Disability Arts Online

Wheelborne, a glass in hand stops me in my tracks; wheeling requires both hands. So does tweeting.

Even when I'm in the powerchair one hand is occupied with the controls and moving around  requires constant re-evaluation of the geography.

So I have to stop still to drink or tweet. Wheelless seem to stop anywhere, not even bothering to tuck themselves into considerate spaces. That doesn't really work for wheelborne, so how, I wonder, do others manage?

Yesterday I made my first solo trip to London since I acquired wheels. After looking 'death by pavement' in the eye and being forced to abandon a previous local journey, I was somewhat anxious.

Part of my journey to the station needs to be in the road as the pavement surface is unsuitable for wheels. The slopes that facilitate access to the station platforms are dauntingly steep and long. Just getting onto the train was an achievement.

I should of course have tweeted.

And maybe I will learn to do that, once I feel safe enough with my skinny-wheels and spare battery, to risk getting low on phone power. Or maybe I invest in a portable recharger for the phone. Having the phone means I cope if, for example, I get a puncture.

Wheelless don't have to worry that one leg might fall of somewhere far from home...

Waterloo was a rounder, getting to the Royal Festival Hall wholly rolly;  

Headlining Disability a whole other story.

Cliquey, clumpy bodies reminiscent

of any Arts Council gathering

played out the usual overlooking

wheels scenario. I lack proaction

strategies, or the required strength

to tackle the same old, same old, same old.

And the same, same old repeated itself

mercilessly through part one of the day.

The shine on my solo achievement paled.

My bum ached, my eyes itched, my throat got dry.

 

I was cut up in the coffee queue

by a wheelless who peered down on me

as he did so;  then had the cheek to ask:

Do you take sugar, as he walked away.

 

Part two and the day caught fire. Lifted by

wit and repartee, the event took off

like a hot air balloon: bold, big and bright.

But someone forgot to untether the

same old, same old strings that tie us all down

in a past whose departure we have yet

to come to terms with; maybe we still need it?

Challenged to imagine a world without

difference prejudice, we had not one

serious response to take us onward.

 

I lost the urge to tweet, and the guilt of

not ever having got around to it.

My day, that triumph of independence;

Crouching time-bomb, Hidden challenge.