travel

The Privilege of Showing Up

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Every time I look at my phone these days, the Zoom hate is everywhere. People can’t wait to get back to “real” life, where almost everything of consequence happens in person. My postsecondary student friends are daydreaming about returning to campus in the fall, all of my colleagues seem more than ready to have meetings around the boardroom table again, and my family is already planning crowded social events once everyone is vaccinated.

As for me, I miss the energy of in-person gatherings, a little, but I can’t deny that this “fake” life people can’t abandon quickly enough has been pretty kind to me, accustomed as I am to a world where showing up in person is perceived as essential. Demonstrating competence, commitment and success demands your physical presence, whether or not said presence is logistically required. That hasn’t worked out so well for me.

You see, I am not known for my in-person attendance record outside of work contexts. Chronic pain sufferers often struggle with uneven energy reserves and mobility, and my subpar travel skills as a blind person don’t help. I was the kid who missed a staggering amount of school, forever behind and fighting to catch up. In university, when my pain levels were at their highest, I once missed two thirds of my classes in a single semester. Rarely did I commit myself to non-essential in-person events of any kind, because I hated the shame of last-minute cancellations. Just because people were mostly gracious didn’t mean they weren’t quietly categorizing me as flaky.

In the past year, my schedule has looked quite different. Social events every other week. Book clubs. Committee meetings. Resource group chats. Live readings and author interviews. I’m signing up to everything, planning potential presentations, even doing a little on-the-fly consulting work. I hardly recognize myself.

The difference, of course, is that everything is virtual now. I can attend a book club in Minnesota, watch a live performance in New York City, participate in a Q & A in Colorado. Signing up to serve on committees and resource groups, in and outside work, requires no more of me than an internet connection and my willingness to be useful. No taxis, no transit, no anxiety about finding the venue or locating a seat. No getting lost or looking foolish. Just logging in like everyone else.

If I’m in horrible pain and can’t travel? No problem. I medicate as needed, grit my teeth, and get through the meeting as well as I can. No one needs to know I’m attending from my bed. If my camera stays off, they don’t even need to know I’m blind, necessarily. (The way I am treated before versus after people find out is a story for a whole other post, by the way.)

Until the world opened up for me in terms of accessibility, I assumed I was especially disengaged. I figured I was just not a group person. Not a committee person. Not a ‘show up to everything’ person. A home body, you might say, who didn’t gain energy from interacting with others outside of small, intimate groups.

Sure, I’m still an introvert who is choosy about what she signs up for. I only have so many spoons, and I want to use them wisely. But now I have a better sense of what I’m capable of as a professional and social contributor, because so many of the barriers are temporarily removed. It turns out that I like showing up and getting things done as much as the next person; there was just a great deal in my way. The same might be true for someone who finds in-person activities easy but who doesn’t have a stable internet connection, or gets fatigued by screens, etc.

This is not an original take, I know, but consider this post my plea for a thoughtful, accessible approach to returning to “real” life. It’s past time we adjusted our ideas about what constitutes competence, commitment and success, because not everyone can or should show up in the same ways, and it’s ableist as hell to assume a physically present person is more invested and more worthy than someone who can’t attend.

Lots of people have hated every second of this lockdown lifestyle. Some of us have never felt less locked down. Let’s think seriously about why that is, and what we can do about it.

Perhaps we should start a committee? I’ll send out some Zoom invitations. I do that now.

Losing Touch in the Time of Coronavirus

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So far, 2020 has been the year of losing so many things: The ability to gather guiltlessly, the security of jobs and livelihoods, the assurance that the healthy people you love will probably not fall prey to an unknown virus. Like everyone I know, I’ve struggled with the loss of routine, of connection, of the gift of nonchalance when I wake with a scratchy throat.

Most acutely of all, I feel the loss of touch. By this I don’t merely mean the obvious, near-universal longing for human contact. I’m not talking so much about warm, fearless hugs and handshakes that don’t involve hand sanitizer or the furtive acknowledgement that we’re not really supposed to be doing this, are we? I’m a warm-and-fuzzy, touch-oriented person, and have been known to find touch from strangers, under the right (consensual!) circumstances, to be bracing and beautiful.

But as a blind person, I have lost more than these. I have lost my ability to move through the world with the elegance and precision I once enjoyed, if you can call anything I do elegant. You don’t realize how often you touch things until you are required to wipe them down afterward. In my shared workspace, for instance, I have given up tea, coffee, and even water I don’t bring from home, because it’s just too hard to navigate a common kitchen as a blind person without putting my hands all over everything. When things stay in one place, as they do in my home kitchen, I can pretty much plop my hand down on exactly what I need, no groping required. The rest of the world doesn’t operate with the same dedication to putting things precisely where they found them.

I’m a scrupulously clean-handed person, partially because of all the touching I need to do to find things, but I still feel self-conscious as hell touching anything at all in the time of COVID-19. After many tense conversations with blind friends all over the world, I know I’m far from the only one.

I search for the wipes, which move ten times a day as people use them, only to encounter someone’s discarded mug, a basket of sugar packets, a roll of paper towels, somebody’s oatmeal bowl. These I must now sanitize.

I fumble and wave experimentally into the ether, searching for the hands-free door-opening mechanism I know is there but can’t quite find without making contact with it. Before March 2020, I’d have simply opened the door manually, because that’s far more precise when you can’t see. But now there’s a policy about these things, no touching doors please, so now I’m flailing.

I trail my hand along a row of seats on a bus to find an empty one. I press buttons just to cross the street. I touch a door handle, then my cane, then a railing, then my cane again, then a length of wall to orient myself, then my cane again, and so on, because who has time to stop and sanitize every few feet?

I ask for help figuring out the buttons on a pin pad. I instinctively default to hand-over-hand exploration when someone tries to teach me something new, because touch transcends language barriers and clumsy directions better than any medium I know. I automatically reach out to touch when someone wants to show me their new haircut or cozy sweater or nifty pair of shoes, because that’s a small but meaningful part of how I appreciate the world around me. Then I pull back and blush hard with embarrassment, feeling empty and off balance for a moment.

I ask for an elbow each time I must be guided, and for the first time in my life, this feels like an unspeakable favour to ask, a brazenly selfish and risky request.

“Hi there, may I, a stranger, put my hand on you in the year of plague and terror? Hate to ask, sorry, but my mobility skills aren’t great and this area is totally unfamiliar to me and I can’t keep up with you otherwise. Really sorry about this. Want some sanitizer for your elbow?”

Besides the impact on other people, and the self-consciousness that comes with using high-touch surfaces to orient oneself in an era where the word ‘high-touch’ gives people nightmares, I’m also dealing with the logistical puzzle of keeping myself safe without sacrificing independence. Just how often should I sanitize? How often do I need to wipe down my cane? Is there a hands-free way to do the things I’ve always done by touch, and if so, how safe is it? How can I follow social distancing guidelines when they’re shown using arrows and signage and other things I can’t perceive? If I accidentally bump someone, will they behave aggressively toward me, even if there was no way for me to prevent it? Should I walk around with Ziplocs on my hands? Really lean in to it?

Then there are additional concerns my friends with service dogs deal with, like how do they keep their dogs from getting covered in a bunch of COVID particles? How well will their dogs adapt to social distancing conventions? What if their dogs get infected, which doesn’t seem common but has been known to happen to both cats and dogs? What if someone decides to pet, feed, or otherwise mess with their guide in the middle of a pandemic? Heaven knows propriety, safety, courtesy and basic respect haven’t been adequate deterrents before now. Why would a novel coronavirus change that?

Time and experience will provide me with more answers than I have now. If nothing else, the self-conscious shame I feel each time I so much as brush a counter or chair-back with a fingertip will fade, because I can’t sustain that level of anxiety indefinitely, thank goodness. Many guide dog handlers and fellow cane users have told me they’re feeling more comfortable all the time, and I will, too. One day soon, I’ll memorize the locations of all the hands-free door-openers and no doubt be brave enough to pour myself a coffee at my workplace. Maybe I’ll even convince people to stop moving the wipes, dang it.

Until then, I’ll trot out my favourite refrain since this whole mess began, as much for myself as for you, dear reader. Stretch yourself, even as you feel fear and self-protection, to be extravagantly, abundantly, excessively kind to each other. If you’re disabled and annoyed with this new normal that seems designed, unintentionally but maddeningly, to shut you out and strip you of your confidence, assume there are ways to make things better, and help others implement them. If you’re sighted and feeling icky watching a blind/disabled person interacting with their environment in a way that seems too hands-on for comfort, be helpful and patient, because we’re all confused and none of us has this figured out just yet.

Wash your hands, wear your masks if you can, and stay healthy, friends. And most of all, be good to one another. We’re going through a major global upheaval whether or not we choose to be the best of ourselves through it. We may as well lead with grace.

Your Luxury is My Lifeline: Standing up for Transit in a Driving City

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I was shocked when I saw it, buried unceremoniously at the bottom of a news brief where the less important stories end up. My city is considering shutting down transit altogether, for the entire summer, to offset the economic impact of COVID-19. It was later clarifiedthat this is not the only or most likely scenario, but it still hasn’t been taken off the table. Unless aid is forthcoming, the next few months will be long ones for people like me, who are medically unable to drive, and who have no affordable way to get around in a city that was never designed to be walkable outside the downtown core. The article acknowledged the transit worker jobs that are on the line or already lost, but as far as I could tell, no one was doing much advocacy for transit riders themselves.

No service reductions, no Saturday schedules or fare increases. Just a total, blanket shutdown. And paratransit, a specialized service for disabled passengers who can’t always use conventional transit, wasn’t even mentioned.

As a series of motorcycles and extraordinarily loud sports cars roared past my home office window, gleefully proclaiming their ability to go where they please, when they please, pandemic or no pandemic, my stomach dropped to my shoes.

You see, I get it. The service is reportedly losing millions every month. Ridership is down, since far fewer people are going out to work and run errands, though that is bound to change as the economic relaunch progresses. Transit in my area wasn’t in great shape before this crisis, and now it’s on life support, in a ‘driving city’ with what I’d personally characterize as an anti-pedestrian and anti-transit culture.

So on the face of it, the strategy makes sense. Shut down transit during the warmer months, so that when winter comes and walking long distances becomes impractical and unsafe, there will be money to restart the service. It’s not ideal, but if the money’s not there, then it isn’t.

But if this sensible strategy goes ahead, there will be a lot of quiet collateral damage that few seem prepared to acknowledge.

If you live in Edmonton and are unable, financially or medically, to drive, you’d better hope you live within walking distance of your job, or have plenty of disposable income. Short of working from home until the fall or longer, there are a lot of expensive cab rides in your future.

If you were planning to job-search this summer, you’d better hope you have enough savings to afford the cab rides you’ll be taking to interviews, or the mobility to walk across this sprawling city to get to them.

If you are experiencing homelessness, you’d better hope you can walk or find a ride to access the supports and services on which you depend.

If you are disabled and can’t walk/bike/carpool your way around town, you’d better hope paratransit keeps running. Otherwise, you’re on your own.

If you live outside the city, and you need to visit it for work or school, you’d better hope transit services in other communities keep running.

And if you live in Edmonton and are able to drive, you’d better hope you can continue to afford fuel, repairs, maintenance, parking, insurance, registration and all the other associated costs, because there won’t be a bus or train to fall back on.

I don’t have answers. I’m not an economist, strategist or urban planning expert. I don’t know the best ways to keep transit services afloat when ridership is low and revenues are lower. I’m not calling for specific funding, or political action, or any particular solution. I don’t feel qualified to point at something and say, ‘this is what we should do.’ Wiser, more experienced voices than mine will handle that bit.

What I am calling for is awareness – awareness of the precarity of public transit, the diverse population it serves, and the reality that a city without transit is a city without equitable access to opportunity.

Here’s the thing: For drivers, transit is easy to ignore or dismiss. I’ve met drivers who have never taken a bus in their lives, and who claim they never would; they’d cab first. Transit is for ‘other people,’ people who aren’t like them, people they can’t possibly relate to. Why would anyone willingly use it if they have any choice?

I’ve also met drivers who do use it, here and there, but only to avoid parking fees or heavy traffic. For them, it’s a matter of convenience and penny-pinching, not a tool they rely on to get around. If it vanished tomorrow, they’d hardly notice.

But transit is not a nice-to-have. Transit is a lifeline ensuring that everyone can work, attend appointments, go to school and enjoy a rich social life in urban areas.

Transit is the service that, for me and most blind people I know, makes independent living possible. Its availability dictates where we work and live. Chances are, if a community doesn’t have adequate transit, blind people won’t stay for long.

I left my home town, my family, my support system and my local community, so I could build a life on my own terms. It is transit, more than anything else, that has given me that gift. If transit goes, then I will probably go, too.

So please, look up and pay attention to this story, even if you never take transit. Join the conversation, because your coworkers, your family members, your friends may lose jobs and even move away if they lose transit, even for a few months. Realize that in many cities, transit service was already in trouble, already undervalued, before a pandemic came along to make things worse.

This isn’t about one transit shutdown in one city, something you can shrug off and assume to be irrelevant if you don’t live here. This isn’t about fringe benefits or luxuries. This is about keeping people working and living on an equal footing with those who drive. It’s about protecting vulnerable groups, who are always the first to suffer when public services are cut. It’s about making sure everyone can contribute to society, right where they are, no matter their circumstances.

Those aren’t nice-to-haves. Those are must-havse.

Social Distance and Silver Linings

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Long walks in the woods are pretty exciting, particularly in a time when going outside at all is a coveted luxury. So when my husband and I explored some walking trails near our apartment on a crisp Saturday morning, I was prepared for that singular invigoration that only trees and birds and green space inspire in me. (Plus, the buzzy, six-legged monsters hadn’t woken up yet. I take joy wherever I find it these days.)

What I did not expect was the exhilarating feeling that I’d stumbled into an alternate universe, one in which visibly disabled people could exist in public spaces without having their service dogs stroked, their canes stepped on, their hands grabbed, their wheelchairs moved. In this parallel paradise, I strolled along, unbothered, while people around me kept their distance politely.

I’ll say this again for the people waaaay in the back: People stayed out of my way, and they helped me stay out of theirs. Nicely. With their words.

Like, without me asking.

Or insisting.

Or pleading.

It got weirder. I also noticed—can you tell I haven’t been out since the pandemic clamped down?—that people were doing useful things like giving verbal descriptions of where they were, which way they were heading, and how best to avoid bumping them.

“Coming up on your left,” said the jogger, giving me ample time to move out of her way.

“Coming up on your right,” said the cyclist, ringing his bell in an uncharacteristically helpful manner as he whizzed by.

“Wow, I love her hair,” said the random stranger to my husband, speaking right over my head as usual. (Some things don’t change, not even during global pandemics.)

We spent about an hour on the trails, encountering many others as we went. My husband and I were both nervous, since my vision is useless and his isn’t perfect. Would people keep the required two metres away? Would we have to swerve to avoid others? Would anyone be paying attention but us?

Our worries weren’t as irrational as they may sound. An environment in which the average person doesn’t keep their distance, doesn’t respect personal space, is what I have learned to expect. It’s what many people with visible disabilities expect, so much so that angry posts about being grabbed by strangers on the sidewalk, on the escalator, on the bus, in the workplace are banal at this point.

This strange new world in which everyone cultivates self-awareness while they’re out and about, in which it’s not okay to touch someone, disabled or otherwise, is not something I’ve experienced before. It’s something I’ve asked for, repeatedly. It’s something I’ve tried to explain to countless folks, many of them as baffled at the end as they were at the beginning. It’s something that gets people saying defensive things like ‘I’m just being nice,’ and ‘I’m just helping.’

It took a pandemic, it would seem, to hammer the point home. Now that people live in fear of unsolicited touch, they stay away. They use their words. They shudder at the very idea of being grabbed out of nowhere on a street corner, or of doing the grabbing themselves. Who would do a thing like that in these times?

Now they get it. Sorta.

As many countries around the world sketch out relaunch strategies, people are asking each other what will change after COVID-19 has run its course. They talk about social changes, political recalibrations, a more compassionate, evolved society, or one that collapses altogether.

I don’t pretend to know what the world will look like when this is done, nor do I know how subsequent waves of the virus will affect a population that is already traumatized and grieving.

For my part, I can’t wait to be able to gather again, to shake hands without anxiety, to hug my loved ones. But if we can hang on tightly to the habit of deliberate physical distancing, especially out on the street, I think many disabled people will move through this world with a lot more confidence. I know I will.

Dreaming of a Quiet Christmas

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Last Christmas, I gave you my—

Okay, let’s try that again, sorry.

Last Christmas, my family did something we’d never done before: We skipped the boisterous Christmas Eve crowds and had a quiet evening at home. My nephew had been born just a few days previously, and it didn’t make sense to hit the Christmas party circuit just yet. The six of us lounged around watching movies, playing board games, holding the sleepy baby, and petting the cat.

We could have been making merry with a few dozen relatives, surrounded by noise and general jollity. We could’ve juggled three conversations at once, laughing until we ache, but instead we sat quietly together, doing nothing of particular note.

Readers, it was glorious.

At least, it was for me.

It feels silly to admit it, but I didn’t know Christmas could be like this—cozy and intimate and low-key. Besides a few awkward Christmases among an ex’s scattered family, I’d never experienced holiday festivities that weren’t loud and chaotic. I’d never known a Christmas Eve that didn’t involve confusing buffet meals and houses so crowded we were stacked on each other’s laps like sets of folding chairs. The very essence of the holidays was wrapped in full-volume, full-house, full-throttle enjoyment, with a sprinkling of excitable children in the mix.

It was fun, sure, especially when I was a kid. But I’ll admit this too: It was exhausting.

When you can’t see well enough to navigate crowded environments, can’t handle noise well, and can’t “extrovert” for more than a few hours without depleting your energy, the holidays are anything but vacation-like. Generally, I socialize with more people than I can handle, while surrounded by more noise than I can physically tolerate, all while struggling to guard my Christmas spirit and avoid disappointing people with my failure to bring the cheer.
Attending Christmas drinks with colleagues at an incredibly loud pub hammered the point home: I am simply not wired for traditional expressions of celebration. My idea of a good time is a very small (or at least very well-known) group sitting in a familiar, clutter-free space, preferably engaged in loosely structured activities that accommodate my blindness without aggravating my migraines.
Being in a large, crowded, less-familiar space, immersed in the din of conversation, compromises my ability to do fun party things like:

  • grabbing my own food or drinks,
  • initiating conversations with people other than those directly next to me,
  • moving to other areas to see what people are up to,
  • playing common party games that rely on sight, and
  • making my own way to the washroom when I need it.

“Well, Meagan, this is simple,” you say, “because you can just go home when you’re done, right?”

Going home a bit early Is made difficult when most Christmas parties I attend are in rural settings where Uber isn’t available and walking isn’t an option unless I’m okay with a multi-day hike. Of course, since everyone around me seems to love the party atmosphere, no one else is ever ready to go home when I am.

Ever determined to be my best self, I power through, well past my usual tolerance, and end up dealing with increased pain and fatigue over the remainder of the holidays. The spill-over effect from pushing past my endurance at one party will affect my enjoyment of the others, and I come back to work feeling as though I spent my Christmas vacation writing rush speaking notes while deadlines loomed over my shoulder.

Despite adoring my family and being a huge fan of holiday cheer, I find myself worrying about Christmas celebrations with increasing intensity. I won’t be heading home for the holidays for another week, but I’m already feeling tired just thinking about it.

So I’m dreaming of a quieter Christmas. I’m dreaming of a Christmas where I parcel out my social activities more carefully, where I learn to say no to some things so I can say yes to others, and go easier on myself if I’m just too stressed to muster that full-throttle enjoyment I wish I was feeling.
I’m dreaming of managing all this without hurting a single feeling or disappointing a single soul.

I’m dreaming of a holiday that actually feels like one—peaceful as well as joyful, and relaxing as well as merry.

Maybe, with some planning and boundary development and a little bit of courage, I can have a quieter, calmer Christmas that is kind to my body and easy on my poor beleaguered brain.

You know, since I’m dreaming and all.

The Year of Eating Fire

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“The only way to do it is to do it. … There is no trick. You eat fire by eating fire.” ~ Tessa Fontaine, The Electric Woman

An inspired, fresh-start feeling comes to most people in January, filled with promise and hopeful resolution. By late March, many of us realize our goals feel far less attainable when not bathed in the glow of New Year motivation. By the end of the year, only the extraordinarily disciplined remain standing.
In my case, motivation came calling in springtime, in late March of last year. January and February had trudged by in a haze of inertia. My job had hit a dead end. Chances seemed slim for finding another. My lack of disability-related skills was weighing on me more heavily than ever, and my desire to hide from those who might look down on me left me frozen. Time had failed to pull me from my rut, and fear, not to mention despair, was taking over.
And then came CSUNATC—a tech accessibility conference in California that was, by the grace and generosity of a dear friend, within my reach. All I had to do was overcome my fear of mingling with the disability community, muzzle my travel anxiety, and say yes. Pretty simple, or so you’d think.
But saying yes to CSUNATC was, for many reasons, one of the scariest things I’d ever done. Crowds aren’t my thing. Travelling terrifies me, as do fellow disabled people. Just to add to the drama of it all, the friend who agreed to be my guide was someone I’d never met in person. It was as though some sinister committee had conspired to invent circumstances that would encapsulate my personal nightmares. All that was missing was a nest of angry insects.
As many of my readers know, I said yes anyway. Clarity pierced my fortress of quiet desperation, convincing me this would be good for me. Maybe it would open some doors, professional and social. At the very least, it might shake me from my funk, and deprive my anxiety of some of its power.
I attended the conference, faced a multitude of demons, and wrote a recap so emotionally vulnerable that total strangers reached out to thank me for my courage. Perhaps it was the sudden change of pace, the audacious decision to publish my failures, or the landslide of goodwill from a community I’d assumed would judge rather than embrace me, but I understood, all at once, that there are no shortcuts to true forward motion. No “one weird trick” or easy lifehack would help me conquer my fears. There was only the choice to say yes, grit my teeth, and do the scary thing. The only way to eat fire is to eat the damn fire, after all.
Buoyed by this revelation, I began eating fire every chance I got. My springtime resolution wasn’t an easy one to keep, but it stuck where dozens of others had failed. To this day, I don’t have a proper exercise routine, and I am incapable of keeping a regular journal. But touching my tongue to flame has become a valued part of my life, if not second nature.
A few months after returning from CSUNATC, I applied for an internship, even though the competition was fierce and I was certain I’d not measure up. (They hired me).
I tried my hand at speechwriting, which a university course had persuaded me I’d never master. (I’m now a full-time strategic writer, crafting speeches for people more important than I will ever be.)
I practiced being more assertive in everyday life, advocating more consistently and experimenting with “No” rather than letting courtesy outweigh common sense. (I’m now rather good at getting people to let go of me.)
I explored intermittent fasting, regardless of how drastic it seemed. Restricting food made my anxiety spike, but I persisted. (I’ve kept it up for months now, and it has transformed my relationship with food, all but eliminating disordered eating along the way.)
I ask for what I want, not because I am entitled to a thing but because if you don’t ask, you’ll surely never get. (I have taken on several side projects at work that would not have materialized if I hadn’t spoken up.)
The ultimate manifestation of my new resolve was a little like metaphorical flaming-sword-swallowing. I reached out to an orientation and mobility instructor who had recently begun working in my city, and asked her to make me into a respectable blind traveller. In just two lessons, I’ve corrected my cane technique—breaking a decades-long bad habit was no mean feat—and have begun to really understand how cities are put together. (I even let her blindfold me, without the debilitating panic I’ve come to expect from blindfold training.)
It sounds straightforward and unremarkable when I lay it out this way, rather like the automatic revolving door that gave me such grief a year ago. But in my world, these were huge steps forward, a series of daunting obstacles, and there was no shortcut to navigate any of them. There was only my choice to say yes, grit my chattering teeth, and plunge straight into the scary thing. Planning is important, and impulsiveness will never be my custom, but there’s a lot to be said for closing your eyes and swallowing that flame down—because while you’re standing still, waiting for the fear to ebb, time has a way of ticking along at an alarming speed.
The upside of regularly staring terror in the face and carrying on anyway is that if you’ve done it once, you can do it again. It may not go the way you hope, but you’ll always have the knowledge that you’re capable of working through fear, and nothing can take that away. My small but mighty triumphs at CSUNATC, and the subsequent support I continue to receive from many faithful cheerleaders, assure me that while I can’t guarantee good luck, I can be brave when it matters.
Skills are great. Experience is useful. A large network is handy.
Courage? Persistence? These are essential.
It may well be that at least one person reading these words is hesitating, waiting, praying for motivation. That person might be you—or if it isn’t you now, at some point it probably will be. More than likely, you’ll face a task so unpleasant, so uncertain, that you’ll retreat into your very own fortress, hoping motivation will spring from nowhere, or that inertia will outlast the fear.
There is nothing I can say to lessen that fear or quiet that anxiety. But I can tell you that I’ve sequestered myself in that safe space many times. While it has occasionally spared me the trouble of confronting that fire, I can promise you it’s never left me better off.
So go ahead: say yes, grit your teeth, and do the scary thing. Whether it turns out well or leaves you singed and disappointed, you’ll still have the knowledge that you can be brave when it matters.

Lightning, Molasses, and the Search for a Happy Medium

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It doesn’t take long for new acquaintances to notice that I operate at a quicker pace than most. I eat quickly, talk quickly, walk quickly (when I can safely do so), and get through tasks with a speed that stands out. I’m not sloppy, and I don’t like cutting corners, but there’s no denying my inner rhythm is a little out of whack. Sometimes it’s handy, like when clients praise my impressive turn-around time for assignments. Other times, it’s awkward, because when people ask, “What’s the rush?” I have no satisfactory answer for them. All I know is an austere, unforgiving clock has taken up residence in my head, and I can hardly think for the ticking.

I wasn’t always so frantic about everything. When I was little, I was frequently reprimanded for being the last one—the last to finish my dinner, the last to straggle outside for recess, the last to pack up my backpack. My punctuality wasn’t usually an issue, but I did tend to take more time than average with hands-on tasks where my agile little mind couldn’t save me. Give me an abstract problem to solve and I was a bolt of lightning. Hand me a pile of papers to organize and I was a pool of molasses. If the task required work-arounds to accommodate my blindness, that pool froze solid.

Somewhere along the way, I internalized the idea that I should always be in a tearing hurry. Part of it can be blamed on patchy time management skills that only improved with adulthood, but a lot of it can be traced back to my frenetic childhood environment.

“Hurry hurry,” grownups would chide, as I freed a stuck zipper or hunted an object I’d dropped. Never could I keep up, and even when I managed to accomplish something in a timely fashion, it was likely that I’d messed it up. The faster I moved, the clumsier I became, and my anxiety clamped down with crushing force.

Buffeted by duelling forces that insisted deliberate movements were bad but mistakes were also bad, I surrendered to a passive paralysis that froze me in place, unable to rush through tasks or tackle them at a pace that suited me. When you’re convinced that nothing you do will please those around you, standing in place seems safest, and that’s often what I did. Anxiety was mistaken for stubbornness, and I developed a reputation for being the kind of person who would stand gleefully by until someone else did my work for me. This couldn’t have been more off base, but I had neither the guts nor the eloquence to communicate that, and figured no one would listen if I tried.

Most kids would have dealt with this situation by learning by observation, asking questions, and/or finding trusted adults to fill in the gaps. I responded by nurturing an intense fear of failure, to the point where even minor errors seemed apocalyptic. Of course I cried when I got a mediocre grade or tripped in public; I genuinely believed the world was ending, and that judgment, when it came, would be swift and harsh. The vast majority of people in my life would have been horrified by the intensity of that fear, and would have done their best to set me straight. For whatever reason, I kept silent about it, and moved out on my own with the debilitating philosophy that doing something badly was infinitely worse than failing to do it at all.

For a while, I was able to coast along, with no pressing need to question this shortcoming. Eventually, however, after I realized I couldn’t even get a little turned around on my way to the grocery store without hours of brooding, I understood that if I didn’t learn to embrace my inevitable failings, I’d never get anything done. Learning by trial and error is one of the most powerful tools at a disabled person’s disposal, and it was vital that I teach myself to be comfortable with falling off the horse and clambering right back onto it. If I carried on believing that a job imperfectly done was not worth the effort, I was going to find the world an exceptionally inhospitable place.

Five or so years later and this demon is still with me. Every time I make a mess or move ungracefully, the urge to disappear overtakes me. Getting lost still feels like the worst-case scenario, and I hate to cook a new dish in case it doesn’t turn out. I’m still watching my disabled friends treat failure like an old friend or benign annoyance, wishing I could be so relaxed.

On the sunnier side, I’m making progress. When I learned during my first mobility lesson in years that I had been using my cane incorrectly my whole life, my reaction was a fierce desire to kill a decades-long habit and do whatever it took to improve. I didn’t dwell on all the ways others had failed to teach me the right way, nor did I fixate on all the people who must have noticed and thought less of me. Even one short year ago, I’d have collapsed in shame. I never would have responded with a mulish refusal to let my mobility journey end there. Getting lost is still the horror of horrors for me, but once I master proper cane technique, my next project will be to get good and lost, on purpose, repeatedly. I doubt I’ll ever enjoy the process, or intentionally seek out new routes just to challenge myself, but I can at least rewire enough to see failure as a bend in the road instead of a stop sign.

All this scares me silly. I could pretend it’s invigorating, that it feels like my world is opening up, but that would be disingenuous. Mostly it’s making me want to crawl in a cave where no one can find me. It’s not fun, it’s not an adventure, and it’s likely to be something I’ll struggle with for the foreseeable future.

There’s this, though: growth hurts. Growth is hard work, and it’s frightening, and if you’re entirely comfortable, then you’re probably not progressing. It’s lovely and warm here in my comfort zone, but I’m finally getting tired of the run-freeze-run pattern I’ve created. I’m content and confident enough, at long last, to think less about survival and more about joy. That means facing those demons with courage and—yes—a little stubbornness.

My unsolicited advice to you? Slow down, and let the people in your life do the same. Encourage people to try (and fail) on their own. Give everyone, kids and adults, the space to be independent, even if it’s faster or more efficient for you to jump in. Kids, in particular, may fight you on this, but unless an adult has asked for help, stand your ground. Take it from someone who knows all about it: they will thank you. The gratitude may not come right away, but I promise you it will.

And if you take nothing else away, remember that as rushed as we all are these days, there is almost always time to let someone learn.

In Praise of Those Who Share Their Wheels

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Where I grew up, a five-minute drive (an hour’s walk) would take me to school, a post office, the nearest convenience store. Forty-five minutes in a car would get me to music lessons, assuming the weather cooperated. Two hours got me to the nearest city, where decent shopping could be found. Four hours got me all the way to Edmonton, for music competitions and specialized medical care. To get anywhere of consequence, I needed more than my two legs, and my legs were all I had.

Part and parcel of being a kid in a rural area was asking for rides—to the store, to extracurricular activities, to friends’ houses, to school, even, if you managed to miss the bus. We were all used to it, and all our parents were used to the asking. Many childhood memories involve being driven everywhere, through rain and snow and parental exhaustion. It was annoying to be so dependent, but we were all similarly needy, so it never chafed too badly.

Then, all around me, my friends and relatives began turning sixteen and getting their licences. Driving fever hit, and suddenly everyone was blasting forbidden music at top volume, speeding around in second-hand vehicles, thrilled with their new freedom. For the first time, getting where they needed to go was a matter of grabbing their keys and promising they’d be home by eleven.

Everyone but me, that is.

At sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, I was still hitching rides, especially when out of reach of a cab or bus. Visiting my family during the holidays meant convincing some kind soul to ferry me home. Getting to the hospital when I was too weak to rely on a cab driver meant calling everyone I could at inconvenient hours, asking the dreaded question through tears. Socializing with friends who lived on the outskirts of the city meant expecting them to drive half an hour out of their way, much of it through downtown traffic, for the dubious privilege of seeing me. My life, as a twenty-three-year-old urban dweller, is still influenced by my inability to drive. Asking for someone else’s wheels never gets easier, though it is routine and inevitable.

I could go on at some length about the ways being unable to drive makes life harder, more precarious, more difficult to plan, less convenient, less independent. Today, I’d rather focus on the people who answer yes, over and over. I want to honour the relatives, friends, and acquaintances who have driven in all weathers, at all hours, for all reasons. I want to highlight the kind stranger who, discovering me lost and bedraggled during a storm, drove me to my house without any thought of recompense. They have performed this service whether they felt like doing so or not. They have done so without expecting a return on their investment of time and gas money. They have done it, if not always without complaint, then with generosity. The music lessons and emergency medical appointments and shopping trips and singing engagements and social visits have all meant the world to me, and I owe that joy to the people who transported me there.

When someone asks for a ride because they have exhausted all other options, you know they desperately need it. You know it will improve their lives in ways large and small. You know that it is not usually easy for them to ask.

If you’ve been a frequent driver for others, know that you are valued, and needed, and appreciated. We may not always tell you so, but it’s no less true.

It’s easier than ever to travel without a vehicle, but there will probably always be a need for a kind soul with a car.

Two Years of Paratransit: Sad Truths and Hard Lessons

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I’ve been a paratransit user for almost two years, and I don’t like to talk about it.
The reason I keep relatively quiet about my paratransit use is that I understand the stigma that comes with being a frequent rider of the short bus. Assumptions are made about my supposed lack of self-respect. Pity and scorn flow freely from disabled people, many of whom are former (and to their thinking, emancipated) paratransit riders. Horror stories are dredged up from decades past, often third or fourth-hand and seeming more dramatic with every telling. Potential employers cringe.
Whatever you might think of paratransit services, the reality is that they exist, many people depend upon them, and until we live in a utopia where public transit is perfectly accessible and adequate mobility training is available to everyone, it’s going to keep existing. I’d prefer to focus on the ways it needs to improve, rather than insisting it needs to be eliminated.
Here are some uncomfortable truths and tough life lessons I’ve learned since becoming a regular paratransit passenger. Sharing these will, I hope, make for interesting reading. Beyond that, I hope this post will be engaging for those who have had similar experiences, and instructive to those who want to educate themselves about paratransit and the people who use it.
Disclaimer: Paratransit services can vary widely from location to location. My personal experiences may not reflect those of all passengers.

Personal Space? What Personal Space?

Paratransit services are typically designed for a vast range of clients. Some clients, like me, require very little assistance, while other clients need help with basic tasks like climbing into the vehicle and fastening seatbelts. Like many one-size-fits-all solutions, paratransit drivers are given training that isn’t able to address every possible situation. Drivers are often trained to assume clients are completely incapable, because not all clients can communicate how much assistance they need.

This means drivers will lean across me to fasten my seatbelt. They will place their hands on me to steer me into a seat. Occasionally, they’ll try to guide me in unwieldy ways: by the hand, by the shoulder, even by the waist. Once I make it clear I don’t need or want this assistance, most drivers back down and apologize, though the odd driver will argue. Even so, I routinely find myself physically handled in ways most people would find invasive, despite repeated assertions that I don’t want to be touched without prior consent.

While I recognize that this pattern is mostly the fault of training that tries to do too much for too many, it’s indescribably wearing to flex your advocacy muscles day after day–muscles you’d normally reserve for the general public. More than once, a fellow client has violated my personal space in ways that are wildly inappropriate, only to have drivers shrug and assure me I’m in no real danger. I’m not in the habit of fearing fellow disabled people, but that’s not of much comfort when someone is stroking your arm and tugging repeatedly on your hair.

Even though paratransit is a service built specifically for disabled people, it doesn’t always feel like a very safe one.

Nine Rings of Scheduling Hell

Coordinating the schedules of thousands of people is no mean feat, and I admire the staff that somehow manages to make it all come together. Much as I respect the complexity of the job, I can’t help but notice that my time is treated as elastic and unlimited. I book in such a way that I’m far too early, just to avoid being far too late. Trip-booking is a logistical nightmare, because:

  • The pickup window isn’t always based on when you want to arrive at your destination. In my city, it is based on when you want to be picked up. So, you have to estimate your travel time within a half hour window, and hope that estimate is accurate.
  • The current policy for the service I use states that a client can be kept in the vehicle up to 90 minutes. Depending on scheduling, weather, and traffic, it can take over an hour for a commute that would normally take about 15 minutes. Good luck planning around that.
  • If a driver picks you up after the half hour window has ended, they are considered “late.” However, “late” is a pointless distinction because drivers arrive when they arrive. A driver missing the end of your window just means you’ll be waiting as long as it takes, regardless of how time-sensitive your personal schedule might be.

Many clients who use paratransit have jobs. That means we need a practical scheduling system that allows us to have a reasonable amount of control over when we’ll be picked up and dropped off. Employers don’t appreciate unpredictable employees, and who can blame them? In my city, my trip to work is considered no more important than a trip to the mall, or to church, or to Starbucks.

The worst bit is the apparent bafflement and annoyance booking agents and dispatchers express when I insist that my time does matter. Shocked as they are that I don’t only go to church and medical appointments, there isn’t much regard for my time–and that disregard extends to many disabled people I know. For a group that already struggles to find and maintain employment, a service that doesn’t prioritize a working person’s time is one more needless barrier in a line of others.

Change Ruins Everything

Besides my job, whose schedule is quite rigid, I tend to lead a rather spontaneous life. I’ve always been an agile gal who didn’t mind sudden changes–until, of course, paratransit became part of my life.

Since my trips usually have to be booked several days in advance, and must be cancelled with at least two hours’ notice, paratransit is not ideal for someone with a dynamic lifestyle that is subject to change without much warning. This isn’t so much a flaw in the system as it is an unavoidable consequence of trying to make one service work for thousands of busy people. It’s understandable that paratransit wouldn’t be able to accommodate sudden schedule changes, and I’ve made my peace with that, making other arrangements for those times when I’m left without a ride.

But there’s a darker side to this issue. You see, for a service that is tailored to the needs of disabled people, paratransit is surprisingly unresponsive to some of our most basic needs. I have migraines and chronic pain, neither of which are in the habit of giving me 24 hours’ notice before they strike. Since I can’t always travel when dealing with severe pain or nausea, I find myself cancelling trips at the last minute more often than I’d like. Agents sometimes grumble, but once I explain, they don’t penalize me.

At one time, though, this was not the case in my city. A friend and inveterate paratransit user remembers a time when cancelling at the last minute was always penalized, regardless of the reason. Missing too many trips could result in suspension, which is a scary thought for people who rely on paratransit to take them to important appointments. It took considerable advocacy from the disability community to make the city realize that an inflexible service for people with disabilities made no sense whatsoever. Our lives are complicated, and we can’t always bully our bodies into cooperating with us. A service that doesn’t bake this reality into its policies serves no one.

Welcome to the Margins

I’ve always identified as a marginalized person, simply because having multiple disabilities seemed to place me well within that category. Not until I took paratransit did I get a glimpse of what being marginalized could look like. Every day, I meet clients who are so far on the fringes that it feels as though we occupy two different worlds. Some can’t communicate verbally, and struggle to make themselves understood when a driver goes the wrong way, or drives right past their house. Others love to chat, but are ignored or grudgingly tolerated by drivers and clients alike, whose patience and compassion have either eroded over time, or were never present at all. Still others are struggling with sudden injuries and medical crises that have permanently altered their lives. I’ve listened as clients howled with pain, trying to maneuver themselves into high vans and buses. I’ve heard seniors apologize profusely as the driver buckles their seatbelts, humiliation colouring their voices. I’ve sat quietly by, helpless, as a client tried in vain to engage their escort in conversation, each overture rejected. I’ve cringed in my seat as a nonverbal client screamed in pain, or distress, or some other violent emotion I couldn’t decipher, while the driver focused on the traffic ahead.

No doubt these clients live happy, fulfilling lives, and I’ve chatted with enough of them to know they are just as interesting, warm, and spirited as the rest of us.

But, in the confines of those vehicles, it can be hard to forget about the margins that hold them in place. It can be hard to get over the fact that I’ve ignored people like this myself, when having a bad day or feeling irritated by something else. It’s impossible to pretend I haven’t played a part in the marginalization of at least one of these people, out of fear or ignorance or a desire to be left alone. It’s hard, in other words, to praise the progress we’ve made when confronted so frequently with how far we still have to go.

There are many things I appreciate about paratransit. Door-to-door service means I feel safe, even in dangerous neighbourhoods. I can avoid pitted sidewalks and inaccessible areas. If I don’t know the route to my job interview or my doctor’s office, I can still get there. My abysmal outdoor mobility skills don’t completely constrain my life.

By and large, paratransit services appear to be run by compassionate people who really do care about managing it well. They want you to get the times you asked for. They care if they pick you up outside your window. They show empathy when you’re in pain, and they’re happy to help where they can.

Still, we mustn’t get complacent. Paratransit has many deeply-rooted problems, and since it fills service gaps for so many people, we need to fix what we have rather than tearing it all down in a fit of cynicism, or dismissing those who still use it.

Now that you’ve reached the end of this post, I hope you’ve offloaded a few assumptions and re-evaluated some stereotypes. I hope you know that there is no archetypal paratransit user. There is no typical use case. There is no neat, tidy template into which you can shove those of us who, for one reason or another, need a special service to get around.

Whether you’re a paratransit user, an employer, an educator, a social worker, or a paratransit staff member, I hope you come away with plenty to think about.

Got some thoughts to share? I think this post calls for a lively comments section, don’t you?

Trepidation and Triumph at CSUNATC2018

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When an exceedingly kind friend offered to be my full-time sighted guide for 2018’s CSUNATC conference, I recognized that I was being offered a unique opportunity that could not, under any circumstances, be passed up. I’d spend a few days in idyllic San Diego, learning about accessible technology and basking in the company of a long-time friend whose social and tech savvy can’t be overstated. She promised to help me navigate the conference, escort me to presentations, and provide networking opportunities I’d struggle to obtain on my own. I was elated. I was grateful. I was excited!
I was also terrified.
You see, dear readers, the word “introvert” was coined specifically for me. While I enjoy a rich social circle and do well when representing employers at special events, high-energy occasions like conferences are about as frightening to me as a nest of angry wasps. In fact, if I have to attend a networking event outside of an employment context, I think I’d rather take the wasps, and that’s saying something. Excessive noise, bustling crowds, and unfamiliar environments combine to create a horrifying mix, and nothing but my relentless quest for self-improvement could make me brave it. (Meeting one of my best online friends helped sweeten the deal, but only slightly.)
I knew how fortunate I was to be attending CSUNATC2018, and I felt the appropriate level of eagerness, but part of me was sure I’d need several barrels of courage to manage. For if there is one thing that makes me more uncomfortable and cagey than large-scale, international networking events, it’s being around large numbers of blind people.
Yes, readers: I am afraid of blind people, especially when they get together, and attending CSUN would demand that I not only confront that fear head-on, but that I ask myself, finally, why the fear exists at all.
The gist is this: I went to CSUN to learn about tech. I learned a little, and certainly enjoyed the presentations, but most of the education had less to do with the accessibility world, and more to do with deeply-rooted insecurities so entrenched that I’d forgotten what it was like to question or even acknowledge them.
If you’re interested in my journey of self-discovery, stay with me. If you hoped to read all about promising new tech, I’m sure there are many excellent write-ups by people much better-versed on the subject. Either way, enjoy!

“Let’s play ‘count the blind people!’”

As we weave somewhat drunkenly through the airport, dragging unwieldy luggage and trying not to trample anyone, my sighted guide chatters blithely about how many blind people she sees going by.
“There’s another one! I think that’s the seventh I’ve seen already.”
“Oh God.”
“What?”
“I’m legitimately afraid of blind people. I mean, they’re okay in small groups, and I love them as individuals, but when we all get together, it’s … I just don’t like it.”
My friend is too gracious to pursue the matter, but it becomes obvious soon enough that my mobility demons, which I’d warned her of previously, are out in full force.
My cane grip must be all wrong. My posture, surely, couldn’t be close to proper. I’m leading with my right shoulder, which is a problem I’ve never been able to correct. Do I ride escalators in a weird way? Am I the only one who doesn’t know print numerals well enough to operate an elevator without brailled numbers? Does it show that I’ve received so little orientation and mobility training I’m not even sure if my rudimentary indoor travel technique is right? Is everyone judging me? Am I a fraud of a blind person?
Oh God, everyone’s definitely judging me.
I want to go home now.

“Let’s get oriented!”

I attend a small orientation tour to learn the hotel’s basic layout, reasoning that I’ll pick the information up more quickly if there aren’t too many people around me. But, as we meander along, passing various significant locations, I lapse into a fog of panic. There is no way one cursory jaunt around this massive hotel will tell me everything I need to know. The only orientation training I’ve ever received was highly specific and route-based, meaning it did not teach me how to master new environments through discovery. I have never wandered in my life—at least, not willingly. Getting lost for fun, exploring, taking a look around … these aren’t my style. Meanwhile, every blind person around me seems to have a mystical sixth sense or, if they are as lost as I am, it doesn’t trouble them. The atmosphere is effervescent, and I feel like an intrusive rain cloud that has accidentally splattered into an unsuspecting sun puddle.
What the hell am I doing here? Who do I think I’m kidding? This was not made for people like me.
I really want to go home.

“You’re not alone. Also, have a tissue.”

It’s been a long day, though for the most part a pleasant one. I’ve listened to enthusiastic Microsoft employees laying out a new and encouraging direction for Windows 10 and its associated accessibility features. I’ve attended a fascinating presentation on disability services departments in academic institutions. I’ve even discovered that the GPS app, Nearby Explorer, has innovative new features to facilitate indoor navigation. My friend gives me sighted guide when I need it, introducing me to what feels like half the world along the way. She makes me sound like someone worth knowing, and I try to keep my impostor syndrome on a short leash. To my shock and delight, people admit to reading my blog—and liking it!
(So, it’s not just my mom and five friends? Cool!)
But now I sit, curled on my bed, offering the less flattering bits of my life story to complete strangers. One of them is an endlessly patient blind O & M instructor. I’m afraid of O & M instructors. (Are you sensing a pattern yet?)
They listen to me ramble despairingly about the inadequate skills training I’ve received; how out of place I feel among more competent blind people; how I am convinced I’m the only one who has ever been this useless at my age; how I must be a uniquely embarrassing failure; and how I’m afraid I will never, ever be anything more than I am right at this moment. In my self-effacement, I remain oddly verbose.
My equally patient sighted friend quietly passes me another tissue, putting her arm around me. This only makes me cry harder.
Then, the two compassionate blind strangers in my hotel room explain that they, too, have struggled. The instructor tells me that I’m far from alone, that it is possible for me to achieve the skill level I desperately want, and that I need not be so willing to let “I’m afraid” be what stands between the life I want and the life I have. Besides, she points out, plenty of blind people are where I am; they just choose not to put a fine point on it. For other blind people out there, the activities I find easy may seem like insurmountable challenges, and vice versa.
“Most of the people who intimidate you by going on about how good their skills are probably have something to hide.”
“I guess that does make sense.”
I plumb deeper, describing all the gaps between the talented and competent professional I know myself to be, and the bumbling wreck my brain insists I am. I was never taught to cut a steak in a way that made sense to me. I hold utensils in an unconventional way because the “normal” way has always felt clumsy. Sometimes, I simply don’t leave the house because the anxiety of existing in my skin is too much.
And, to my genuine shock, I am not alone in any of these things.
“But … why isn’t anyone talking about this?”
“We’re all too busy impressing each other, of course.”
“But I thought I was, like … degenerate.”
“No! You can be better. You can go higher. But you’re by no means the only one.”
“But I’m scared.”
“So was I.”
I am telling strangers the most intimate, shameful pieces of my long-buried trauma. I am exposing, to myself and to people I barely know, why I am so terrified of other blind people. I am opening up to unknown quantities in a way I’ve never done, not even with my friends, my family, myself.
Least of all myself!
And I am not afraid.
I am embarrassed and bemused and a little curious about what it is about conferences that fills you with the insatiable need to connect …
But Good God, I am not afraid.

“Just trust yourself.”

My default state, especially when dealing with new experiences, is “What do I know?”
Several times throughout the four days I spend at CSUN, my friend and I take a wrong turn of some sort, and something in the back of my mind insists we’ve made a mistake, gone the wrong way, gotten mixed up somewhere. Each time, I ignore it.
Each time, I am right.
Each time, my friend grows more playfully exasperated.
“Meagan, you should really try trusting yourself. You know things!”
“I just usually assume I don’t. Like, what do I know about this place?”
“You have good instincts, though. You should listen to them.”
Slowly, tentatively, I begin cataloguing the many instances over the years when my gut has stirred itself to alert me of some poor decision or wrong turn. In every case, if someone I perceived to be more knowledgeable than me disagreed, I became silent at once. Now, after more than a decade of systematic suppression, I don’t even consider speaking up.
Of course other blind people know more than I do.
Of course sighted people know where they’re going.
Of course I’m unqualified. Inexpert. Silly.
I can’t control the fact that I’m clueless about most things.
Or is this a choice I’ve made, one I forgot to unmake?
Is anyone telling me I’m useless, or have I been doing that to myself all along?
Heavy thoughts for a languid California afternoon!
But then, this does seem to be the week for them.

“Yes, it’s scary; and yes, you’re going to do it.”

Thump. Whir. Thump. Whir. Thump.
“What the hell is that?”
“That’s a door.”
“I don’t think we have these where I’m from…”
As it turns out, automatic revolving doors are much more frightening than they sound. Revolving doors are irritating enough; having once been stuck in one, I feel personally qualified to judge. The automated feature brings a whole new level of nightmare fuel, though, especially when you don’t have a clear understanding of how it works. All I can hear is an ominous thumping sound as the door thwacks repeatedly into something as it goes round and round at what I consider an alarming speed.
I am open to trying it out, particularly since I’m filled with new resolve and I have an O & M instructor with me once again. However, as she describes the procedure, which involves me “sticking [my] hand in there so the door can hit it,” I balk a wee bit.
By “balk,” I mean I stand there for what must be 10 minutes, coming up with all the reasons I definitely cannot—will not—attempt this.
Finally, I gather all my courage and approach the door, only to have it hit me squarely in the face.
A little shell-shocked, hiding treacherous tears, I retreat and try to regroup. Meanwhile, the O & M instructor, her blind friend, and my sighted friend stand by just as patiently as before, acting as cheerleaders and accountability officers in equal measure. Surrounded by all the (positive) pressure, I finally go for it.
As I lean heavily on the door and follow it in a dizzying circle, one of my blind companions runs along behind me, shouting jubilant encouragement. It is rather like going on your first water slide, with your proud elder sibling shooting along behind you, utterly thrilled on your behalf.
Such a small thing, really, going through a door. Ridiculous, even. I’m twenty-three, for heaven’s sake. I’m an employed, educated, mostly-functional adult.
But on this day, that damn door is everything.

“One more time before you go?”

On the day I was due to leave for home, I tried to cram as much as I could into a few too-short hours. I visited the exhibit hall, demoing a Braille tablet and expressing horror at how loud those new displays are getting. (I compared the scrolling sound to a very angry spider.) I met more people, flexed my extrovert muscles, and even handed out a resume to an accessibility company that was hiring overseas. Just to cap off the quintessential California experience, I drank a hellishly expensive juice blend and caught a few more rays of sun.
Feeling brave, I attempted to travel a little more independently, and promised a handful of new acquaintances I’d connect with them so I could share my writing and social media knowledge. This was a huge step forward, since I find it almost impossible to speak highly of myself outside of job interviews and cover letters.
Just as we were poised to leave the hotel, my sighted friend suggested I truly conquer that automatic revolving door, just to prove to myself I could.
It was tricky, and I grew progressively more nervous as concerned sighted people crowded around, hindering more than helping.
But, dear readers, I did it.
Twice.
Willingly.
As I came through the door the second time, more joyful than I felt was socially acceptable, my friend literally jumped up and down with sheer happiness, celebrating so loudly I could hear her through the door.
Most people might not understand why this tiny feat was important to me, and few people would appreciate the symbolism of it.
But she got it.
And, for the umpteenth time that week, I remembered: whatever I reveal, whatever I admit to, however I might struggle, I am not alone.
I never was.
And you know what?
Neither are you.