Never Walked In High Heels

This week, as I aim to take an end of summer holiday, I offer you the transcripts of three historical speeches from America’s past. Each of these, I feel, echo or precede  the issues we still struggle with today. Listen to their wisdom well, as they each give a great deal of comfort. The first is President Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address.

Fellow-citizens of the United States:
In compliance with a custom as old as the government itself, I appear before you to address you briefly, and to take, in your presence, the oath prescribed by the Constitution of the United States, to be taken by the President “before he enters on the execution of this office.”

I do not consider it necessary at present for me to discuss those matters of administration about which there is no special anxiety or excitement.

Apprehension seems to exist among the people of the Southern States, that by the accession of a Republican Administration, their property, and their peace, and personal security, are to be endangered. There has never been any reasonable cause for such apprehension. Indeed, the most ample evidence to the contrary has all the while existed, and been open to their inspection. It is found in nearly all the published speeches of him who now addresses you. I do but quote from one of those speeches when I declare that “I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.” Those who nominated and elected me did so with full knowledge that I had made this, and many similar declarations, and had never recanted them. And more than this, they placed in the platform, for my acceptance, and as a law to themselves, and to me, the clear and emphatic resolution which I now read:

Resolved, That the maintenance inviolate of the rights of the States, and especially the right of each State to order and control its own domestic institutions according to its own judgment exclusively, is essential to that balance of power on which the perfection and endurance of our political fabric depend; and we denounce the lawless invasion by armed force of the soil of any State or Territory, no matter what pretext, as among the gravest of crimes.”

I now reiterate these sentiments; and in doing so, I only press upon the public attention the most conclusive evidence of which the case is susceptible, that the property, peace and security of no section are to be in any wise endangered by the now incoming Administration. I add too, that all the protection which, consistently with the Constitution and the laws, can be given, will be cheerfully given to all the States when lawfully demanded, for whatever cause — as cheerfully to one section as to another.

There is much controversy about the delivering up of fugitives from service or labor. The clause I now read is as plainly written in the Constitution as any other of its provisions:

“No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due.”

It is scarcely questioned that this provision was intended by those who made it, for the reclaiming of what we call fugitive slaves; and the intention of the law-giver is the law. All members of Congress swear their support to the whole Constitution — to this provision as much as to any other. To the proposition, then, that slaves whose cases come within the terms of this clause, “shall be delivered,” their oaths are unanimous. Now, if they would make the effort in good temper, could they not, with nearly equal unanimity, frame and pass a law, by means of which to keep good that unanimous oath?

There is some difference of opinion whether this clause should be enforced by national or by state authority; but surely that difference is not a very material one. If the slave is to be surrendered, it can be of but little consequence to him, or to others, by which authority it is done. And should any one, in any case, be content that his oath shall go unkept, on a merely unsubstantial controversy as to how it shall be kept?

Again, in any law upon this subject, ought not all the safeguards of liberty known in civilized and humane jurisprudence to be introduced, so that a free man be not, in any case, surrendered as a slave? And might it not be well, at the same time to provide by law for the enforcement of that clause in the Constitution which guarantees that “the citizens of each State shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States”?

I take the official oath to-day, with no mental reservations, and with no purpose to construe the Constitution or laws, by any hypercritical rules. And while I do not choose now to specify particular acts of Congress as proper to be enforced, I do suggest that it will be much safer for all, both in official and private stations, to conform to, and abide by, all those acts which stand unrepealed, than to violate any of them, trusting to find impunity in having them held to be unconstitutional.

It is seventy-two years since the first inauguration of a President under our national Constitution. During that period fifteen different and greatly distinguished citizens, have, in succession, administered the executive branch of the government. They have conducted it through many perils; and, generally, with great success. Yet, with all this scope for [of] precedent, I now enter upon the same task for the brief constitutional term of four years, under great and peculiar difficulty. A disruption of the Federal Union, heretofore only menaced, is now formidably attempted.

I hold, that in contemplation of universal law, and of the Constitution, the Union of these States is perpetual. Perpetuity is implied, if not expressed, in the fundamental law of all national governments. It is safe to assert that no government proper, ever had a provision in its organic law for its own termination. Continue to execute all the express provisions of our national Constitution, and the Union will endure forever — it being impossible to destroy it, except by some action not provided for in the instrument itself.

Again, if the United States be not a government proper, but an association of States in the nature of contract merely, can it, as a contract, be peaceably unmade, by less than all the parties who made it? One party to a contract may violate it — break it, so to speak; but does it not require all to lawfully rescind it?

Descending from these general principles, we find the proposition that, in legal contemplation, the Union is perpetual, confirmed by the history of the Union itself. The Union is much older than the Constitution. It was formed in fact, by the Articles of Association in 1774. It was matured and continued by the Declaration of Independence in 1776. It was further matured and the faith of all the then thirteen States expressly plighted and engaged that it should be perpetual, by the Articles of Confederation in 1778. And finally, in 1787, one of the declared objects for ordaining and establishing the Constitution, was ”to form a more perfect Union.” But if [the] destruction of the Union, by one, or by a part only, of the States, be lawfully possible, the Union is less perfect than before the Constitution, having lost the vital element of perpetuity.

It follows from these views that no State, upon its own mere motion, can lawfully get out of the Union, — that resolves and ordinancesto that effect are legally void, and that acts of violence, within any State or States, against the authority of the United States, are insurrectionary or revolutionary, according to circumstances.

I therefore consider that in view of the Constitution and the laws, the Union is unbroken; and to the extent of my ability I shall take care, as the Constitution itself expressly enjoins upon me, that the laws of the Union be faithfully executed in all the States. Doing this I deem to be only a simple duty on my part; and I shall perform it, so far as practicable, unless my rightful masters, the American people, shall withhold the requisite means, or in some authoritative manner, direct the contrary. I trust this will not be regarded as a menace, but only as the declared purpose of the Union that will constitutionally defend and maintain itself.

In doing this there needs to be no bloodshed or violence; and there shall be none, unless it be forced upon the national authority. The power confided to me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property and places belonging to the government, and to collect the duties and imposts; but beyond what may be necessary for these objects, there will be no invasion — no using of force against or among the people anywhere. Where hostility to the United States in any interior locality, shall be so great and so universal, as to prevent competent resident citizens from holding the Federal offices, there will be no attempt to force obnoxious strangers among the people for that object. While the strict legal right may exist in the government to enforce the exercise of these offices, the attempt to do so would be so irritating, and so nearly impracticable with all, that I deem it better to forego, for the time, the uses of such offices.

The mails, unless repelled, will continue to be furnished in all parts of the Union. So far as possible, the people everywhere shall have that sense of perfect security which is most favorable to calm thought and reflection. The course here indicated will be followed, unless current events and experience shall show a modification or change to be proper; and in every case and exigency my best discretion will be exercised according to circumstances actually existing, and with a view and a hope of a peaceful solution of the national troubles, and the restoration of fraternal sympathies and affections.

That there are persons in one section or another who seek to destroy the Union at all events, and are glad of any pretext to do it, I will neither affirm nor deny; but if there be such, I need address no word to them. To those, however, who really love the Union may I not speak?

Before entering upon so grave a matter as the destruction of our national fabric, with all its benefits, its memories, and its hopes, would it not be wise to ascertain precisely why we do it? Will you hazard so desperate a step, while there is any possibility that any portion of the ills you fly from have no real existence? Will you, while the certain ills you fly to, are greater than all the real ones you fly from? Will you risk the commission of so fearful a mistake?

All profess to be content in the Union, if all constitutional rights can be maintained. Is it true, then, that any right, plainly written in the Constitution, has been denied? I think not. Happily the human mind is so constituted, that no party can reach to the audacity of doing this. Think, if you can, of a single instance in which a plainly written provision of the Constitution has ever been denied. If by the mere force of numbers, a majority should deprive a minority of any clearly written constitutional right, it might, in a moral point of view, justify revolution — certainly would, if such right were a vital one. But such is not our case. All the vital rights of minorities, and of individuals, are so plainly assured to them, by affirmations and negations, guaranties and prohibitions, in the Constitution, that controversies never arise concerning them. But no organic law can ever be framed with a provision specifically applicable to every question which may occur in practical administration. No foresight can anticipate, nor any document of reasonable length contain express provisions for all possible questions. Shall fugitives from labor be surrendered by national or by State authority? The Constitution does not expressly say. May Congress prohibit slavery in the territories? The Constitution does not expressly say.Must Congress protect slavery in the territories? The Constitution does not expressly say.

From questions of this class spring all our constitutional controversies, and we divide upon them into majorities and minorities. If the minority will not acquiesce, the majority must, or the government must cease. There is no other alternative; for continuing the government, is acquiescence on one side or the other. If a minority, in such case, will secede rather than acquiesce, they make a precedent which, in turn, will divide and ruin them; for a minority of their own will secede from them whenever a majority refuses to be controlled by such minority. For instance, why may not any portion of a new confederacy, a year or two hence, arbitrarily secede again, precisely as portions of the present Union now claim to secede from it? All who cherish disunion sentiments, are now being educated to the exact temper of doing this.

Is there such perfect identity of interests among the States to compose a new Union, as to produce harmony only, and prevent renewed secession?

Plainly, the central idea of secession, is the essence of anarchy. A majority, held in restraint by constitutional checks and limitations, and always changing easily with deliberate changes of popular opinions and sentiments, is the only true sovereign of a free people. Whoever rejects it, does, of necessity, fly to anarchy or to despotism. Unanimity is impossible; the rule of a minority, as a permanent arrangement, is wholly inadmissible; so that, rejecting the majority principle, anarchy or despotism in some form is all that is left.

I do not forget the position assumed by some, that constitutional questions are to be decided by the Supreme Court; nor do I deny that such decisions must be binding in any case, upon the parties to a suit; as to the object of that suit, while they are also entitled to very high respect and consideration in all parallel cases by all other departments of the government. And while it is obviously possible that such decision may be erroneous in any given case, still the evil effect following it, being limited to that particular case, with the chance that it may be over-ruled, and never become a precedent for other cases, can better be borne than could the evils of a different practice. At the same time, the candid citizen must confess that if the policy of the government upon vital questions, affecting the whole people, is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court, the instant they are made, in ordinary litigation between parties, in personal actions, the people will have ceased to be their own rulers, having to that extent practically resigned their government into the hands of that eminent tribunal. Nor is there in this view any assault upon the court or the judges. It is a duty from which they may not shrink, to decide cases properly brought before them; and it is no fault of theirs if others seek to turn their decisions to political purposes.

One section of our country believes slavery is right, and ought to be extended, while the other believes it is wrong, and ought not to be extended. This is the only substantial dispute. The fugitive slave clause of the Constitution, and the law for the suppression of the foreign slave trade, are each as well enforced, perhaps, as any law can ever be in a community where the moral sense of the people imperfectly supports the law itself. The great body of the people abide by the dry legal obligation in both cases, and a few break over in each. This, I think, cannot be perfectly cured, and it would be worse in both cases after the separation of the sections, than before. The foreign slave trade, now imperfectly suppressed, would be ultimately revived without restriction, in one section; while fugitive slaves, now only partially surrendered, would not be surrendered at all, by the other.

Physically speaking, we cannot separate. We can not remove our respective sections from each other, nor build an impassable wall between them. A husband and wife may be divorced, and go out of the presence, and beyond the reach of each other; but the different parts of our country cannot do this. They cannot but remain face to face; and intercourse, either amicable or hostile, must continue between them. Is it possible, then, to make that intercourse more advantageous or more satisfactory, after separation than before?Can aliens make treaties easier than friends can make laws? Can treaties be more faithfully enforced between aliens than laws can among friends? Suppose you go to war, you cannot fight always; and when, after much loss on both sides, and no gain on either, you cease fighting, the identical old questions, as to terms of intercourse, are again upon you.

This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing Government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it. I cannot be ignorant of the fact that many worthy and patriotic citizens are desirous of having the national Constitution amended. While I make no recommendation of amendments, I fully recognize the rightful authority of the people over the whole subject to be exercised in either of the modes prescribed in the instrument itself; and I should, under existing circumstances, favor rather than oppose a fair opportunity being afforded the people to act upon it.

I will venture to add that to me the Convention mode seems preferable, in that it allows amendments to originate with the people themselves, instead of only permitting them to take or reject propositions, originated by others, not especially chosen for the purpose, and which might not be precisely such as they would wish to either accept or refuse. I understand a proposed amendment to the Constitution, which amendment, however, I have not seen, has passed Congress, to the effect that the federal government shall never interfere with the domestic institutions of the States, including that of persons held to service. To avoid misconstruction of what I have said, I depart from my purpose not to speak of particular amendments, so far as to say that holding such a provision to now be implied constitutional law, I have no objection to its being made express and irrevocable.

The Chief Magistrate derives all his authority from the people, and they have referred none upon him to fix terms for the separation of the States. The people themselves can do this if also they choose; but the executive, as such, has nothing to do with it. His duty is to administer the present government, as it came to his hands, and to transmit it, unimpaired by him, to his successor.

Why should there not be a patient confidence in the ultimate justice of the people? Is there any better or equal hope, in the world? In our present differences, is either party without faith of being in the right? If the Almighty Ruler of nations, with his eternal truth and justice, be on your side of the North, or on yours of the South, that truth, and that justice, will surely prevail, by the judgment of this great tribunal of the American people.

By the frame of the government under which we live, this same people have wisely given their public servants but little power for mischief; and have, with equal wisdom, provided for the return of that little to their own hands at very short intervals.

While the people retain their virtue and vigilance, no administration, by any extreme of wickedness or folly, can very seriously injure the government in the short space of four years.

My countrymen, one and all, think calmly and well, upon this whole subject. Nothing valuable can be lost by taking time. If there be an object to hurry any of you, in hot haste, to a step which you would never take deliberately, that object will be frustrated by taking time; but no good object can be frustrated by it. Such of you as are now dissatisfied still have the old Constitution unimpaired, and, on the sensitive point, the laws of your own framing under it; while the new administration will have no immediate power, if it would, to change either. If it were admitted that you who are dissatisfied, hold the right side in the dispute, there still is no single good reason for precipitate action. Intelligence, patriotism, Christianity, and a firm reliance on Him, who has never yet forsaken this favored land, are still competent to adjust, in the best way, all our present difficulty.

In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in Heaven to destroy the government, while I shall have the most solemn one to “preserve, protect, and defend it.”

I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearth-stone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.

General Washington warned us about this. In his farewell address as president he begged his fellow founding fathers not to allow political parties to be formed in the United States. In 1796 he wrote “The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty.”

Sound familiar? Thought so.

I had a school teacher who refused to discuss abortion in the classroom claiming that it was an issue that was so passionate that nobody ever listened, they just became more certain about being right. I’m starting to feel that way about any political issue. I actually heard a friend tell me last month “You’re a Republican. You don’t know anything.” I don’t know which was more surprising: that fact that I was a Republican or the fact I was an idiot. I never considered myself much of either. If both are the case, I would like a refund of my college tuition.

Washington D.C., over the summer, has dissolved into a three ring circus where each faction is simply trying to dominate the other. Gone are the days of discussing ideas and refining issues. Rather, the system is being flooded by bills which are over one thousand pages long, stimulus packages nobody can afford, and fear tactics which could make a mob boss quake. Our government, born from the ideals of reason and the Enlightenment, has dissolved into the audience of a freak show with the American people as the ones in cages.

Don’t fool yourself. The democrats of today are not of the same breed as JFK and FDR. And our republicans are not of the same ilk as Lincoln or Teddy Roosevelt. Of course, maybe the people they serve are not of the same temper as Americans used to be. Perhaps it is my youth speaking, but there must have been a time when stating any political affiliation didn’t put you at risk for being listed as a social pariah. And perhaps those were the same times that we didn’t look to others for ‘hope’ because we were able to find it in ourselves, in our own situation, and in our mundane lives. The Washington D.C. of today is the Capitol we bred, political polarization and all.

When George Washington spoke of “the minds of men,” he wasn’t talking about politicians. The founding fathers wrote that all men are created equal, meaning that the farmer is the same as the statesman and the banker. We all have this horrible tendency to fragment and split when it comes to politics. It becomes an ‘us versus them’ form of seeing the world. As you read this, Washington D.C. is taking this attitude and running with it seizing every split and fractioning as an opportunity to seize power and clamp down on liberty. We, at home, must fix this because the problem started with us. If we all are equal, we all have an opinion meant to be heard and respected if not shared. Start speaking amongst yourselves at the dinner table. Start disagreeing so you can refine your theses. Start seeing yourselves as people who look to define freedom rather than political parties. And above all, stop waiting for other people to fix your problems.

Some political pundits say that our government no longer represents the people. They are wrong. Given how hot tempered and arrogant I’ve seen Americans become over something like torte reform and tax law, Congress is doing a very good job of representing us. People deserve the government they elect according to Alexis de Toqueville. Trouble is, now that the elected officials have seen our mayhem and used it for a show of their own, we are starting to see that elephants can smell, donkeys can look pretty pathetic, the woman in the evening gown isn’t really that good of a singer, and all the hoopla makes one wonder exactly what’s going on back stage.

              When I finally sat down to clear through my emails this morning, I was greeted by a common enough occurrence. It was a response from a complaint I filed months ago.

              “Dear Ms. Stevens,

              We were very saddened to hear about your expirences with our company during X concerning the matter of Y. Let me assure you that we pride ourselves at Z on our customer service.  This matter will receive a full investigation.  However, let us remind you that our policy for customers that need special assistance is that we require 48 hours notice in order to give you our best service.  Please keep this in mind when making further arrangements.”

              The above is the excuse of the British across the island.  They are more than happy to give a disabled person full service as long as the customer gives them forty-eight hours notice that they will require their services.  What kind of person can plan their life so far ahead that they will be able to determine forty-eight hours in advance when they are going to need to run out to the store and get an emergency carton of milk because they’re making a cake?  Public transportation systems such as Southeastern Railway live and die by the excuse that if I don’t let them know when I need to use their trains two days in advance, they aren’t required to get out a ramp and help me onto the train car. 

              The thing is, even if someone does call forty-eight hours in advance, half the time the request doesn’t get to the appropriate personnel.  It’s like the special assistance line of so many companies are just for show and don’t actually connect to the main office.  My suspicions are even further encouraged when I am told that I need to dial a different number to reach the special assistance line, and that the head office cannot automatically transfer me to the correct extension. In fact, most of the time, the two offices aren’t even in the same town. 

              To require forty-eight hours advanced notice is not equal access. End of story. Don’t fool yourself. Don’t console yourself by believing a lie. Nobody else has to make reservations to use a bus two full days before actually stepping onto it. In fact, after a quick poll amongst my university colleagues, I found that none of them even had the ability to consistently plan that far ahead. And many of those friends study at Ivy Leagues now.

              The bit about this whole situation which I find most disturbing is the abject arrogance that the forty-eight hour rule fosters. By saying that I can only make plans forty-eight hours in advance, do you know how many opportunities you’re expecting me to forego? It means no spontaneous dates, no sudden trips out to the movies, and no going into town at a moments notice to see an upset friend. Emergency meetings at work or sudden business trips are now out of the question, thus jeopardizing my job. The forty-eight hour rule is invasive, suggesting that I could never have an appointment of any importance which required unexpected travel. Above all, I find this suggestion not only insulting, but simply erroneous as well.

              I’ll close by addressing those whom the forty-eight hour rule directly affects. Do not be fooled. Do not stand for the reasoning that any advanced notice required for special assistance counts as equal access. If able bodied people can just show up and fully use a company’s services, you should be able to as well. Do not allow the fact that they are understaffed as a sufficient reason as to why they need forty-eight hours advanced notice. If a restaurant is understaffed do they turn away people who haven’t made a reservation? The fact that they are understaffed is their problem, not yours. Do not allow them to throw the weight of poor business planning onto you, their paying customer.

              As much as possible, refuse to comply with the forty-eight hour rule. The only thing that allows companies to continue with this absurd and degrading practice is your submission to it. You can refuse to give it to them. You can demand to travel as freely as anyone else. You must point out this absurd and insulting presumption in order to put and end to it. The forty-eight hour excuse is poor logic at best. And, like everything else in life, falling for a fallacy can do as much damage as perpetuating it.

             I wake up. That sort of heat that comes upon you when you haven’t gotten enough sleep is radiating through every inch of my body, particularly my eyes. I promise myself once again that the next time I have to do this, I will get more than four hours of sleep. I stumble into the bathroom and try to wash my face with what remains on the sink. Unbelievable. Going downstairs and facing the rest of the day seems completely unfathomable at this point. I get dressed seriously wondering where my toothbrush has gone to before I remember that I’ve packed it away. 

              I climb downstairs, stumble into the kitchen where my roommate has made breakfast.  He says, “Good morning, love.”  And I can’t be bothered to reply.  Fifteen minutes later the driver comes and comments on the fact that I only have one bag.  I’m in transit between two very different lives, neither of which overlap, even when it comes to clothing. 

              The outside is cold and gray. The sky has been that exact same color for weeks. We weave in and out of morning traffic trying to guess which tunnels that cross the river are closed, which ones are open. It begins to rain. I begin to wake up and do a mental checklist in my head. Passport, wallet, itinerary, American Express card.  Technically with these four things, the world should be mine. The thing that brings me out of my morning stupor is the fact that I am slightly OCD. So even when I am holding all four items in my hand, I still don’t believe that I have them.

              Get to Gatwick, and the rain lets up. The sun breaks through just a tiny bit. It’s cold, and I refuse to wear a coat. Later today I won’t need a coat, so why bother bringing one now? Approaching the check-in desk repeating every five minutes, “Passport, wallet, itinerary, cell phone.” The woman at the desk looks at me funny, first because I’m in a wheelchair. This somehow is ground-breaking news for her.  Once we get over that hurdle, she is shocked to find that I only have one bag. Now she has a serious problem. The government has told her to be on the lookout for anyone who is different and not checking any baggage, which I perfectly fit the description of. She sends me through heavy duty security.

              The female security guard decides to either pat me down or feel me up, I’m not sure which direction she is going. All I can think about is how much I would really appreciate a cup of coffee now. They take every single thing out of my carry on bag mentioning that my bag is particularly heavy. I get jokes about how I must be one of those high-maintenance travelers. Coffee.  The only thing that is keeping me from not exploding at this point is coffee. And the fact that everything happens the exact same way everytime I go home.

              Through security. I’m in a part of the airport which is called, “The Special Assistance Area.”  This name is particularly British, and thus completely non-descriptive. I prefer to call it the “Cripple Corner,” where they shuffle off anyone who has any sort of ailment which prevents them from getting to their gate on time.  Nobody speaks English at the Cripple Corner, particularly the staff. I sit there having no idea what is going on, watching every nationality known to man, and wishing I was an optimist. An optimist would call the Special Assistance Area a great melting pot where race, creed, and disability didn’t matter.  I am not an optimist. I am irritated. And I want my coffee. 

              Then suddenly I am whisked away by a small Asian woman who also does not speak English, to gate number who-knows-what. You have to travel through the rip in the space-time continuum to actually get there. I wait in another Cripple Corner before boarding. I board first. Everyone else takes over half an hour to get situated on the plane. Strap in. Some people still have to watch when they do the seatbelt bit which should be a prerequisite for getting on the plane in the first place, in my opinion. If you don’t know how to put your seatbelt on, you’re a health and safety hazard. Drink some coffee (finally), and then take off. 

              The next ten hours are pleasant except for the fact that I need to ask for help every time I need to use the toilet. “Just to walk there, not actually to use the thing,” I explain. I haven’t asked permission to use the bathroom since I was in grade school, and I find the level of explanation required absurd. No doubt in a few years the flight attendant will have to do paperwork about it. 

              Prepare for landing. I look down and it looks like I am landing on Mars.  I have now flown from home to home, and this home is the dead opposite of the home I was at ten hours ago. Somehow the rip in the space-time continuum has followed me so that a ten and a half hour flight which takes off at 11am, lands at 2pm. The sky is blue and by the time I get outside, my urban black clothes are making me sweat. Inside the airport I pass by approximately sixty slot machines, five Elvises, and two women I’m sure work as showgirls at the Stardust.  The airport attendant wants to know how I’m doing in school. I have never seen this man in my life, but he knows me and we are soon speaking in Spanish which feels as comfortable as speaking in English. Pass by the passport people, and again explain that I really do only have one bag, and no I haven’t forgotten any suitcases on the conveyor belt. Outside I am greeted by a gigantic billboard of Barry Manilow, blue skies, and a raging headache from the sunshine. 

              Eight thousand miles. Eight time zones. And two completely different universes. I’m now very tired and very confused. . .

              Getting off the airplane, I could feel my hair frizz instantly. This was my third time zone in five days. I had been from London to Las Vegas to Charlotte, which meant that I had traveled eight thousand miles and then half way backwards to get to where I wanted to be. I mean, my college town wasn’t particularly high on my list of vacation destinations, but like most places I travel to, I had work to do. In the next few weeks, there were three weddings, a baptismal service, four new babies to be introduced to, massive amounts of research to be done via the college’s inter library loan system, and an inbox full of people to see. All I could think about was how stupid I was not to bring a straightener.

              Last spring I went with my mom to a different small town in the south. Riding through its hills, she would point out to me things that had changed or places where people used to live with the enthusiasm or informative sense of a tour guide. She was grasping at straws and knew it, despite my feigned attempts at intelligent questions. I felt no connection to this place. The town was fully hers but it never would be mine. And this fact made my mother desperate.

              My parents moved my senior year of college from Chicago to Las Vegas, making it impossible to come home to the big city again. A year before they moved, I had made up my mind to live in London post graduation so the fact that they were moving had relatively little impact on me. Life moved on fast, and it went even faster when I was twenty.

              Now when I visit ‘home’ in Las Vegas, it doesn’t feel particularly familiar. It’s very relaxing, escaping the desert heat with the pool in our backyard or watching the palm trees sway gently in the sky. But nothing about it brings back any sort of nostalgia. It’s all new and in mint condition. And quite honestly, other than having my parents out there, I feel more like a foreigner in Las Vegas than I ever do in London.

              So I’ve been priding myself on being a wayfarer for several years now. I keep picking up and moving every time a better opportunity hits. My exercise in Spartan living which began my first year of college has turned into a festival of non commitment, always waiting for the most impressive option.

              Stepping off the plane this time, no one was there to greet me. Due to my disability the person picking me up from the airport is usually allowed past security and through to the gate. One of my best friends from college, whom I hadn’t seen for three years, was nowhere to be found. And so I stopped, and sat, and listened to the raw twangs and drawls. The air had a weight in my nose and lungs which balanced in familiar places from the humidity. And there was this musky smell I had forgotten about which went through places even as public as an airport. The humid summer air made my hair frizz.

              And there they were, my friends. Two of them came as a surprise. We figured out later that, between the three of us, we had traveled enough miles in three years to go fully around the equator over fourteen times in the past three years. And despite having months of not speaking and not having any way to catch up, nothing had changed. We were different people who still fit together around the exact same edges even after the picture on the puzzle changed. Like family, we were inseparable even after three years of growing up in the real world. Blood and genetics didn’t bind people as much as passions and knowing each other did.

              Very unexpectedly, I found myself at home. And everything about it was exactly how it should’ve been.

For my birthday this year my neighbors gave me the most amazing orchid. As I look at it on my dining table I can count over twenty blooms facing the world. It’s something pretty and alive greeting me every morning when I come downstairs.

Naturally, when I received it I did what I was raised to do as a child. I wrote each of the parties who chipped in to buy it a separate thank you note. Granted, the fact that I managed to get them all done in a timely manner was an impressive feat for me. But they were done and out by the end of that weekend.

And then I started getting thank yous for the thank you notes.

So I started to ask around, thinking that maybe there was some cultural difference between the US and UK about the writing of thank you notes which I had missed over the past several years. These responses weren’t just a casual ‘thanks,’ they were ‘thank yous’ followed by a recalling of what it was like to receive a letter in a mailbox. They were heartfelt and meant something.

Which depressed me in a way that I wasn’t expecting. When did a common thank you note begin to carry so much weight? Have people just started to settle for thank you texts and emails?

For me the act of writing a thank you note is an exercise of living in and even understanding the moment. It examines something you’ve been given allowing the  understanding of what it adds to your life, be it something graceful for the dining room table, or that box of chocolate you have been looking forward to all day. There are some gifts I get where I sit down and think “what the heck (this is always a weak choice for the replacment of mild expletives, either use them or replace them entirely) am I going to say about this one.” And so I sit it on my desk and look at it.  Then I start to think about the person who gave it to me. Usually by this point I’ve come up with something to fill a 3×5 note card with my terrible quadriplegic handwriting.

It’s another one of those mother myths that I’m learning is actually true. Thank you notes apparently mean a lot to the people who get them. These days they mean more than ever. Mom was right all along.

These notes weren’t even hand written, which is why I find it so surprising that they got a reaction at all. But then I think about the Christmas cards I’ve written the past few years. They too, have caused quite the stir. In a world of text messaging and the iphone, where we all essentially have all our friends in our handbag, people still love getting an envelope in the mail hand addressed to them. And when it comes to a thank you note, people still need to feel appreciated.

Perhaps it is a sign of our highly materialistic nature, that we get something as a gift and don’t seek to understand the greater value of it with our own lives. Maybe we’ve gotten to a state where text messaging as the only form of communication is enough to sustain a relationship. But if finding a personal note in one’s mailbox is surprising I can’t help but wonder what we do expect from our relationships, and how much time we’re willing to have them take.

Last week’s death of Eunice Kennedy Shriver left the country mourning a wonderful woman. I was told about the loss in an email from a friend who then followed the news by saying “What an amazing woman. You will be just as inspirational, if not more, to millions some day, as well.” I know what she was trying to say. I love her for the encouragement she meant to send me. I just couldn’t help but be very frustrated by it.

Eunice Kennedy Shriver boldly started the Special Olympics during a time when there were no such opportunities for persons with conditions such as Downs Syndrome and Autism. This should be praised. Somehow, in the American Public’s mind, the mentally disabled population got transformed into the idea that a Special Olympic athlete could be anyone with any disability, be it physical or mental.

For much of my teenage years I was training as a Paralympic hopeful. The difference between the level of competition between the two is striking. Whereas the Special Olympics takes the attitude that “everyone here is a winner,” most people will come home from the Paralympics without an award. In the latter the competition is fierce, frightening, and very real. So, growing up training on the Great Lakes Navy Base in the middle of January, if a well meaning teacher told the class I was getting ready to participate in the Special Olympics the result was a tornado.

The confusion between the Special Olympics and the Paralympics disturbs me on two levels.  The first is that the latter seems to lack the media machine which the former has. (Or maybe it’s just the fact that the Special Olympics is blessed enough to have the name Kennedy behind it? Either way…) Most Americans are still clueless about what the Paralympics are. The games still seem to stand in the shadow of the Special Olympics. The fact that the confusion still exists is distressing to every Paralympic athlete I have ever known. It would be like telling Tiger Woods that he had to compete in the Pan-African Games when he isn’t African in the first place.

I also feel that the prominence of the Special Olympics has served to create the association in people’s minds that all disabilities are mental disabilities.  I find this consistent fallacy enraging and have done so ever since I was very small. This presumption is, in essence, the sort of mass funneling and insistent misclassification of all persons with disabilities. After being wrongfully shuffled off to special education classrooms and insults from strangers who assume that they know what’s better for me than I do, the association makes me more than a little on edge.

The work of Eunice Kennedy Shriver was brilliantly admirable. I just regret that it has seemed to cause so much miscommunication. For all the good that was done by her efforts, it created a very frustrating response in my own life. By assuming that all persons with disabilities fit into one specific category or could be served by one specific charity, those who thought they knew about the Special Olympics ignored the wealth of diversity and gifts that were right in front of them. Which is, I think, just the opposite of what Eunice Kennedy Shriver intended to do.

“That ought to work,” the guy who was reprogramming my electric door said to me as he was finishing up the job. I could tell by the look on his face that he didn’t believe a word he just said. And three days later I was sitting outside in the pouring rain with a door that wouldn’t open when I pushed the button on my remote.

What is it about the word “ought” that seems to release us into some sort of fantasy world where everything goes along as planned? Have you ever been on this planet? Can you please tell me how to get to it? I have never been, and yet the number of times I’ve actually fallen for the idea that things will go how they ought to go is shocking. I think Pavlov’s dog could figure out the idea that things won’t go as planned faster than me.

In college, one of my best friends unexpectedly became pregnant after using three separate forms of birth control. Statistically speaking, the kid shouldn’t even exist and yet she talks in full sentences. The Tesco delivery truck ought to be here by noon, so I ought to be able to leave the house by 12:15. And, of course that’s the one time the driver is running a half hour late.

I find myself (and loved ones) making this error all the time during political or philosophical debates. “People should do x,” the term “should” being just a slightly more Middle English form of “ought.” And, of course, if I’m stupid enough to even begin to make that argument, then I’ve based the entire thing on a fallacy. Because people inevitably don’t do what they should. Policies can’t be made considering what people ought to do, but on their actual behavior.

Talking to one of my neighbors in the dockyard the other day, I came across exactly the weight of faith our idealism takes the form of. He was seeking advice on whether or not the seams on his boat would hold once they set the boat back in the water. One of the older dock men looked at his newly refinished seams and answered with “well, it should.” Given that this boat is a houseboat, I don’t think he found this particularly comforting.

Your child should be fine.  That should be all the food we need. We should be able to make it there by morning. We tell ourselves this to calm our fears. But for me, the words always leave a little voice in my head going “you’ve beaten the odds before.”

We all just seem to forget everyday that we live in a very fallen world where nothing is how it is ought to be. Never having lived in a world where things go as planned, folks should have figured this out by now.

This summer I spent time with a man who seemed to hold anger and pessimism in his heart above all things. The irony of it was, he was a really lovely young man to be around, good looking, worked hard, and full of new ideas. It was just when you were around him in the quiet times that you found his darkness. One evening he told me how he lived to see revenge thrown upon a man who severely hurt his family in the past and if he let that  desire go, he would doubtless loose all of his drive. To him, no marriage was worth celebrating, women lost their ambitions for babies, and faith outside of oneself is setting yourself up for disappointment.

In short, many of the things which could expand life were to be shunned.

And in a lot of ways, I can’t blame him. My friend had it rough all while he was growing up and beyond. Life is hard and we live in a world that teaches to shun vulnerability, not embrace it. If there is pain and heartache present, it should be avoided  at all possible costs, and few good things can come out of suffering. And if you talk to famine victims or people who have had to suffer their entire lives for the bare necessities it would be hard to speak about maturity through suffering. This is why I could never  subscribe to the stoic philosophy of whatever will be will be. How do you say that to the Holocaust victim without justifying oppression?

What’s strange to me is, I’ve spoken to oppressed and exhausted people from all over the world. Some of them have been tormented  beyond  anything I can imagine, and  yet these men and women are not bitter. I cannot  even call them ‘victims’ in good conscience because they don’t see themselves as such. My friend says there is no mercy for those who have hurt him, and by building such boundaries around himself, he narrows his own life.  These others seek to expand theirs through any combination of love and opportunity possible.

Nobody wants to suffer. But I’m starting to think there is a huge difference between the man who doesn’t want to suffer and the one who thinks he’s entitled never to suffer. The ‘entitled’ man actually shortens his own joys by claiming over and over that x never should have happened to him. And thus my friend holds himself captive by bars that he himself put up, saying all the while that he should never be in prison. He is the willing victim, and he will no longer risk what it takes to find life in existence. Living will hurt more. Death is the only way to exist without pain.

I would watch this man smile or laugh from across the room and often wonder if this expression was forced as much as his cynicism. The latter he would drag up and place around his neck whenever another friend became engaged or was starting their home. With so much resentment towards life’s milestones, what is there left to celebrate? Foolish and painful things occur in all corners of life, but avoiding heartache means avoiding love, shunning tears is denying yourself the ability to weep with joy, and with the refusal for forgiveness comes the inability to allow yourself any room for error. The world is never how it ought to be. By expecting it to be otherwise you focus on what should be, not the beauty that is.  And people who want an alternate reality, I can’t help but wonder if they are holding on so much to their fantasy that no splendor of this world will end their self imposed misery. 

“Once you label me, you negate me”

~ Soren Kirkegaard

There are many moments when I utterly hate every belief I claim to have. Every political classification I fall under seems to be grossly unpopular by everyone else I know. I believe  in God, which in our present times is accounted as being grossly under evolved and  barbaric. I’m from a relatively stable white middleclass family and we all know that’s not cool. In fact, according to some of my friends, this is a prime formula for being sheltered and spoiled while wearing a pink twin set and pearls at my desk job as assistant editor somewhere in the Hamptons.

It seems like the one label that keeps me out of being disliked by my friends, who routinely inform me that they dislike all of the above, is my disability. This is, oddly enough, the one label I’m always trying to loose. It seems to be the one which somehow segregates me from the rest of  the world. I have to go through the disabled entrances, apply for disability arts grants, and get “special services” at school. Because I’m disabled, I’ve been told, I must know what real people are like rather than just what people are like on Martha’s Vineyard. And with these overly judgmental people, it almost makes me wonder if I’m simply their friend because I am disabled rather than because of everything else that I am.

  “How can you claim to be X and Y?” my friends will charge at me. Or my favorite, “of course you feel that way, you’re a white conservative Christian.” They forget, of course, that X and Y are made up of most of the exact same linear structure. They seem to also forget that I come to most of my conclusions because I live my life as Athena Stevens and all that entails, not because I reference everything in my How to be a Proper White Conservative Christian Girl handbook which these friends seem to think I have hidden under my bed. There are a huge amount of issues on which I am very liberal (what do these titles even mean anymore?).  And there are many times when I can barely begin to believe in God.

Of course usually all labeling really hurts me. Is that what he thinks of me? Do I really come across as being that judgmental and snobbish. Am I just another brat to add to the mix? Am I perpetuating the status quo? But I never think, do my “friends” even bother to get to know me? Do they not see me and the plethora of beliefs I hold that run up against everything they claim to despise? Or what about the fact that I really don’t fit into any of the camps you put me in, especially the disability one. Most of the time the parties and organizations I choose to associate myself with look at me funny.

Wiser people than me will ask: why even bother calling such judgmental people your friends? It’s because just as I wouldn’t want to be judged by a single opinion I have, I don’t think its fair to do likewise with anyone else. Being alive is a fluid process and we are all consistently inconsistent. Some days we are X and others we’re Y. Don’t try and label me. The only label I will ever fully fit into is my own name