Month: October 2012

 

–rural New Hampshire, 1960

 

 

My mother spoke so often of the Peaveys

That a strange thing happened and I became 

 

One of them–one of the dozen tired 

And strained children of that clan 

 

And I walked barefoot in March,  

Lived in the ash gardens,

 

Carried chairs to the river, 

Smoked cigarettes, sang 

 

To the acrid odor of the railroad.

Now I think the hours are like curtains–

 

Drawn, I see again the truants, kids like me, 

Without lamps, or houses, or doors. 

 

They say love

Reveals fury–

 

So we were loved–  

And one of us stole a cheap guitar. 

My friend and colleague Professor Wendy Harbor, who teaches disability studies at Syracuse University, and who is deaf,  decided recently to undergo surgery for a cochlear implant. If you know anything about the culture wars within the disability world in general, and the deaf community in particular, you know that her decision to pursue “some” hearing is a complicated business. I know something about the complications, having undergone surgery to restore my eyes to “legal blindness” after a decade of seeing nothing. My struggle–a quandary really–was whether to have some visual function after living for years as a fully blind person who believed (and continues to believe) that the medical model of disability is wrong. Those of us who champion the rights of people with disabilities are, for the most part, people who happen to have disabilities–and more to the point, we’re people who have rejected the idea that medicine should define what an appropriate or successful life can or should be. No one should be subjected to definitional second-class status because they have a functional impairment, and yet, this is the upshot of the prevailing notion within medical circles. If you can’t be cured you’re no longer valuable. If you don’t have a disability you may think this representation of the “medical model” of disability is histrionic, but it’s largely accurate and I’ve seldom met a person with a disability who didn’t have his or her own horror story about a dismissive medical doctor. 

And so why would a disability rights activist decide to ameliorate or experiment? In my own case it was largely because I’d grown to see that procedures in contemporary ophthalmology had developed to the point where I might get some functioning back. I see partial vision as an accommodation–following my surgery I can read large print with my new Mac and the iPad. I can’t do this for very long. I need voice on my computer for part of the day. I can only read with one eye. It would not be advisable for me to give up my guide dog. Still, I have more options for acquiring information, and for adjusting to multiple environments. I like to think that I’ve helped my disability grow more colorful feathers.

Wendy Harbor now has a blog detailing her experiences as she transitions to her implant and it makes for really interesting reading. Enjoy!  

 

https://wharbour.expressions.syr.edu

 

http://www.ncd.gov/publications/2012/Sep272012/

  

“Oh, it’s a service dog,” says the airline woman, clearly flustered, uncertain, even a wee bit panicked. It’s possible she’s never seen a working dog. It’s also possible that disability and political correctness and unfamiliarity have collided in her head. 

 

It’s early and I’m at O’Hare airport in Chicago, catching a flight to New York. My noble guide dog is at my side, though she’s not as noble as she should be because she’s sniffing a stranger’s suitcase. I pull her gently to a heeling position. The airline lady has disappeared. Poof! This is like old Scandinavian magic–someone put a spell on her and she’s vanished to the underworld. Well alright, I put a spell on her. Or “we” did–me and guide dog Nira, a seemingly innocuous yellow Labrador Retriever from Guiding Eyes for the Blind in New York. We have the power to make people go away. Right now she’s in the back room asking a supervisor what to do. Do we have to take the dog away from the man? Do we charge extra for a service dog? Does the dog get crated like cargo? Does it get a seat in the cabin? Can the man sit anywhere or does he get a special seat? Nira and I know all the questions that are now being asked behind the curtain.  

 

**

 

The sensational creature next to me is known in English as a “guide dog” and sometimes she’s called a “Seeing-Eye” dog since the first school in the United States to train dogs for the blind is “The Seeing-Eye” in Morristown, New Jersey. Now there are a dozen guide dog schools in the US and more than 80 around the world, and their ranks are growing.  

 

The technical name is guide dog.   

 

What does a guide dog do? 

 

Why is the appearance of a guide dog in public still so surprising?

 

I ponder these things in the United Airlines ticket area while loudspeakers broadcast phrases like: “unattended luggage”; “liquids, gels, and creams”.

 

 

**

 

When the woman returns she’s all smiles. Her supervisor has assured her guide dogs fly on airplanes, that they lie at the feet of their human partners, and that no charge will be applied for the dog. Perhaps the supervisor also said it’s a good thing if you give the guide dog team a bulkhead seat–though this isn’t required. The only thing the law really says is that people with disabilities can’t sit in the exit row. 

 

One thing’s for sure: guide dogs are still relatively unfamiliar to the public, even some 80 years after their introduction in the United States. People know they exist, but they don’t know what these dogs and their people can do. 

By Andrea Scarpino

 

I haven’t been sleeping well, my mind full of tasks I have to remember, conversations I want to forget, the excitement of newly developing adventures. 

 

Last night, lying awake as Zac slept next to me, I breathed deeply, tried to quiet my mind enough to sleep. Instead, I thought about my friend Gracie, who would have turned 19 last weekend if she hadn’t been killed in an overturning SUV. I thought about my friend Dan, murdered on an ordinary Saturday. I thought about my Dad, how having a child late in life meant leaving me sooner than I would have liked. I thought about the ring he and my step-mother bought me when I graduated from college—a square garnet, my birth stone, surrounded by cut diamonds. I don’t often wear it, but right now, I want to wear it constantly, somehow cull strength from its presence on my hand. 

 

I thought about how this week, I will celebrate 12 years with Zac, an anniversary I never imagined I would celebrate. Throughout my childhood, I imagined a life filled with friends and pets, with traveling, with overflowing bookshelves. I would wrap my white woven blanket around my head and pretend I had long, straight hair I could swirl around my shoulders—not that I was getting married. I spent hours alone in my room arranging stuffed animals on my bed and teaching them how to read. Even through college, I imagined sharing a big home with dear friends, of retiring together in some lovely beach location. I never dreamed I would find a partner willing to put up with me. 

 

And yet, for 12 years, I have found a partner willing to put up with me. 12 years ago this week, Zac and I had our first date watching the presidential debates (Gore versus Bush) on the television in my apartment. I remember making Zac tea—he had a cough—and I remember my cat Orion, who was terrified of everyone, walked right up to Zac and demanded petting. I remember sitting on my living room table instead of the couch—but I can’t remember why. It was the perfect first date for the way our relationship has unfolded—politically inclined, thoughtful, full of lively (and lengthy) discussions. 

 

12 years ago this week, a man lovelier than I could have imagined, a man I wouldn’t have dreamed of imagining, walked through the front door of my apartment. So even when I lie awake thinking about heartbreaks, all the things I wish were different, I also think about the many reasons I have to be grateful, the many people who fill my life with love. I lie awake thinking about Zac—for 12 years, the very best thing to have happened to me.

 

This morning I am in Estonia, in memory, Tallinn in winter. Because I am still young when I think on it, I am young and more than a little foolish. 

 

I held a seashell to my ear in the cocktail lounge, pretended I was confiding to the police–recited a poem by the Finnish poet Pentti Saarikoski. 

 

I spread old tales of war across two tables I said, with the satisfaction of knowing I meant it. 

 

I meant that war is always a narrative at first, then a calamity. I meant that brutal stories had been told, were being told, were written on the monolith hotel in graffiti.

Yup. Still can’t see the future. Still feel like a refugee from a forgotten battle. I’ll bet you do too. We know who we are, don’t we?

Meanwhile we clean the mortal house. And owing to visual impairment, we can’t see the dead tree standing in the yard. Therefore, I cannot feel like a swindled naturalist. 

You see?