Traveling Shoes, Traveling Dogs

In the last few days I have found myself once again traveling extensively and as usual, experiencing the highs and lows of disability travel. In Chicago where I was speaking at The University of Illinois Chicago campus about blindness in the 21st century I got yelled at by a mean spirited doorman who didn’t like the fact that I was letting my dog take a pee in the dead flowers outside the hotel. Trust me, there was no other place to go. His mean spiritedness was the issue. It’s not uncommon as a person with a disability to find yourself in a hieratic and miserable state of diminishment–it’s a caste system implicit in American social circles. The people with the disabilities can still be treated with contempt at the drop of a hat. Or use your own favorite cliche: whenever the mood strikes. 

Because of this spontaneous contempt factor I always wear a suit and tie when I travel. My costume (for that’s what it really is) is designed to say, “It’s Mr. Disabled Guy, to you, buddy.” I wear the proper getup for citizenship. No dirty tee shirt and bad haircut for this blind guy. I’m serious. I’m dead serious. Watch out. I might just be a professional person you stinker, you. 

Meantime, despite the bad reception from the doorman, I had a police officer at O’Hare airport hail me a cab–that is, he offered to hail me a cab. Then told me his cousin is losing his vision and his hearing owing to Usher’s disease. I told him about Guiding Eyes for the Blind which trains guide dogs for people with Usher’s disease. We had a human talk, a moment of soulful contact. We also talked about the Chicago Cubs. That was an uplifting moment. It was also a moment made entirely possible because of my disability. This is the flip side of the homunculus doorman. People with disabilities can tell you tons of stories that reflect this up and down dynamic of physical difference and social attraction-repulsion. It’s possible to argue that this is the same up and down dynamic we all face, regardless of physical difference–that is, if you’re just a normal looking person (whatever that might mean?) and someone treats you poorly at the supermarket checkout, you might then find, just moments later a person who does something kind for you. My point is not that disability makes for a different experience of the social circle, but that it simply intensifies the experiences. This is because of the inherent stigma associated with physical defect on the one hand, and the compensatory decency of civilized people on the other hand–but both principles involve something heightened, a mode of human activity that’s spurred by symbolism. God Almighty, one gets tired of it.

In New York City I had a limo driver (who I had paid to pick me up in advance) throw a fit when he saw my guide dog. He wasn’t going to take me to the airport. I had told the limo company about the dog. But they didn’t tell him. He was from India. He thought the dog was unclean. He was snotty. Eventually he took me to the airport but it was a frosty ride to say the least. 

And yet, just the evening before, while walking my dog near Central Park, a young Latino policeman came up to me and said how much he admired my dog and my ability to work with her. A nice moment to be sure. A human minute. Something that harkened back to our earliest times on earth when we had to be social creatures. 

This up and down business of disability is always heightened by travel. No wonder some people would rather stay at home. But compensatory judgements are always wrong. People are most often better than we suppose. I think that’s right. I think it’s right most days. I say so it’s so. My dog agrees.

Author: stevekuusisto

Poet, Essayist, Blogger, Journalist, Memoirist, Disability Rights Advocate, Public Speaker, Professor, Syracuse University View all posts by stevekuusisto