On, Prancer

Is it a certain capacity for illusion that gets knocked out of the disabled psyche?  Taking off from Phoenix airport, gazing down on the half-filled lagoons of some half-completed and possibly half-abandoned resort development, I shake my head in something between disbelief and sadness.  For at several thousand feet the puny oval of ponds, some filled and some empty, Polynesian palm trees planted at their sides...the whole thing shrinking in pathetic scale as the plane climbs and the brown Read more [...]

Foolish

Death by cold or cold as death itself, such are my coastal Californian intimations.  We have had some frosty mornings here, and if my reaction seems overblown...well, try experiencing such weather changes from within the positively operatic world of quadriplegia.Menchu has helped me dress.  She has fed me a bran muffin.  We have discoursed upon her days as a nanny and caregiver.  And now there is nothing for it but to charge once more into the exercise breach, dear neuromuscular Read more [...]

Apartment Life

What can one say of a life that is reduced to news of the right foot?  That it is a disabled life, of course, 'my left foot' providing title and focus for some of the best writing about disability.  So don't apologize, I tell myself, and keep your eye on the arch.BBC Radio 3 has been broadcasting talks from its November symposium on, more or less, The Future of Everything.  Jane and I were listening just the other day to the quite courageous and remarkable Anglican official who refused Read more [...]

In Tempe

Putting my best foot forward, that is the thing, and how this was accomplished just last night is anyone's guess.  But it is true enough, this thing about my foot, how it has been cramping, keeping me awake, until last night.  This welcome news has to do with the physiologically disturbing effects of travel, I am certain.  Nothing like a little sojourn in Arizona to get one surprisingly dehydrated...followed by a program of water ingestion yesterday evening, followed by a night without Read more [...]