a'ishah's writing

[aishah]

this is something that i posted on facebook recently after reading accidents of nature by harriet mcbryde johnson. (her book too late to die young is also very good.) i keep meaning to expand it into a blog post, but i'm just getting back into blogging after not doing it for a couple of years so...i'm slow

this is a quote from the book

She looks at me with gravity. "It looks like a good part of your childhood was swallowed up with all this walking stuff." She pauses. I shrug.

"It is funny. Therapists, teachers, relatives - everyone - they all think walking is such a wonderful thing. And we don't question that. We believe it must be worthwhile, or they wouldn't torture us for it. And then, finally, you get up on your feet, take a few halting steps - pardon me, I mean courageous and determined steps - and the cameras flash and everyone's inspired. But then you find out walking is a lousy way to move from place to place. And as you get bigger, it's worse. When you fall down, you have farther to go. When you start to think for yourself, you realize a wheelchair is a better way to get where you're going."....

...I laugh too, to express something I'm just beginning to feel: that walking is something you can mock. Not walking as an ordinary means of getting around, but Walking as a big dramatic idea, Walking as a metaphor for strivings of all kinds. When I gave up my childhood struggle to walk, it felt like a failure of something much greater - a failure of courage, of character, of faith. Yesterday Sara suggested that walking might be a matter of choice. Today it's a joke. A joke so funny I can't stop laughing....

My mind drifts away from this place, this time. My PT is telling me, "You can do it if you try." I am in Sunday school: "You can do it if you believe." I see Jesus cleansing lepers, giving sight to the blind, making the lame walk. He heals them all and then leaves them behind.... As a child, I loved these stories; they speak to the fundamental optimism of childhood. Part of me still believes them, or wants to. But now I yearn for a Bible story about a cripple who isn't cured.

this is what i posted...
i wasn't forced to learn to walk when i was young but i was put into physical therapy when i was younger, uselessly, to torture me into walking more "normal" (i walk funny thanks to cp, have super short heel cord tendons and deformed feet). finally they gave up and were like "there's no point, you've done all the damage you can do." now it's apparently not that noticeable anymore. but it's...of all the things about crippled-ness i never really questioned this or understood why it made me so angry and frustrated. (especially because i wasn't exactly given a choice.) this passage from accidents of nature hit me really hard because of that.

it also made me think about how people think of using mobility aids as a bad thing. starting to use a cane for me (i started about three years ago) was amazing and made it so much easier, but it was also nerve-wracking because of the judgment. i'm sure if i didn't use it sometimes or i stopped using it that would be seen somehow as "progress." and when i start using a wheelchair (i have a couple degenerative conditions) that that will be somehow a bad thing. i ran into this woman on the bus the other day who was like "oh, i used to use a cane but i tried really hard to get off of it," and i was like, "i love mine." and she was like "yeah, it made things easier." i don't understand why people don't just do what works for them. canes don't make walking or standing effortless by any means, but they make it possible for me to walk and stand on a regular basis and they help with my balance so much. why is walking normal and unaided held up like the holy fucking grail? it's only ever caused me pain and aggravation.