Week Four Begins

We drove away from Newcastle Upon Tyne after finishing my first lecture of the final week. Lecture 14 to be precise. I managed to work with Ted our GPS to get Joe to the motorway and then, for the next 50 miles, I slept. The day after day grind of travel and lecture is beginning to really take its toll. We are both feeling the pull of Saturday and the flight home.

Yesterday Joe and I had an intense discussion about what food we'd be ordering in on Saturday. Would it be the Garlic Pepper or would it be B.B.Ques? We discussed this with a passion once reserved for great literature and future plans. We came down from the discussion dizzy with anticipation for Crunchy Tofu in Orange Peel sauce.

Our trip has been well planned in that our last week gets us ever closer to Heathrow, we've been all over England and Scotland and now we are wending our way slowly home. We love the time here, we love the sense of being away, we appreciate the opportuntity to spend a whole month meeting people and offering training. It's become a huge part of how we spend our lives.

But we can do without the hastle of hotels and dealing with the petty annoyances of travel. We are tired of restaurant food and the ready meals we pick up from the supermarket. We are both missing my power wheelchair and the independance it gives both of us. Joe caught his fingers in my wheelchair today and had to spend time washing his bloody hand clean.

But it is made worth it by small moments. Wendy and Daniel, two people with disabilities who attended my workshop today, emphasized the points I made about relationships by talking about reciprocity - not with a big word - but by glowing when she talked about his poetry, and he talked about how she lit up when he came into a room. They clearly expect much from life, they expect their rights as adults, they hope for a wonderful life together. Their words and thoughts entered easily and almost seemlessly into the points I had been making. I couldn't have planned their presence or presentation better.

So we look forward to home and what that means, we will work through this week, city after city, with an eye on being done. We know that in a month or two we will forget the unclean hotel room, the inaccessible doors, the steps where there should have been a ramp ... and we will remember Wendy and Daniel, Duncan, and Robert who wore a yellow shirt today and who listened carefully to everything I said and when doing an evaluation said, 'He was pretty good'.

Shoulders

I've always been unhappy with my shoulders. An odd admission, I'm sure. We all like or dislike various parts of our physical being, I like my eyes, I don't like my shoulders - let's just leave the rest out of it for now. When I was a little boy my grandmother, the one that was the more (um) critical, said, 'Awful narrow shoulders for a boy.' And it's true. It would be way more proportionate for a body as big as mine to hang from big manly shoulders. Instead I've got these wee little bumps only a few inches from my neck. Oh, well.

I thought that maybe being in a wheelchair and pushing myself around I might develop shoulders of steel. And maybe I have but they would be buried under mounds of baby fat. So I make my way through the world with shoulders more suited to Mickey rather than Mighty Mouse. Big deal. In fact, I've come to seldom think about my shoulders and wouldn't have except something happened today.

We were checking out of the hotel in Edinburgh and as is our pattern, after breakfast I stopped in the lobby to read as Joe went up to finish packing and then call for the porter to come and help with the bags. This way I'm not in the way, this is good planning because I tend to be in the way. We came upon this practice because one day when Joe was packing to get ready to leave like he always does I gave him a bit of (um) supervision. To which he responded that I'd probably be happier waiting in the lobby reading so I wouldn't be distressed with which bag he put which shirt in. OK, be touchy.

So I was reading my book, completely lost to the world when I heard a startled cry. I looked up to see the elderly man (from yesterday's blog) take a stumble just a little behind and to the side of me. He took a step and wavered another step and it was clear he was going to fall. He reached out for the closest thing and grabbed hard onto my shoulder. There was strength in that old hand. You knew that it, as part of a pair, had worked hard, made a living, raised a family. I braced my back to take his weight, he held on, steadied, held on a little more to be sure, then let go.

He looked embarrassed, I asked him if he was OK as a means of starting conversation and letting him know, by my tone of voice, that all was OK with me. 'I'm not far off a wheelchair,' he said, 'but I've been putting it off.' I smiled and said, 'It's not as bad as you might fear,' He smiled and said, 'Well, I'll face that when I need too, as long as there are strong shoulders around, I won't fear falling.'

I've decided, that for today, I like my shoulders. They may not be broad, they may not be manly or muscular, but they are - as he said - strong.

Hi, My Name is Cindy and I Am An ...

At breakfast I get a new motto for life:

We were seated overlooking a sunny morning. An elderly woman rushes by, surveys the available tables and then looks past us to her husband toddling along using his cane. She asked, 'What table would you prefer.' He said, without a hint of irony, 'I'd like one about a foot before collapse.'

At the movie theatre I get a new perspective - yeah it is that obvious:

We went to see A Christmas Carol in 3D and arrived a wee bit early. We sat outside waiting for the theatre to be cleaned from the previous showing and then we were let in. There were others waiting so we let them go first. When we got to the top of the ramp there was absolutely no wheelchair seating anywhere. There were three small stairs and then, past them, a perfect place to park the chair. I wanted no fuss, I'm not an activist every moment of every day, I got up. Joe hauled the chair up three steps and then helped me balance as I walked up the steps. As I was getting in the chair a grandmum with her grandson spoke to me, 'The facilities for the disabled here are terrible.' I nodded. Her boy, an outgoing kid said, 'Even I know there should be a ramp and I'm just 6.'

At the Marks and Spenser cafe I get a new appreciation for humour in tight spots:

A mom has bought a girl of about 4 one of those pre-inflated ballons that kids desperately want one minute and then turns into a horrible bother the moment it's purchased. She was trying to get it to stand up against the wall, propping the bottom of the stick against a plate. It would not stand. It kept crashing to the table. Little girl's whine increases in intensity and volume. She wants her balloon kept safe. Finally she says to mom, 'Why won't Cinderella stand up mom?' Mom says, 'She's drunk.'

And that dear readers is a glimpse into our Saturday in Edinburgh.

shhhh revolution in progress

There's been a quiet revolution going on at work. One that no-one, save me, may be noticing. I've been working at Vita for three years now and my wheelchair is well known, Joe is simply a fact of my employment - get one, get the other - as he helps me get around from place to place. When my wheelchair broke, I worked from home. When I'm away I check emails every day. My goal is that no one waits for an answer for more than 24 hours. Sometimes this makes for long evenings, but it's worth it to feel like a valued member of the team rather make that fatal drop out of the loop.

Recently our Behaviour Therapist has had horrible car accident. Now recuperating at home she wishes to be part of the team. Every part of the organization from human resources to executive director have to make decisions as to how to make her wishes possible. Slowly but surely things moved along. I've been following the emails of teams of people from the various locations where she consults have pulled together to figure out how she can best support them (she's good at that) but also how they can support her (they are good at that too).

It seemed like her temporary Visa pass into the world of disability means that she didn't have to give up citizenship in the world of work, of value, of contribution. People are beginning to understand adaption and the benefit of flexibility. The idea that she simply be sidelined wasn't ever really considered.

Workplaces can be places where all are valued and all are supported. I'm watching, from the sidelines in my wheelchair and I'm cheering them along. This, may just be, the future.

Scottish Youth Theatre

"They were right here?" I asked.

"Yes," he said, 'right here in the heart of the building.'

I was in the Scottish Youth center talking to the fellow who managed the rooms. He's an older guy who takes great pride in the building. He has just told me that the room I am presenting in is the formal jail attached to the court building. Even though the building is renovated and there are no traces left of cells and shackles, there is still the chill damp air that lets you know you are in a basement room. Looking up you can see walkways where guards would have strolled to keep an eye on you below.

The day began and at one point someone said something very funny and the whole audience was laughing. There were marvelous accoustics in the room and the laughter bounced off the walls around us. Changing the chemistry of the brick, laughter is the alchemists dream as it can turn grisly memories comedic gold dirt. 'Comedy is tragedy plus time,' Carol Burnett is quoted as saying.

Over the day I began to think of the room as less of a renovated jail and as more of a theatre for youth. I think because here in the beating heart of the building were people learning, laughing and expressing hope.

Buildings, like people, need their heart changed before renovation is complete.

It's a Slam Dunk ...

During the second break in the lecture day, Duncan came over and began chatting with me. He is a big man with a soft voice. At first we just chatted about some of the things he's been up to, but I had a feeling that he was there to tell me something, tell me more. So we kept chatting. Then he said, 'You know how you talked about saying no and keeping safe?'

I said that being safe was important.

He nodded, knowing.

Then, quietly, he told me the story of a walk home to his parents place. He spoke to me as if I was a local and knew the reference points for his walk. 'Up by Queen Street there ...' he'd say. My stomach was churning. These story never end well, they always involve pain. Before knowing what happened I looked at Duncan. A big man, a gentle demeanour, a ready smile, a friendly persona ... an easy guy. Don't tell me that someone hurt him too, don't tell me that in th minds of others his disability erased all that's good in him. Don't tell me, Duncan.

But he did tell me. Never losing pace. There were a group of kids, they took him on, one with a baseball bat. They terrorized him. That's the word he used, 'terrorized'. He understood that he was being attacked because of his disability. He understood that what was happening was wrong. More than that he knew that his treatment was criminal.

So. He sought justice. He put together a little team of support, his parents, a family friend, a key worker. And he told his story to the police. It was wrong. It needed to stop. Other people with disabilities needed to be protected.

Then he stopped. The story over.

I looked at him, he was calm. I was hanging over a cliff.

'What happened?'

'They are still in jail,' he said. His smile wasn't one of revenge, it was a smile of a man who had a job to do and did it.

I asked him if I could tell his story to the audience, write it for you ... he said that I could. The audience, on hearing his story burst into applause for him. He grinned. Knowing he had the heart of a hero, I grinned back at him. And now you, whereever you are, tip a pint, raise a glass, or punch the sky ... for the big man in Helensburgh

Duncan. You are the man!

Inch by inch the community is reclaimed by people with disabilities. Duncan, he expected something from the heart of the community - justice. And by God. He got it.

Books By Covers

You know how they say, 'Don't judge a book by its cover?' Well, I hate to tell you, I do that all the time. Right now I'm reading Drood by Dan Simmon's and I noticed it because it's dark and broody cover caught my attention. Ditto for many other books I've picked up over time. And I can say, my attempts at judging books by their cover are at lease equal to my attempts to judge books by their reviews on amazon 'waz gud'.

So as we were driving the final few miles of a very long drive, from Inverness to Helensburg, we tensed up. We couldn't see any hotels on the strip, all we could see were decrepit Guest Houses. Yikes. Then it got a little better when we found this place, one of the Innkeeper's Lodge chain. Joe pulled in front and entered what looked to be a YE OL SCOTTISH PUB. He came out with a couple of keys and we drove to the back of the building. He looked at me and said, hopelessly, you want me to go check. I said, 'You'd rather go to the guest houses back their and dine with sea birds and rodents?'

We have found it difficult getting accessible rooms from huge North American hotels, from established British Hostelry chains. What awaited us here? I said to Joe, partly because I was desperate to get into my room. What with a full day lecture and a four hour drive following, I was tired. We made our way in, up a ramp that wasn't quite square and down a long hallway. The room had the double peep holes, my hope rose. The door was wider than the one on the opposite side of the hallway, my hope rose again. The door opened to a large room. Large enough for my wheelchair, I sailed through the door. Yesterday I'd been in a 4 star hotel but had to get out of my chair to get into my room.

The bathroom is completely, perfectly equipped with a walk in shower, bars beside the toilet that are placed for human use, easy roll up access to the sink to shave. I have never cried while looking at a bathroom before, but I did now. Suddenly we were both energized. Welcome will do that.

We went down to the pub and Joe had a pint of Tennents and I had a green tea with cranberry (I was feeling frisky). On their bill of fare they had two vegetarian specials. We each ordered the vegetarian wellington with tatties and veg covered in red wine gravy. The pub looked like it had been here for years. Yet even it had wide doors and a big accessible bathroom.

We'd judged this book by it's cover and got it wrong. But then it was a hotel not a book, so what does that stupid saying mean anyways?

We're here for one night.

Shit.