2005-07-25 - 11:12 a.m.
I took a wheelchair on my last trip out to Denver. I originally got one for my graduation ceremony at the end of May. I got this model simply because it�s black and avoids the Cylon chrome aesthetic of a lot of chairs. I�d only really used it since to go to an outdoorsy wedding. N. urged me to bring it because she wanted to do more stuff with me and she felt this would make it easier.
It totally did. We did things � like go to a museum and strip club and out to eat � that I guess I never thought I�d do again (well, not that I had been to a strip club before but you know what I mean). It�s not like I was actively lamenting my fate (�I�ll never see a Monet again! Woe is me!�), but I guess I had subconsciously just put a lot of stuff to the side and written it off.
It�s a big psychological leap to use a chair. To admit that you just can�t do it unaided. To accept that you really are a crip. But it really makes things so much easier. I probably should have used one before, but I just wasn�t ready. I suspect that some of the people who�ve stared at me hobbling around were thinking: why the heck isn�t that guy in a wheelchair?
In my disability class last fall we learned how the phrase �confined to a wheelchair� is really just inaccurate. Using a chair gives someone more freedom than they�d ever have without it. It�s far from �confining�; this isn�t just some P.C. nicety. At risk of sounding melodramatic, a wheelchair � and N. who gave me the courage to use it � brought me back from the dead. I�d written off so much of life without even realizing it that I was often essentially an empty shell, just faking it.
I should mention that the city of Denver is exceptionally wheelchair-friendly. There are curb cuts in both directions on every corner, every driveway is at grade with the sidewalk, all pavement is smooth and even. And before you say it�s because Denver is a new city, let me note that it�s actually like 150 years old. Maybe much of the built environment is indeed recent and post-ADA, but I suspect it�s more that they just have their act together better than a lot of East Coast cities.
They have street trees with pavement-upheaving roots the same as we do here. They just repair things more effectively. I don�t think this is so much a matter of cost (how much is it really to plunk down some smoothing macadam?), but of sheer lax inertia covered by a fake historic preservation interest. �Eh, Roger Williams tripped on this crack! They didn�t have handicapped people back then!�
So I�m taking my chair when I go to Lily Dale tomorrow and when I go back to Denver next month (yes, that�s worked out; I�m on cloud 9). It really makes a world of difference.
� 2005 Geoff Gladstone
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