the part we can agree on, ramps, and vanity
My topic ideas were scattered this month. I wanted to write about why I cried yesterday when Trump was declared guilty (the relief of learning that something still works in this broken world). What it’s like to move to a new country and search for community as a tired middle-aged disabled parent. I considered writing a detailed description of my back pain because I’ve seen a few people mention their chronic pain lately and as an aching person, I always want to know more. Where, exactly, does it hurt? Tell me every detail. I also wanted to write about how I make decisions about what to share about my kids.
But, those will have to wait. If you are particularly interested in any of the topics above, let me know. Today, I am covering four things.
1. Something we can agree on
2. An update on my writing
3. A new book I recommend
4. Using a wheelchair and having kids and also being a little vain.
We can agree on this:
The other night, as we were very close to sleep, I insisted that David listen as I reviewed a couple of millennia of Palestine's history. “I just want to make sure I understand,” I told him. Obviously, I could never understand the breadth and depth of the region’s history, but I want a decent grasp on it because I keep finding myself totally baffled by the lack of consensus over the abject brutality in Gaza over the past couple of weeks.
Why can’t we agree that the US and Canada should not fund and provide weapons for murdering children? The US made the bombs that destroyed the camps in Rafah this week.
If, like me, you feel frozen by grief and helplessness, here is one action to take. Operation Olive Branch allows us to donate directly to families. Use this Google document to read their stories and help fund evacuations.
Cease fucking fire.
Writing:
A few weeks before F was born, I found out that Unfit Parent was, to my total shock and delight, shortlisted for the J. Anthony Lukas Work in Progress Award. To be counted among this group of writers who are working toward justice and truth is a dream. I am honored.
Also, I have two books available for pre-order! You can order Dateable or This is How We Play wherever you like to buy books!
As a reminder, you can listen to me talk about Unfit Parent here and talk about my love life here.
Recommendation:
In 2022 and 2023, Rachel Somerstein and I talked on the phone for long stretches, multiple times per month. We read and edited and talked about one another’s writing ad infinitum. We were both writing highly personal works of nonfiction that we wanted to be as honest and meaningful as possible. Her book about c-sections was conceived after her own traumatic labor experience. Invisible Labor, is coming out next week. I cannot recommend it more highly. You can hear her talk about it here.
Parenting with a disability:
About a month ago, we visited a local tattoo parlor/piercing studio. I wanted second holes in my lobes, and K was considering getting her ears pierced, too. I had emailed the shop in advance, asking about wheelchair access and they said that there was one step at the entrance but they would order a ramp. I said thank you and made sure they knew that my chair is nearly 500 pounds and that I needed a ramp to be able to access buildings. I sent a link to my wheelchair online. A few days before the appointment, I confirmed that wheelchair access was all set.
David attached the wheelchair trailer to the minivan, we packed F’s supplies, K’s supplies, and snacks for all, and left. When we arrived, F was fussy, because the car had stopped at too many lights on the drive so he hadn’t fallen asleep. K was on edge about her piercing decision. David went inside to check us in and was told that our piercer had left to get coffee and she’d be back in a few minutes. The day was hot in the sun and cold in the shade and F was crying and K was asking if she could swim in the drainage ditch nearby and my allergies were acting up.
David unloaded my wheelchair and I brought F into the front seat to feed him and the piercer still hadn’t returned. David went back inside to ask about setting up the ramp while we waited and they told him that the piercer had decided she would carry me and my chair in. That is impossible because it takes five baggage handlers to lift my chair at the airport. We had been waiting for thirty minutes.
I told the owner that I was disappointed to have arrived to a piercer who wasn’t even there and had lied about wheelchair access. K overheard it all and couldn’t handle seeing me mistreated in this way. She lost it. F, for those wondering, was still crying.
We loaded up the wheelchair and the children, and left. F finally fell asleep, and we went through the McDonald’s drive thru for ice cream cones.
This past Tuesday, we tried again, at a new place. Brittany stayed home with F, and David, and I picked K up from school and drove to our favorite park, where she played, and we chatted with a friend. We then walked to a tattoo parlour, where they set out a sturdy ramp and I made it inside, easily. In the shop, we joked about how busy my ears were between the mask straps, glasses frames, hearing aid, and now new earrings.
K held my hand during my piercing and decided against getting hers done but opted for a temporary tattoo and a lollipop. We walked to a pizza restaurant, where I pulled up next to their outdoor picnic table. I drank a glass of white wine and had blistered shishitos, kale salad, and pineapple pizza.
We told K we were proud of her for saying no when she didn’t want her ears pierced. She ran around the patio, petting any dog that walked by. When the pizza took longer than expected to arrive, she climbed on my chair and pouted as she draped her long body across my own.
And when we came home, baby F gave us his gummy grin. He woke up the next day and rolled over for the first time.
What is this story about? I guess it’s about the details. Access is specific and personal. It’s not just policy. Its lack means a kid watching her mom be left out. And its presence is a mom getting to share the quotidian and luxurious details of everyday life with her daughter.
I hope that, wherever you are, you are finding ways to keep your heart open to your own and others’ pain. I hope you are finding moments of rest and connection and beauty.
This month’s poem:
Osip Mandelstam: 394
Toward the empty earth
falling, one step faltering--
some sweetness, in this
unwilling hesitance--
she walks, keeping
just ahead of her friends,
the quick-footed woman,
the younger man, one year younger.
A shy freedom draws her, her hobbled step
frees her, fires her, and it seems
the shining riddle in her walk
wants to hold her back:
the riddle, that this spring weather
is for us the first mother:
the mother of the grave.
And this will keep on beginning forever.
There are women,
the damp earth's flesh and blood:
every step they take, a cry,
a deep steel drum.
It is their calling
to accompany those who have died;
and to be there, the first
to greet the resurrected.
To ask for their tenderness
would be a trespass against them;
but to go off, away from them--
no one has the strength.
Today is an angel; tomorrow
worms, and the grave;
and the day after
only lines in chalk.
The step you took
no longer there to take.
Flowers are deathless. Heaven is round.
And everything to be is only a promise.
--Voronezh. 4 May 1937