After the Fall II

When I rolled off the little stage at Mountain View City Hall a couple of days ago my fall must be measured in more than inches. As must my tumble out of the wheelchair and its unsightly forehead skinning. In rolling away from the lectern, as it were, I had this brief sense that perhaps all was redeemed. Yes I had been shot. Paralyzed for 45 years. Missed out on a thing or two. Spent my life abnormally rooted, tethered and confined. But now, it seemed, perhaps not for nothing. For in this brief instant Read more [...]

The Dais

Bixby pads into the kitchen, head down, paws advancing. I, making an espresso from my home machine, watch. Something of note occurs with me and Bixby and the kitchen. I am particularly aware of his fixations. Being a dog, his world is smaller, more primitive, and one might argue, more pure. I am tuned into this canine event, the one transpiring on the kitchen linoleum. For I have seen it many times, and it speaks to me. It may be saying the wrong things, or I may be hearing the wrong things. Nonetheless, Read more [...]

Practicalities

Much to be said for a stay-at-home morning, no wheelchair travels Peetsward, a deliberate effort to tune in...with an emphasis on the 'in.' Something about the week had dragged me down. Jane's absence playing no small part. More prominent in my consciousness, the lack of same. Very little time given to reflection, which is always a bad thing for me. A growing sense of irritation when I had to deal with the practicalities of life. All adding up to the feeling at the end of each day that I had done Read more [...]

Time Travel

Hard to say about the essential facts of this, my life. One of which has most recently included the notion that, time's cruel ravages being what they are, I have lost so much strength that, well, getting out of bed in the morning has become marginal. And while this is not to be dismissed as laughable, the sitting-up-in-bed involving quite a strain on what able-bodied fitness buffs would describe as the 'core,' the truth lies elsewhere. Such as in the psyche, where a predictable quantity of everything Read more [...]

Bound East for Cardiff

At some point in my neuromuscular career I resolved that disability would not be at the center of my life. A commendable notion, this has proved impossible. With each advancing year, like it or not, my entire being spins around cervical 4/5, the anchor point for everything I do. Like it or not. Which I don't. Actually, it all goes well beyond not liking and directly into the region of not accepting. This very morning I began to go nuts searching for my coffee capsules. What? Well, for the uninitiated, Read more [...]

Nuts

The trouble I am having these days...is not like the trouble I am having many days. What is troubling about these or any days? Age...lingering memories of abandonment...dim fears of the future. They coalesce and precipitate, heaviness descending through the fluid of life, just like one of those school chemistry experiments. Am I really having more trouble getting my body out of bed, or do I fear having more trouble? Perhaps both. The day begins with Jane up and bustling out the door to walk the Read more [...]