Beyond staring and obstruction

I am struck by the commonality of experiences that go beyond the individual nature of disability, both in its type and despite our circumstances. It makes no difference who we are , right? Well yes, it does in some ways, but the experience of disability has many common grounds.

One day I turned onto the main street where I live and there was Michael Graves in his power chair, right in front of me. I followed him in my power chair. I had one question in mind: what was his experience going down that street like? How did it differ from mine as an unknown person?

I watched the reactions of people. A few greeted him. Some shook his hand. Others engaged him in brief conversations. He had an assistant with him. They went into a restaurant to eat and disappeared from sight after fifteen minutes.

But that wasn't all I was watching. I was watching to see how those who did not recognize him acted vis a vis him in his wheelchair.

And what stood out to me was that the same people who walked right in front of my power chair when I came near them, the same folks who stared at me - walked in front of him and stared at him.

Except because he led the way, they did it to him first. Then they acted the same way toward me. And, although I know this from traveling in groups of people in wheelchairs, it was a stark reminder that it is the wheelchair, not the person, that triggers the staring, etc.

And it's an amazing sight to see it in "serial" fashion - when they stare at person A in wheelchair, then person B. Or when they step right in front of several people in wheelchairs within a matter of minutes. Which brings to mind the question: what are people seeing? What really are they thinking when they act in certain ways?

It reminds me of the time I was in a hotel lobby traveling with about ten friends in wheelchairs. A patron looked around and said to a friend of mine "Where did you all come from?"

To which, without meeting a beat, my friend replied "There was a bad accident up on the highway."

We come from every walk of life (no pun intended), every strata of society, every level of income, education and every culture. We are citizens, refugees and immigrants. And, yes, some of us are famous before, after and/or during disability, while most of us are not.

What no one can see is that there is among us a commonality of experience from going down a street the way our disability moves us to, and being in the world, that deserves note. We are a vital part of the entire community and a community that recognizes that where we all come from is the same is richer for a curiosity about our being that goes beyond staring and obstruction.