No Blog Today

"I was making rather merry."

Forgive me but I'm taking a day off from blogging today. The last day of my 57th year kind of bled into the first day of my 58th year and as a result, this old boy is just plain tired. I've been staring at the computer screen for about 15 minutes trying to decide what to write.

For awhile I thought I'd write about how, when it's just family, the wheelchair becomes integrated into activities in ways so utterly normal. Everyone wants a shoot at pushing me in the chair, everyone helps with the footplates, room is automatically made at the table. No muss, and the little fuss there is, well, it's the pleasant kind. But then I realized that I wasn't up to describing how mighty Ruby felt when she first pushed my footplate down and how accomplishment rang in her voice when she said, 'OK, Dave.'

Then I thought I'd write about how the woman at Walmart who did the 'family portrait' couldn't call me anything but 'the wheelchair'. How I had to bite my tongue and let it go. This was a gift, and a nice one. This was the first thing we did together on the birthday morning, the mood established here would travel through the day. I decided to just shut up and be 'the wheelchair'. My only little act of outrage was when we were to go and pick the picture, the one bought for Joe and I, and she said, 'Everyone but the wheelchair, there's no room for wheelchairs back here.' Mike sputtered that it was a present for us. I said to Joe, let's just go in. Of course there was room for wheelchairs. All I said was, 'And you weren't going to let me choose?' She looked chastened, or I choose to think that look was apology not gas, and that was enough. I just let it go. But ultimately I don't want to write about that because it's got way too negative a tone for way too nice a day.

But then, I thought, maybe I'd write about my reaction to the movie AVATAR ... did it really have a better dead than disabled theme ... or am I just to sensitive to how disability is portrayed. Finally, I decided that I needed more time to think through the mess of emotions I felt watching the movie. I think, over all, on my birthday, I wish we had gone to see the Fabulous Mr. Fox.

Or I could write about the little note card that Joe left for me by my shaving gear. But that's entirely too personal, I've just tucked the card into my briefcase and its sentiment into my heart. So, there's no blog to be written there.

So, apologies all.

I'm taking the day off.