creative forces

 

Blog # 127…March, 2022

I don’t particularly like the term differently- abled. It’s a bit clunky, but it does convey a better sense of how we all are…well, abled differently. Just as we’re gradually opening our hearts and minds, and books and films to include people of various colours, shapes and sexual definitions, we’re also accepting that we all hear, see, walk and talk at diverse levels of competence. Some of us may not walk up stairs as well or hear as clearly, but can sing Broadway musicals or knock off a great omelette.

I worked with children, most of them in wheelchairs, many years ago and found them thoughtful and unusually expressive…energy that other kids expended running around was available for thinking and talking to me. Alan who was 11 couldn’t walk unaided but he could beat me at chess. Eight year old Vancel came every day on his elbow crutches to take me to lunch in his taxi, making very realistic sounds of the doors opening and closing, the noise of the engine, the traffic’s honking and squealing brakes. Nancy, who was only 5 arrived when I was on crutches from a skiing incident, asked me who my physio was when I was little, which still brings tears to my eyes.

Ivan Illich (remember him from the 60’s?) had interesting ideas and wrote about  Disabling Professions. One of my greatest heroes, Oliver Sacks introduced me to the notion of hurling people at their deficits, as professionals put people through endless assessments from positions of power and authority.

Art can be an equalizer – think of the brilliant jazz of Jeff Healey; Daniel Laurie who plays Reggie Buckle’s Down Syndrome in Call the Midwife so touchingly because he lives there himself. Watching dance smooth out their tremours, we feel the music along with people with Parkinson’s and TV's Fashion Dis challenges traditional norms that lack inclusion in how we dress. An initiative to help people with disabilities achieve an MBA has been launched by a group of young people in Toronto...so things are happening in all sectors. 

And, coming up in a few days in Beijing – the Paralympics, launched in England after WWll at the Stoke Mandeville Hospital which specializes in spinal cord injuries. I always find it more interesting and inspiring to watch a blind speed skater or a skier missing an arm. How do they do it, and what courage it must take!

We’re being moved, sometime slowly but definitely surely into accepting and valuing difference, whether it’s in how we look, act, move or love....makes the world more vibrant, and also more accepting and less lonely for us in our uniqueness.

Here it is, another March... International Women's Day approaching, Spring and an unknown future. We've had enough surprises lately, and now the horror of the attack on Ukraine! And speaking of  unrecognized talents, we all wondered about the Ukrainians electing a comedian as president...now Volodymyr Zelenskyy is reminding us of George Vl staying in London during the blitz...and responding to offers to get him out with "I need ammunition, not a lift." Loving him for that as well as his brave leadership.

But wait, one more thing...actually two things that have made my spirit soar, at least temporarily, reading Indian in the Cabinet by Jody Wilson-Raybould  and watching season 10 of Call the Midwife.

Back in April with some beautiful images.