio, which made one leg smaller than the other. Self-conscious about the way her legs looked, she adopted her signature style of wearing full, colorful skirts. Throughout her life, she was plagued by physical pain, and that pain was a frequent subject for her paintings, especially her self-portraits.

Although I'm obviously not an iconic artist, and her ailments far surpass anything I've had to deal with, I relate to Frida on some level and find inspiration in her life and work. She used creativity as a way to deal with her physical limitations. When I was a kid, having frequent fractures because of my brittle bone condition, I had to spend a lot of time in bed as well. Or if not in bed, at least being fairly immobile. Those times when I had to "take it easy" fueled my ability to entertain myself, as well as my interest in pursuits like reading, writing, and making things with my hands. So basically, just about everything that makes me, me. (Not to mention my love of Frida-like skirts--most literally interpreted here.)

 

The Broken Column, photo via learner.org

This has always been one of my favorite Frida paintings, and at the High exhibit I finally got to see it in person. Spending so much time looking at this portrait was one of the main reasons the museum was about to close around me, and I won't lie, seeing this up close made me cry. In this painting, Frida is broken but beautiful, struggling but strong. Her gaze looks directly at the viewer, sad but also defiant, and says, "This is me." Frida had a hard life, but she created beauty from it. Through the pain, she approached her life and art with colorful intensity.

 

photo via milenio.com

One of my travel dreams is to visit the Frida Kahlo Museum (aka Casa Azul) in Mexico City. The museum is housed in the vibrant home where she lived and worked, and it displays, among other things, the wheelchair where she sometimes sat to paint, as well as her bed with mirrored canopy that she used for painting self-portraits while bed-ridden. Someday! Maybe I can get thrown out of that museum, too!

Push Girls

A few days ago, Megan over at Silver & Chalk alerted me to the new reality show Push Girls, debuting this week on the Sundance Channel.  Push Girls follows the lives of four Los Angeles women who use wheelchairs.

Reading advance press about the show, I had a few misgivings.  Aside from the obviously exploitive tendencies of "reality" programs, I also noticed a lack of diversity among the women--all of them are in wheelchairs because of paralysis.  Another red flag was how the women were described as "four best friends."  Really?  I don't even know three other people in wheelchairs. 

Skeptical but curious, I watched the premiere episode last night (the shows airs on Mondays at 10pm, but if--like me--you don't have the Sundance Channel, you can watch archived episodes on Hulu).  I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised.

Well, actually, the opening sequence was pretty cringeworthy, with the four women striking various outrageous (eye roll) poses and declaring, "I push...beyond limits," "I push...beyond my wildest dreams," etc. and announcing repeatedly, "I'm a push girl!"  (I had a Mean Girls "fetch" moment thinking, "Stop trying to make 'push girl' happen.  That's not a thing.")  But once I pushed...beyond the corny opening (tagline: "When you can't stand up, stand out!"), I enjoyed the show.

 

Promotional photo from the Sundance Channel

In the first episode, we meet the four women and get a look inside their lives.  Tiphany, a self-described "serial relationshipist," goes clubbing and deals with some dating drama; Angela, the most severely disabled woman in the group (she's quadriplegic, while the others are paraplegic) is worried about money and wants to return to her former career as a model; Mia, who became paralyzed not in an accident like the others but because of a random spinal aneurysm that ruptured when she was 15, has a boyfriend who wants her to move in with him, but she's scared of losing her independence; and Auti and her (able-bodied) husband are debating whether or not to have a baby.

Throughout the half-hour episode, the women meet for brunch, work out, shop for groceries, etc., and their wheelchairs are obviously present, but they're not the focus.  The camera lingers more on the women themselves than on their chairs, except when it's of particular interest in the scene, like when Tiphany pulls her chair out of her car so she can pump gas. 

Several times in this episode, the girls talk about how important appearances are in Los Angeles, and let's be honest, this is a reality show, so none of these women are ugly.  But I liked what Mia had to say about this.  Dubbed over a scene of her and Tiphany exercising at a gym, she says:

Being in a wheelchair does create an image in other people's minds.  So I think it's nice if they see somebody that looks like they've taken an effort in their appearance.  I think most people haven't seen sexy in a wheelchair and that's why they can't fathom it.

Word.  I'm anxious to see what direction this show takes.  And while I do wish a wider range of disabilities were represented, many of the challenges these ladies face are universal to anyone who uses a wheelchair.  For example, when Angela phones a modeling agency about a casting call and tells them she's in a wheelchair, the woman on the phone politely informs her that the agency has stairs.  Angela asks, "Oh, so you're not wheelchair accessible?" and the woman says, "No, we're wheelchair accessible, just...there's a staircase."  Haha!  (Yes, people really say this kind of hilarious shit all the time.)

I'll definitely be watching more episodes of Push Girls and blogging about them in the near future.  Stay tuned!

Quality vs. quantity

Last weekend, I boxed up a bunch of clothes to drop off at the thrift store.  Among them were quite a few me-made garments.  In the past, I've been reluctant to get rid of handmade items.  But my standards seem to have gotten higher, and now I just want these things gone.

 

Here’s a me-made blouse I've been wearing since 2005 or so, despite several problems that I kept rationalizing.  Such as: I sewed the cuffs on backward (oops).  There’s a little stain in front (I can just wear a sweater over it).  It doesn’t actually fit right (oh that).  This was one of the first "tailored" garments I made for myself, and I was quite proud at the time (backward cuffs notwithstanding).  But let's be honest: it's poorly tailored.  The whole body is too wide, and the shoulder seams hang way below my actual shoulders.  In the years since I made this blouse, I’ve figured out how to deal with my very narrow shoulders when I'm sewing.  So now I’ve finally reached a point where I look at this garment and go, NO.  It has too many problems.  I no longer feel cute in it, just sloppy.

 

Speaking of sloppiness, here are three skirts I've been wearing with safety pins taking in the waistbands, because they're all way too big (the downside of regular exercise).  Yet I continued to wear them.  The orange one in the middle is me-made, and I’ll need to replace that soon, because my summer wardrobe depends heavily on having an orange skirt in the mix.

The other two came from thrift stores anyway, so why cling to them?  I almost got rid of the black one during a previous closet purge, but I thought, "No, you need a black skirt!"  As if another black skirt (that actually fit) would be so hard to come by! 

The white flowered one I shouldn't have bought in the first place.  It was too big when I bought it, but I was blinded by its beauty.  And it was $3.29.  I figured that judicious use of safety pins would make it work.  Ditto a pair of me-made black pants (not even worth photographing).  I've kept “making do” with all these too-big garments that wanted to slide right off my body because I figured, hey, I'm sitting down anyway, so there's nowhere for them to go.  Ugh!  I’m now realizing just how many of my garments are wearable only because my wheelchair holds them onto my body.

Anyway.  I'm tired of making do, and no longer interested in keeping clothes that are almost fine.  And honestly, although my sewing skills have vastly improved over the years, I'm clueless about alterations.  So these things are going bye-bye, to make room in my closet for new things that fit and are flattering.

Do you hang on to clothes unnecessarily?  If you make your own garments, do you find it harder to get rid of those, even when you know they're not working?

Snapshot: Mermaid Access

Restroom at Harbour Bar & Fish House

My guest post at Already Pretty

Today I'm honored to have a guest post at one of my favorite blogs, Already Pretty!  You can read it here.  Thank you, Sally, for inviting me to write this post.

Look at us, we're beautiful

During Me-Made-May, I discovered many wonderful blogs and have kept up a correspondence with some of the participants.  Unfortunately, I've gotten behind in my blog reading as well as writing recently, so I'm just now getting around to acknowledging that one of these blog pals, Sølvi of delfinelise, has gifted me with the Beautiful Blogger Award.

Thank you, Sølvi!  What a nice surprise.  As a recipient of this award, I'm supposed to tell my readers ten things they might not know about me.  (Obviously, if you're my friend or relative in real life, most of this won't be news to you!)  So here we go, in very random fashion:

1. I would like to learn to play a musical instrument, especially the mandolin.

2. When I first met my husband, sparks did not immediately fly.  In fact, I believe my exact thought about him was, "Who is that doofus?"  Heh.  Romantic, no?

3. My super-power is the ability to guess the circumference of someone's head.  This actually comes up a lot at my job, so it's very handy.  Kid heads are more difficult to guess than adult heads.

4. Two jobs I always thought I would hate: teaching, and working retail.  But now I have a job in a retail shop where I also teach (knitting classes), and I love my job!  Never say never. :)

5. I came to Atlanta from snowy central Pennsylvania in 1994 "to spend the winter" and accidentally ended up living here for the past 16 years and counting.  Oops!

6. The fact that I've now lived in the same house for 10 years is bizarre to me.  In the first 31 years of my life, I moved about 20 times.  My dad was in the Air Force, and then I went to college far away from where my family was living, so for those four years, I moved cross country twice a year.

7. The town where I went to college is the Christmas Tree Capital Of The World.  It's also the hometown of Jimmy Stewart of It's A Wonderful Life fame, so all in all, it was (and probably still is, but I haven't visited in years) a very festive place to be during the holiday season.

8. My original major was journalism, but my degree is in English with a minor in women's studies.  How did any of that lead to my working and teaching at a knitting shop?  Who knows?!  Life takes you in some unexpected directions (see #2, 4 & 5 above).

9. Despite my current reputation as a cat lover, I actually never had a cat until my early 20s.  When I was growing up, we were a dog family.  When I was on my own and longing for a pet, I "settled" for a cat because I couldn't have a dog in my apartment.  Now I can't imagine life without kitties.  I still love dogs, but cats keep finding us, so with our current four we are maxed out on pets.  Someday we'll have a dog, I'm sure.

10. My wheelchair's name is Fred.  The origins of this are hazy, but it goes back to seventh grade and has stuck with every wheelchair I've had over the years.  I also use "fred" (lowercase "f") as a generic term for wheelchairs, e.g., "That guy has a really sporty fred."  Also, people in wheelchairs crossing the street are "fredestrians."  Ha!  Yes, I crack myself up.

And now I bestow upon you all the Beautiful Reader Award!  Wear it proudly, and tell me something random about yourself in the comments.

Wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!!!

For Christmas, I got a Wii.  I'm not into video games normally, but I wanted a Wii for exercise.  I'm not terrible about exercising, but I get bored easily and I just wanted more options, so if I wasn't in the mood to ride my stationary bike or whatever, I could do something else.

The other thing is, the Wii gives me a chance to play sports virtually.  Most sports aren't do-able for me in my wheelchair, but with the Wii, I can now sort of play tennis (and ski, and swordfight...). :)  

Besides having the Wii Sports that came with the Wii, now I've invested in Wii Sports Resort and Wii Fit Plus.  They're all super fun and certainly have been keeping Adverb and I entertained throughout this cold winter.

While I physically never will be able to do some of the Wii Fit Plus games because I can't stand up, I've been able to improvise on a lot of the activities by sitting or kneeling on the balance board.  And I have to say, I've only had it for less than three weeks, but I can already tell that the yoga activities in particular are helping my posture.  Before, I used to get headaches at least twice a week from tension in my neck and back, but since starting the Wii Fit Plus, I haven't had one single headache.  Woot!  Maybe it will also make me taller....

Before I got my Wii games, I would exercise fairly regularly, but I really had to psyche myself up to do it.  Now, I have so much fun doing it, sometimes I have to force myself to stop.  The cuteness factor alone is a motivator: just look how adorable I am here, doing some Rhythm Kung Fu with celebrity Miis Georgia O'Keeffe and Frida Kahlo!

P.S. I hope you enjoy the new banner and color scheme.  I just had to brighten things up around here to get ready for spring!