Month: January 2019

The World is a China Shop (but I am not a Bull)

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One of my earliest memories is of committing, as many people call them, a random act of blindness. I was navigating one of those stores not designed for most humans. You know the ones: narrow aisles, delicate displays, teetering piles of items just begging to be toppled. My cane bumped something made of glass, which promptly shattered with what I felt was an unnecessary amount of drama. Immediately, my parents began apologizing as a staff member swooped down on us, sweeping up the pieces and saying very little. Maybe it was my parents’ reflexive need to apologize for my blindness, rather than focusing on the actual damage done, or the woman’s tight-lipped refusal to reassure, but the shame was instant and pervasive. Even as a very young child, I knew enough to realize I’d done a terrible thing, well beyond the realm of typical childlike troublemaking. I had drawn attention to myself and my fundamental differences. I had not been careless, though I’d certainly broken things for that reason before. I was not touching objects I shouldn’t, nor was I being especially rowdy. In fact, I was doing my best not to brush up against anything at all, aware that we were in a sacred-seeming place where impeccable behaviour was paramount. This had happened because I couldn’t see; because I was different; because I couldn’t control my impact on the world as rigidly as other kids could.

As I grew, I witnessed enough nondisabled people knocking things over and making messes to learn that what I’d done in that cluttered store was very human and very normal. All around me, people spill food and knock over their drinks. When they cook, food splatters. When they go into a badly designed store, they displace items just by walking past them. How many times have I stepped carefully around messes while out and about? It happens. People make mistakes. The world is an unpredictable place that is rarely designed for the maximum comfort of its population. Clear paths and barrier-free environments don’t seem very common, even though everyone would benefit from them. We are all living in a china shop, and we are all of us bulls at some point.

And yet, concerned strangers continue to treat me with fear–not only for my safety, but for theirs.

“Watch what you’re doing with that cane.”

“Are you gonna hit me with that thing?”

“Hold on, hold on, I’ll get out of your way!”

If you want to make someone feel like a cross between a fragile doll and a rampaging rhinoceros, say things like that. Bonus points if there’s a child involved.

The shame persists. I knocked over a plant at work this morning, which was perched on a window ledge. A casual sweep of my hand wasn’t enough to locate the obstacle, and when I set my backpack on the ledge, as I do at least once a week, the plant fell to the floor, pieces of its wooden stand skittering noisily into a corner. The whole affair was loud and humiliating, , and when I told a fellow blind friend about it, she shared my disproportionate shame.

“So I knocked over a plant this morning. I committed plantslaughter!”

“Noooo! Not plantslaughter! I think I would have died of embarrassment.”

“Had death been an option I might have considered it at that moment.”

Of course making messes and destroying someone else’s belongings is embarrassing. I think most people would find it so. Few would walk away from such an incident without feeling a twinge of guilt.

But as I poured myself a coffee, reassured that the plant would survive, that old familiar shame returned. I was a bad, careless blind person. My colleagues would think I couldn’t be trusted. I should have double and triple-checked that window ledge. How would I ever be taken seriously if I carried on this way?

Clumsy.

Awkward.

Unprofessional.

At some point, my more rational side piped up: wasn’t I being a wee bit hard on myself here? Was all this self-flagellation appropriate? I knocked over a plant, which wasn’t supposed to be there anyway. I didn’t harm anyone, or murder a puppy. I knocked over a precariously positioned object, I apologized, and I got the mess taken care of right away. I apologized some more. How was this situation different from when nondisabled people knock something over?

It wasn’t. Perhaps a sighted person would have seen the plant and been more careful, but perhaps they would have missed it in the dimly lit room, or been too distracted to notice. The absence of disability is no perfect shield against mistakes, and sighted people are not inherently graceful. If anything, I am slightly more cautious than the average person because I know that any error I do make may be misinterpreted. White canes and service dogs are sometimes identified as health and safety issues, which functionally means that the person using them is also a health and safety issue. Someone to be feared. Someone to be planned for. Someone to be managed.

I will never be comfortable with making a mess—social anxiety will make sure of that. I don’t enjoy disrupting my environment and I’ll always connect such disruptions, at least tangentially, with my disability. I will probably always apologize a little too profusely.

Next time it happens, though—and it will happen—I’ll think back to this moment, where I realized that I was making afar larger fuss than anyone around me. My unwarranted reaction, far from doing damage control, made it more likely that someone would alter their view of my professionalism and competence. Better to simply apologize, take care of the mess, and give myself the same grace I so easily give to everyone else.

I hope you will think back to this, too, and I hope you will give yourself a little grace.

Let’s Hear it for the Small Wins

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For me, the most exhausting part of living a disabled life is feeling the calling (or the burden) to educate those around me, and watching my attempts fail to take hold. I’ve been walking this planet for almost a quarter century now, and people I’ve known for most of that time still regularly send me undescribed images and grab me by the wrist when they should be offering an elbow. I make the same mistakes with my own friends and family, asking silly questions and continually messing up when I ought to know better. Time and time again, the universe keeps teaching me that regardless of how many marginalized groups you interact with, there’s no guarantee the lessons you learn will stick with you.

Then, there are the equally frustrating encounters with strangers—for instance, the man who, undeterred by my puffy parka and suit jacket, gripped my arm hard enough to inflict actual pain because he did not trust me to open a door on my own. Even after a swift and firm rebuke on my part—which never gets easier to do, by the way—he followed me around the elevator lobby, either unaware or uncaring that his assistance was not welcome. I can go through this routine a thousand times, and even when people are receptive and apologetic, the stress adds to the daily grind in ways that catch up to me, no matter how hard I try to be philosophical about it.

One down, many thousands to go. How uplifting!

Much is made of the big, sweeping changes, like inclusive hiring policies and game-changing legislation. Too little is made of quiet moments of reflection, advocacy, and individual triumph. It’s easy to get the community fired up about the stranger who grabbed you in the elevator lobby, but a lot harder to get them to rejoice with you when one more person finally “gets it.” Every day, one more taxi driver understands why service dogs should be allowed in his cab. One more teacher accepts that her fear of teaching disabled students is a doorway, not a dead end. One more parent respects a disabled child’s boundaries, as painful as it is to pull back and let go. These small but mighty turning points, the “I never thought of it that way” and “that makes sense now” and “I’m sorry” are happening everywhere, all the time. They don’t change the broken system that is so terribly skewed, but they matter, just the same. From what I’ve observed, so few people are talking about them.

Why not?

Seriously, why are we not doing more to congratulate each other for the ripples we are making? Why are we not doing more to tell others about those ripples in the first place? Maybe they’ll turn into waves, and maybe they won’t, but when’s the last time you stopped to truly appreciate the wins, tiny as they are? I know it’s been too long since I’ve stopped being sad about the times I couldn’t reach a person long enough to think about the times I managed to get through to them. Only now am I beginning to realize this is not the healthiest approach.

It’s discouraging to know that most people will repeat the mistakes we correct. Not everyone, not even most people, will remember your explanations and teachable moments. You have probably forgotten a lot of what you’ve been told over the years about how to treat people the way they’d like to be treated. I’m sure I have. We do our best, but we all slip up, no matter how informed and responsive we become. And, since no one owes us a thing and no one is obligated to educate us on the fly, we may make errors without even knowing it. I have not called out every single person in my life. Not even close. Who has the time?

Here’s the thing, though: we need to let the small wins define our lives as much as the losses. The stranger who asked if I needed help, and respected my wishes when I said no, should be just as significant to me as the person who couldn’t take no for an answer. If I’m willing to berate myself for failing to educate successfully in one instance, why am I not willing to be proud of myself when I do make a difference? Harm always seems more impactful than a neutral or positive experience, but I’m discovering that when we give the wins a little more space and sunlight, they have infinite power. Successful advocacy attempts from years ago are still able to give me solace and strength, just as unsuccessful attempts can still inspire feelings of anger and futility. Why, then, do I so often choose to dwell on anger, when I have so much else to celebrate? And why do I let other people decide whether my advocacy is meaningful?

I don’t have the energy for the level of advocacy I’d need to make the big wins happen—not usually, anyway. I have a busy life to live, and only so many spoons. I don’t have a string of Facebook-worthy successes with which to regale you, and the advocacy I do have time and energy to pursue would seem trivial to a lot of the people I know.

But last Christmas, I held my new nephew for the very first time, totally free of the anxious hovering and concerned muttering I’ve come to expect when I hold someone’s child. The narrative was less “awkward blind girl holding vulnerable baby,” and more “Auntie Meagan falling in love with her gorgeous nephew.”

Last week, my coworker asked if I needed help, then calmly walked away when I said I was doing fine, thanks.

Yesterday, I really did need help, and the person who gave it did not connect that moment of dependence with my competence as a professional. She has probably already forgotten she helped me at all.

Tomorrow, someone will ask me for help, and I’ll think no less of them.

With every day I keep trying to build bridges and promote crucial understanding, with every day I refuse to be permanently discouraged, someone trusts me a little more. Someone learns to better respect my boundaries. Someone promises they will never again grab my arm or lead me by my cane tip or badger me about not wanting a dog. More and more now, I am able to forget, for days at a time, that I was ever on the margins at all.

That’s not nothing.

That is, in fact, everything.

I’m always here for your small wins, just as I am for the times things go wrong. Get in touch, because as the ancient proverb goes, a shared joy is doubled, but a shared sorrow is halved.