Something To Think About

Dinner was over. Ruby was a bit restless, Sadie was still in the washroom with her mother. We went outside and Ruby crawled up in my lap and we sped along Dalhousie Street going for a ride. It had rained, a wicked hard rain, earlier and the streets had that wonderful, fresh, just washed smell. We got to the corner, turned around and headed back. Ruby was chatting with me, she's a talker, and laughing as we veered around the broken concrete on the sidewalk.

I really like these moment of sheer abandon, doing something that means nothing at all. Ruby loves them too. Sadie is also a new convert to the joys of having a friend in a wheelchair. At times I look like a float with one on my lap the other riding on the back of the chair. It's wonderful fun these trips. Wonderful, wonderful fun. I know I'm lucky. I know it. But something happened that shook me, to the core, shook me.

As we were riding back, I noticed a man, sitting in the shade of the building on a small step. He had a frayed Tim's cup beside him with the word 'Coins' pencilled on the inside white of the cup. He was watching us. Not staring at us, watching us, there is a mighty difference between those two things. As I approached, he waved to Ruby who didn't notice him as she had caught sight of her parents and Joe having come out of the restaurant. I didn't want him to feel ignored, and I knew that wasn't Ruby's intent, so I nodded acknowledgement of his greeting.

As I drove by, he spoke.

What he said was maybe the most profoundly sad thing I've ever heard.

"I was happy once too," he said.

Hands

Hands.

This is a post about hands.

I've always known that hands can help.

That hands can support.

That hands can offer gentle, soothing touch.

But they can do more.

Much more.

Today I took my power chair to work for the first time. I rolled up to the WheelTrans bus and the driver came out asking me if I wanted to ride in the front or the back. There was someone already on board, on a large scooter strapped into the middle spot. I told the driver that I preferred the front but would take the  back as I didn't see how I could get onto the bus and then into that space. There wasn't room.

He said, 'It's entirely possible, you just need to back up the ramp and swing right into place.'

I've never done that before, I told him so, and started heading to the back of the bus. He said, 'Hold on, not having done it isn't the same as can't do it, give it a try.'

I was pretty sure that I didn't have the skill and that my chair, which isn't powerful in reverse, wouldn't make it up the ramp. I told him that I thought what he was suggesting wasn't possible.

He said, 'I will guide you back, it will work just fine.'

I said, 'So you want me to just put myself in your hands.'

He said, 'My hands will guide you, your hands will do it.'

I lined up with the ramp and slowly backed up. I felt myself slide forward on the cushion, I was glad of the seat belt. My chair struggled a little but suddenly we were on the bus and I was swinging right into place. I was outrageously proud of myself and almost silly with glee. As he strapped me down on the bus, I got my token out to pay for the ride. He finished and reached out his hand and I placed it in his palm.

His hands had guided me into a realization that sometimes I give up too easily and sometimes I acquiesce to fear.

Hands can support.

And those same hands can give confidence.

And courage.

I placed myself in the hands of another.

And wasn't diminished by the fact.

That is, to me, the ultimate goal of service.

A Blog With A Preface

A Preface to Today's Blog: I almost didn't write this. I forget sometimes that this blog serves two purposes. One, it's meant to be read by others, and hopefully what they read will be memorable, or interesting, or helpful, or even simply amusing. Two, it's meant to be read by me - as a journal or diary of my life and my thoughts. This blog is the only really record of my life, we don't take photographs, we don't use our phone to make videos, I blog - that's it. However recently when something happens that I want to record, I haven't done it here. I've had some pretty nasty emails about my blog being 'egocentric' (which is odd because I thought all blogs kind of were) and 'full of boasting'. I am always stung by these emails. So I've been actively thinking about everything I write to be careful to avoid the 'boasting' ... I can't do anything about the egocentricity, after all it is a blog about my life. Then something happened a couple days ago that was highly meaningful to me, I knew it might not be meaningful for others, but I wanted to preserve it. I don't want to forget it. That's why I created the blog in the first place. So, even though accusations can be made about my motive, I've checked, and checked thoroughly, I simply want to remember this moment. So this blog is mostly for me, the me in the future who will be reading this. You may read too, if you want to share the moment with me.

The blog:

A few days ago I was doing training for staff on 'The Ring of Safety' ... which is a lecture that looks at the various skills that people with disabilities need to learn in order to be safe. I created this concept years and years ago and the lecture has been part of my repertoire for a long time. I've had to change the whole afternoon when doing the presentation in Ontario because the new legislation makes what I was doing redundant. So, I'd added in different material and was working through it with the audience, who were for the most part, really attentive.

Up near the front was a young fellow with a disability who in the morning asked a few questions. He was a very well spoken and thoughtful man. I remember thinking what an asset he'd make to the self advocate movement and really hoped he was involved. His questions were incisive, carefully asked, and focused on the issue at hand. He kept himself out of the questions - which is a skill that some self advocates have difficulty with - so the questions were content related. I enjoyed hearing his questions and following the thinking behind the questions.

In the afternoon, at one point, the presentation became really a conversation between him and me. He had questions and concerns about the legislation, police involvement and the cleverness of abusers. They were awesome questions and I worked as hard as I could to explain, as I understood the process we as service providers were supposed to follow.For maybe five or ten minutes it seemed like everyone else disappeared and he questioned while I listened, then he listened while I answered. It felt quite dynamic and I found myself truly and completely engaged. When done, he nodded that he understood and the workshop went on. I hoped that those attending found his questions interesting and the answers informative.

The workshop wound down and I told my last story and then pause, and thanked everyone for coming. The audience applauded warmly. He, however, stood up. It was maybe the smallest standing ovation I ever got, and yet is was one of the most meaningful. He noticed that no one else was standing and quickly sat down again. But it didn't matter. I had already by then been really affected by what he had done.

This will probably come out wrong, because I like applause as much as the next guy and when I get a standing ovation at the end of a lecture I'm always thrilled. But there is something a little different when someone with a disability stands, or when someone with a disability tells me I  got it 'right'. It's a different kind of affirmation. It means that those who really know, through the lives that they live, if the material 'fits' or 'is real' have given a stamp of approval.

I have many awards hanging on my office wall. One of my favourites is a very plain plaque, given to me by self advocates, at a CLO conference, thanking me for helping to keep them safe. I was moved to get it. I am moved when I see it and read the words on it.

The moment he stood up, I felt affirmed, I felt like my teaching and training had received the highest rating it could ever get. It mattered.

And I want to remember the moment that I got the smallest, yet largest, standing ovation of my career.

Blink, Blink, Blink, You've Got Blog

I was asked to participate in a conference by filming some answers to a few questions and then sending the video along. The clips from my answers would be used, along with clips from others with disabilities across the country, during a conference presentation. When I got the email, I read the questions and though that every one of them would be interesting to talk about. Here on my blog I get to talk about my disability but, other than here, I don't talk about it a whole lot. Especially to the depth that the questions would have me go.

I agreed to do this for them.

They sent me information on how to do it.

Within seconds of reading the instructions I knew that I simply didn't know enough about technology to be able to participate. I don't know when it actually happened that technology passed me by, but I know it's definitely happened. I don't know how to download a song, I don't know why phones need to do anything other that be a phone (I think phones are now in desperate need of counselling as they search for their lost identity). I have a wee camera that sits looking at me while I type. But I got tired of the relentless stare and unplugged it. I think that doing this, 'blogging' is the last thing that I did that was 'modern'.

I wasn't over being amazed at what fax machines could do when fax machines became nearly irrelevant.

I have come to see that red, insistent, demanding, intrusive, demanding, incessant, demanding, light that blinks on my Blackberry as the most harsh taskmaster I have ever had. Satanic red, I'm sure they chose Satanic red for a reason. I was lecturing the other day and had forgotten to turn the phone over so I couldn't see the light. Shortly after starting, it started, blink (answer me) blink (answer me now!) blink (you'd better check) blink (it's probably important) blink (go on, you want to). I turned it over, but for the rest of the hour, that red light blinked in my head.

So, I guess I don't have the best relationship with technology. I do wish I could do what they asked me to do, I would have loved to participate in some way. But ... I simply have no idea how to do it.

Joe came home with a fan, we've been having hot weather here, and I watched him assemble it. I help him by not helping. We yell at each other less that way. When he he was almost done he reached in the box and I heard him howl 'oh, no!' ... 'it has a REMOTE CONTROL'. Another to stack up in the apartment. Another one where we will figure out one setting and leave it at that.

I figure if we can't get a 40 dollar fan to operate in oscillating sleep mode, I ain't never going to send a video email.

How are the rest of you ... have you been passed by too?

Quadruple Soothing Action

I was working on a book chapter on the victimization of people with intellectual disabilities and how to effectively help people overcome, or at least master, the resultant feelings of self blame, worthlessness and powerlessness. To get myself started I needed to do a literature review on some specific areas of abuse and trauma. I always find lots of stuff I didn't know, often find myself pausing to read some powerful pieces of research, and of course I get sidetracked into other factors about abuse in articles that aren't quite on the topic. Part of the reason I agree to write book chapters or journal articles is that the process requires me to spend time reading research and updating myself. This is good.

It's also depressing.

My hesitation in getting started on this chapter has been doing this review. I just didn't feel emotionally up to it - writing the chapter - no problem - but the review of the literature serves to substanitate the breadth and the depth of the problem. It's hard to look away from the computer screen and see the world as anything other than a place where people are hurt. Today I was reading, from a blog on abuse, a personal story that moved me literally to tears.

I reached into my wheelchair bag, laying on my desk, for a tissue. I heard the crinkly sound of a bag, not unlike a potato chip bag. I opened my bag to see what made the sound and found a bag of 'Triple Soothing Action' cough drops. I immediately flashed to the friendly face of the man in the theatre in Butler where I spent two days lecturing recently. I was at the very end of this horrid cough that's been going round and after break found this bag left for me by the fellow from the audience.

It was an act of pure kindness.

It wasn't expected.

Then.

Or now.

But just seeing that bag, being reminded of the capacity for people to be kind was powerfully needed at that moment. Right at that moment.

It says that the cough drops are triple soothing but in fact, they can add one more, because today, it soothed my soul to have a tangible reminder that, while there are those in the world who hurt, there are also those who's hands offer gifts, not pain.

Silence and Social Change

Everyone looked at me.

Everyone.

We were riding home on the subway. I have mastered the art of getting on and getting backed into space in the short time the train is stopped at the station. I'm proud of this, it took work to learn. Joe was sitting across from me and we were quietly riding home. A mother and two children were sitting on the bench beside Joe. The little girl was pointing up at the subway map which was over my head just above the door.

They were counting the number of stops that they had to ride to get to the destination. It's the kind of things that kids like to do. Ruby, and now Sadie, loves to count things. I enjoyed their enthusasm with numbers and with counting. Then the little girl said that she wanted to get off at 'that' stop. Mother couldn't figure which one she was pointing to and was trying to get the little girl to tell her the letter that the stop name started with. The child was having none of it.

'That one!'

'Honey, I don't know which one you are pointing too.'

'That one there!!!'

'What letter does the word start with?'

'That one. The CRIPPLED one.'

'What?'

'The one with the CRIPPLED MAN on it.'

This went on for some time. The word CRIPPLED echoing through the subway car. Everyone seemed affected by it but the mother. I could feel the discomfort in the subway car. I could feel eyes NOT looking at me. I watched the mother. I watched the child. I waited for the mother to suggest to her child that maybe that isn't the best word to use. But Mother stayed focussed on trying to figure out where her daughter was pointing. Her inability to 'get it' frustrated the child and the word CRIPPLED was said over and over and over again.

And I made a decision.

The responsibility to say something isn't solely mine. I could see the discomfort of all on the train. I didn't know, of course, if they were uncomfortable with the word BECAUSE I was there, or if they would have been uncomfortable even if I wasn't there. But, that discomfort made everyone equally responsible. Should only black people have the responsibility to speak up if someone on a subway car uses hostile language about race? Should only gay people have the responsiblity to speak up if someone on a subway care uses hostile language about sexuality? I think not. I really, really, think not.

So I decided NOT to do or say anything.

I didn't like being made responsible by default.

I hoped my inaction would spur someone to say something. The tension needed to break, people were mortified, people were disturbed, people seemed to want to teleport out of there. But no one said anything.

Not one person.

Not even me.

Because, I beleive that sometimes my silence is more powerful than my voice. Sometimes I think I need to shift responsibility over. Sometimes, in all honesty, I just don't feel like being 'the one' who says 'hey, maybe you want to consider another word'.

What I hope happens is that someone, even just one someone, who was on that train is sitting at home thinking, 'I should have said something - next time I will.'

Silence as a form of making social change.

I don't know if it will work. But it's what I tell myself - because I want to think that I did something by not doing something. And, even if it's a lie I tell myself, it gives me a break from the constant responsiblity that comes as part of the package with being different.

A Cuppa Tea on June 19th

Today is Victoria Day in Canada and we are in the middle of a wonderful stretch of sunny and warm days. We've been taking full advantage of the time off, enjoying the calm, quiet, life of leisurely gentlemen. How lovely. As this day harkens to our membership in the British Commonwealth I've decided to announce Rolling Around in My Head's first annual Juneteenth celebration. This day is growing as a worldwide celebration, often called Freedom Day as it acknowledges the announcement of the abolition of slavery in Texas in 1865. Hold on, I'll connect the dots and get us from Texas to England in a second or two.

I would like readers to join me on June 19th by performing an act of remembrance. I've had this idea for months. Joe and I had been to the Royal Ontario Museum and were making our way through a series of exhibits. On one, Joe sat on a bench and we pushed a button to listen to a pre-recorded voice tell us about the link between sugar, tea, and the abolition of slavery in most of the British Empire. I found the story incredible, powerful and one that gave me great hope.

The story, as we heard it, told of the coming of tea to Great Britain. Tea is so linked in my mind with British culture that I was surprised to learn of it arriving on British shores. Shakespeare never had a cuppa tea, because tea had not yet been imported, how sad. When it did arrive, it arrived big. Tea was served, almost universally, highly sugared. It was a sweet treat, savoured as a luxury and a necessity both. As the resistance to slavery was growing, the idea of sugar as a 'dirty' product produced by slave labour took hold. People were encouraged to drink their tea black - or with sugar that was produced by free workers.

In a very short time people began ordering, loudly, tea without sugar. It was a political statement, a personal statement, and ultimately a highly powerful statement against slavery and for the abolition of the buying and selling of human beings. The protest was highly successful. Sugar sales plummeted which indicated a mass demand for the end to slavery.

The idea that a simple act could be a powerful act moved me.

The idea that one person could make a choice that made a statement inspired me.

The idea that acts with mammoth consequences could be so tiny, so seemingly insignificant, gave me hope.

It reminded me that I make choices every day. Choices about how I act, how I demonstrate respect, how I can make the world around me a place of safety and welcome. It gave me a sense of the power of an individual and of an idea.

So, I'd like you all to join me on June 19th in having a cup of unsweetened tea. Iced tea. Hot tea. Green tea. Black tea. Jasmine tea. Orange Pekoe tea. Whatever. And more than that, explain to those around you the significance of your choice of beverage. Read about Juneteenth, explain why it's important to join in the commemoration.

I've bought boxes and boxes of Yorkshire Tea and will be giving out bags of it to those around here who wish to join me in celebration of Freedom Day. I know that Yorkshire Tea wasn't even around back in the days of protest but it's British, it has a Royal Warrant, and today is Victoria Day.

So, consider joining Rolling Around in My Head's first, annual, Juneteenth Cuppa Tea Celebration.

Let me know if you will be having a cuppa tea, without sugar, on the 19th of June.