Author: stevekuusisto

I have written two memoirs that are respectively and in part concerned with the subject of my family and the matter of disability.  If you have read those books you know that my mother and father were deeply divided about my blindness when I was a boy.  They knew the "facts" concerning my disability but they had little or no emotional language that might enable our family to talk about the daily realities that accompany visual impairment.

The gap between empirical knowledge and emotional intelligence is a common problem for families that are faced with disability.  I think it’s also the case that this language gap happens when family’s face almost anything they weren’t counting on: teenage pregnancy, drug addiction, alcoholism, an unfaithful spouse–all these problems naturally come to mind.

The difference with disability is that unlike the other circumstances you can’t really deny its existence for more than about sixty seconds, which is about how long the average person can hold his or her breath.  You can pretend that grandma is eccentric for years even as she sequentially sets fire to the living room furniture and wrecks several station wagons.  She’s not a drunk.  She’s gravitationally challenged; she’s "spiritual"; by God she’s a genius!

Even though my family liked to pretend that I wasn’t blind, I always "was" and the story of our growth together has everything to do with learning the emotional language of disability.

Another way to think about this is to imagine that the idea that you can "not think" about disability is as ridiculous as eating opium.  Everybody knows the story of Samuel Taylor Coleridge who began writing his visionary and Romantic poem "Kubla Khan" while under the influence of laudanum.  The poem was coming along nicely when suddenly a local laboring man knocked on Coleridge’s door and interrupted the poet’s "Magical Mystery Tour".  Coleridge was never able to complete the poem and it is routinely reprinted in anthologies to this day, largely as an example of "what might have been".

I’ve always thought of the Kubla Khan story as being a kind of disability narrative.  Disability always knocks and interrupts what you were thinking about.

In turn, I guess you could say that disability asks us to live out in the open and to use our poetic gifts in the service of community.  This is why I believe that so much good contemporary literary writing has been done by people who have chosen to talk about disability in their lives.  Writers like Ralph Savarese, Floyd Skloot, Anne Finger, Kenny Fries, come to mind and of course there are hundreds more.

I owe a good deal to my parents even though they were slow to learn the language of disability.  They encouraged me to take up writing and they understood that progress is progress, even if you don’t always like the new names you have to give it.  My parents didn’t like the fact that I was blind but they learned to talk about it and even admire it.

This is what good families do: we learn new emotional languages together.  One day your daughter announces that she’s marrying someone you can scarcely imagine in your midst.  And then you do imagine it.  And then, after years, you think it was your idea all along.

Thank God for families, even with all their flaws!

Steve Kuusisto

I watched part of the Tony Blair-George W. Bush news conference and was reminded of the old folk story about the turtle on a fence post.  Here were two men who know that their respective places in history will be circumscribed by the course of events in Iraq.  They can’t imagine how this turtle got on top of that fence post.  And so of course they talked about courage and they spoke about the hard decisions that leaders must make and they spoke affirmingly of their corresponding strength of purpose.

The trouble is that for George W. Bush the war in Iraq was always meant to be nothing more than a theatrical production.  It was supposed to be easy.  It was never meant to be a war on terror.  Iraq was nothing more than an extravaganza.  And when it quickly became a civil war with a swift infusion of real terrorists Bush failed to put enough troops on the ground to manage the situation.  We don’t have to wait for history to know these things.

I am certain that our nation’s current course of action is utterly wrong.  No rational person inside or outside the military believes that we should keep our troops in a civil war.

But courage in this instance requires more than the social semiotics of the turtle on the fence post.  Iraq is not the front line in the "war on terror"–it’s a blunder  that looks and smells like imperialist occupation and the sooner the U.S. gets out the sooner we can work toward peaceful solutions for the many conflicts that are heating up across the Middle East.

Such a move will look at first like defeat.  But it won’t be.  History assures us of that.

I wasn’t in the best of moods last night as we headed to town to the Ohio Theatre to see and listen to Dr. Maya Angelou.  In fact I was a little worried I might fall asleep listening to poetry being read for an hour and a half.  But an opportunity to be present in the same space with Dr. Angelou is not something to be taken for granted;  I was determined to adjust my attitude and appreciate the "real moments" gifted to us by this lovely, remarkable woman.

Dr. Angelou is lovely indeed.  Warm, witty, opinionated, wise, courageous…. She actually recited very little poetry last night.  She talked, sang a little and why she even cussed on occasion!  Much of what she shared can be read here.  She talked a great deal about how we all have in our lives "rainbows in the clouds" and how each of us have opportunities to be a rainbow in other peoples lives.  She spoke warmly of her "crippled" Uncle Willy and of the numerous people touched by his presence in their lives – a rainbow to many.  "Uncle Willy was crippled" she said, paralyzed on his right side, perhaps from polio.  No one ever really knew…

Maya shared with us her belief that courage is the most important virtue we can "practice" because with out courage, we can not consistently practice any of the other virtues.  Not consistently, she emphasized.  That’s when she mentioned her reaction to people who call themselves Christians.  "Really?  Already?" she said to the delight of the audience.  "I’m not done being a Christian; I’m still practicing…when did you finish?" 

In speaking of courage, Maya explained to us her refusal to spend any time in the company of others who use the "N" word or any other pejorative words directed at anyone for that matter.  "To Hell with that!"  It takes courage to excuse yourself from such situations, but we all need to practice it.  With great humor, she told us of an experience she had years ago in dealing with "Hollywood" executive types.  Pejorative language was tossed about the room; she left as people warned her that if did there would be no future for her there.  She then reminded us of just how successful she’s since been as an actress, producer and director despite having walked out then and there.  Just be careful, she warned us.  If you do storm out of the room, make sure you take your car keys with you.  Otherwise like me, you’ll be "hiding in the bushes" until they’re gone.

If you ever have the occasion to spend an evening with Dr. Maya Angelou, do not pass it up.  You’ll laugh.  If you’re like me you’ll cry.  You will walk out with a greater appreciation for the rainbows in your clouds and a determination to look for more opportunities to be a rainbow to others. 

If I could say just one thing to Dr. Angelou, I would ask her to have the courage drop the "C" word and to explain to her audiences why she chooses to no longer refer to Uncle Willy as being a "cripple".  We know Maya’s audience is vast.  She is known around the globe for her work and for her words.  If Maya would acknowledge that she’s come to understand that to many, such language is considered hurtful and pejorative, people would hear her message.  Imagine Maya as a rainbow in the clouds of people with disabilities.  Wouldn’t it be magnificent?

Oh, and one more thing I’d like to say to Maya Angelou: thank you for a lovely evening.

~ Connie

Book critic Bill Eichenberger of the Columbus Dispatch recently interviewed Dr. Angelou.  Here is the link.  You may need to wait a few seconds for it to load.