Signs of Spring in a Time of Turmoil, Accessibility and Travel, and Reimagining Your Creative Process

Pink Rhododendrons, Kirkland

Signs of Spring in a Time of Turmoil

There are some signs of spring in the neighborhoods around us, if not quite in my own garden yet – flowers starting to bloom, despite a heavy cold rain that keeps pushing us indoors here in the Pacific Northwest. I am still not able to stay in my home much as the house renovations continue on, slowly, and the house is full of fumes, but I keep trying – going to tidy up, spend time petting and combing the cats, do laundry, rearrange and vacuum things.

The politics of the country do not seem to have improved in the last week, but the shift to Daylight Savings Time better matches my sleep patterns, and longer days seem to help my mood. I am trying to find the joy in small things that I can. I visited a cat cafe in Kirkland, walked along the water (despite cold wind,) visited the dermatologist (no skin cancer, yay, but the doctor was puzzled by apparent allergic reactions to almost nothings that were pretty severe) after my father had melanoma surgery this week (he is recovering just fine.) Self-care during this time feels off. I keep dreaming about packing and repacking suitcases – on the titanic, on a doomed flight, before earthquakes – signaling my body is feeling the stress. So, this week I have some major dental work I’m nervous about – two front crowns, no novocaine, as usual. I hope my body can handle it without major MS flareups. In the meantime, I am waiting for flowers. I hope AWP will be good, despite my usual trepidation about flying (made worse by recent airplane mishaps) and finding a way to navigate LA as a disabled person.

First cherry blossoms, Kirkland

Disability and Travel – Is It Feasible?

So let’s talk about accessibility and travel. Selma Blair was on the cover of Travel & Leisure this month, talking about the difficulties of traveling with MS, which is a strange disease that acts up under stress, illness, and change in routine – which travel pretty much comes with. She is a celebrity with money, and still runs into many challenges. As I have been staying in hotels around the town, I have found “accessible” rooms mean one thing in one hotel, and a completely different thing in another. I booked an accessible room in one hotel, only to find it was “hearing-impaired accessible,” not wheelchair accessible. I booked a different accessible room in another hotel, only to find it had a deep tub/shower combo – I think that would be considered inaccessible to almost anyone, not just me, who was short or didn’t have great balance. So this week I spent a lot of time explaining my disability over the phone and at hotel desks, only to be met by mostly blank stares by people who have never had to deal with this kind of difficulty in their lives. (I have mentioned that valets who tend to be young men are the most empathetic – usually because they’ve had action-oriented accidents that rendered them immobile for a period of time – a broken leg, arm, back, or collarbone from football, or driving, or skiing.) But it was a reminder that the world really does not design for accessibility – even in hotels that tout accessibility and accessible rooms may not have any idea what that means. I’m not even in a wheelchair,  as a reminder – I use a cane but have balance problems that make tubs and stairs difficult. If I was in a wheelchair, some minor inconveniences for me might render a trip impossible. And what about food allergies? Well, some restaurants could easily accommodate no wheat – some could not. Other allergies – for me, garlic, citrus, and tomatoes – were harder to avoid. Some hotels don’t have room service for some meals, and when they do, there are limited options. We can wish for a world that better accommodated disability and food allergies – but I’ve made sure to mention to hotel managers where things are good and where things are not so good, hopefully to help others. (One “accessible shower” had a crazy slippery floor, for instance, and not big enough for a bench.) I have been wanting to go on a big adventure, but doing a little travel around my own neighborhood has shown me the pitfalls of expecting things to be easy for disability, food allergies, etc.

Sunset

Reimagining Your Creative Process

As I’ve been doing this, I’ve been hacking around at my latest book manuscript to get it ready to send out to publishers. I’m trying to integrate the frustrations with politics and disability and being a woman in a non-woman-friendly universe into it without making it unfun to read. I’m trying to come up with working metaphors for the barriers in my life that could be universal, if that makes sense. I’m trying to re-think the way I write a poem, what a poem might look or sound like, for me. Something beyond growing into your own voice, but creating your own vehicles, vessels, forms. I haven’t had much mental space for this, but I feel it is important even in the midst of chaos and uncertainty to continue trying to create. The process of trying to explain my disability over the last few weeks to people over and over triggered a poem about monsterism and disability, the way that the world will make you feel monstrous for not fitting into norms. Not to mention a government that’s suppressing free speech, disappearing pictures of women in government and even pictures of the Enola Gay (because it has the word “gay” in it – these guys are not the sharpest tools in the shed, either.) How do we reshape our creative process in a country that doesn’t even want you to exist, that wants to erase your existence – because you’re a woman who’s not a trad wife, gay, an immigrant, disabled, or even just inconvenient to their narrative? Art is one way to keep people’s ears and eyes open to the cognitive dissonance in the news and in the mouths of politicians. Americans have lost science literacy, math skills, reading skills, over the past few years, so when they encounter lies, how will they even know the difference? Don’t expect journalism to save us – it can be muzzled too easily, see: Gulf of Mexico, Ukraine – but maybe art can. Subversion, irony, the art of observation even when you’re told something doesn’t exist or isn’t there – can help keep reality more survivable for everyone during an oppressive regime. I hope you are surviving and even thriving, that you can find your place to make art and keep your eyes clear.