Never Walked In High Heels

              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’m disabled, I live in a socialist country, and I live among those very  strange people called artists. My monthly healthcare premium is exorbitantly high due to a preexisting condition. If anyone should be pro universal health care it should be me.

Obama’s current push towards free health care fills me with dread and little else.

Now there are some healthcare practices which everybody should have for free. And if there ever could be such a thing as free universal health care the world would doubtless be a much better place. But on this planet, the terms “free” and “universal” are very often mutually exclusive.  

If someone could just answer a few questions that I have, I would feel much better. The first is: in a government hospital, who do you sue when malpractice occurs?  I only know to ask this question because I have two childhood friends who became disabled from blatant medical malpractice in an army hospital. The problem, of course, comes in when you’re looking for a malpractice lawyer willing to try and sue the US government. And even if you are fortunate enough to fine the one self sacrificing attorney willing to jeopardize his career to prosecute his country’s government, what makes anyone think that the courts will be imperial? In a world where politicians think they are also doctors, who heals the justice system?

People have often reminded me when I bring up this question that I am ‘focusing on the exceptional situation, and the exceptional situation will always be the exception  not the rule.’ Maybe because I consider myself to be an exceptional person, I find this concern valid. Problem is, I don’t know anyone who isn’t “exceptional.”

This ‘exceptional argument’ leads me directly into my second question: when government starts making medical care decisions, who is going to keep politics out of the operating room?

Any healthcare system is going to be working with the problem of limited resources and limitless ailments. Any medical professional that engages in the battle  for health is admirably fighting a loosing  and highly inefficient war.  Government, on the other hand, is inevitably about pragmatism and finding the best answers for the greatest numbers of people. Everyone forgets that ‘the greatest good for the greatest number’ focuses on being efficient and that such smooth running bureaucracies cannot  leave room for exceptional people.

And so, inevitably, when you add politics and government to medicine, everything becomes about cost and value. Limited resources, such as beds, will be  dived up according to which life needs to be saved for the greater good and which ones will be a drain on society.

In America’s national healthcare debate, no one is bringing up that there was a society which tried universal healthcare back in the 1930’s. It was Germany and it lead directly to  the Holocaust via Action T4. For those out there who know their history and still think I am leading to an exceptional leap of logic, let me ask: do you really think that Nazi leaders were all that different  from us? Are we not, as humans, made from the same stuff?

I really don’t have a problem with universal heath care in America as  long as someone could address these issues rather than repeating an ideal. But any attempts to define the limits and concerns about the system are met with harsh accusations of conspiracy theory. These are logical questions  not being addressed, which makes me wonder: what  else will be ignored in the name of pragatism? 

              Sometimes academics have far too much time on their hands.

              A typographical error on my part allowed me to discover the word ‘womyn’ in Wikipedia yesterday. As with any of my experiences with Wikipedia this leads to what I call ‘justifiable and educational procrastination,’ aka spending hours clicking on links to learn about things that are utterly unrelated to my life. Its an addiction without a 12 step program.

              It seems that the term ‘womyn’ was a product of feminists in the 1970’s wanting to remove the ‘man’ from ‘woman.’ It comes from the branch of feminism that seeks to correct the inherent biases in language because the word ‘woman’ suggests that female humans are a subset of male humans.

              This emphasis shift to gender neutrality rears its ugly head for me as a writer all the time. Several of my friends have vocalized their disturbance that I use the word ‘he’ to refer to an editorial person. “Why not use ‘he or she,’ or better yet, just use ‘their.’” Has anyone ever tried to write in iambic verse or with an ear for cadence while using the term ‘he or she’? It’s cumbersome, clumsy, and sounds absurd. Take the line from The Merchant of Venice when Portia describes any monarch with “His sceptre shows the force of temporal power.” Say that out loud. Now just try to say “His or her sceptre shows the force of temporal power,” without sounding like a legal document. It just doesn’t work. You wouldn’t tell a painter that every time he (or she) used the color red he (or she) had to put the color blue next to it. Why would you exert that level of control over a writer?

              And using ‘their’ isn’t an option because its just wrong grammatically. If you doubt me, refer to your middle school grammar books.

              Which brings me back to the neologism of ‘womyn.’ The fact that there is a little red line on my screen telling me there’s a spelling error every time I write ‘womyn’ tells me there’s a problem. As a writer, I am a firm believer that words mean something. It is because of this opinion that I hope to be careful about the words I use. And while language is a wonderfully flexible thing (Shakespeare, it is said, introduced 1,700+ words into the English language), the fact is the entire basis for the argument of the existence of the term is unfounded.

              ‘Woman’ is not a diminution of ‘man’ as some might suggest. The word is germanic in origin where ‘man’ and ‘mann’ have two distinct meanings. In German ‘man’ is a gender neutral subject (as in mankind or human) whereas ‘mann’  means someone of male gender. Oddly enough my spell check seems to like the word mann much more than womyn.

              If you want to be egalitarian about it, here’s what I propose. Get rid of the word ‘woman.’ (This is the point where all my female friends look for the biggest rock that’s nearby to throw at my head.) Just stop using the word. You don’t need it. Then use ‘man’ to mean anyone regardless of gender. Then use the scientific words of male and female if you need to specify. As science can tell you, using these terms doesn’t denote any superiority of one over the other, it signifies biological difference. That’s all.

              I have now spent some hours contemplating the use of the word ‘woman’ and am surprised at how much time can go into a debate about a single letter. And the thing is, just as in any schism, those who want to be insulted by the spelling of a word will always choose to be.  In this way, 200 years after changing the spelling to womyn there would no doubt be a faction demanding that men and womyn are exactly the same and we should, therefore change it back. 

            OK so… its 8:30 in the morning and I’m rushing through the train station trying to reach the 8:38 to Norwich. It’s pouring rain outside and everything that could go wrong has gone wrong. Naturally, I think “good, glad I got all the bad luck out of the way.”

              Or that’s what I was bold enough to think.

              As I swiveled into the elevator a priest comes in behind me. I know who he is because he’s in full garb. I quickly start off: Dear Lord please don’t make him start praying to heal me. I never know what to say when they start praying… He gets off at the next floor without even ‘God bless.’ Apparently he’s not on duty yet. I go down one more floor to get off myself. At least in theory that’s what’s supposed to happen.

              Once down to my floor I am met by a large lump. I stop dead. It’s completely blocking my path to get out of the elevator. I can’t move it myself. What a stupid and unthoughtful place to leave stuff. If I ruled the world there would be none of this…  My electric wheelchair bars  the elevator door from closing as I look around the ticket hall for someone to move the obstacle.

              “Um… excuse me, sir…” I flag down a security guard and do my best damsel in distress act. I can still make the 8:38 with very little luck needed. Or there is the 9:08. I laboriously do the math in my head. I haven’t had enough coffee to do higher mathematics as of yet. I need my morning hot chocolate. The guard comes and starts to move the pile of rubbish out of the elevator frame. Then, at the exact same time he and I come to the exact same realization.  

              It’s a corpse.

              He drops what we now realize to be an arm and I jump back into the lift without foreseeing that this action will make the impatient door shut. The guard is now leaning over the body trying to stop the door from closing because, of course, he doesn’t want anyone else to come down in the lift and get an early morning surprise. Without thinking, I pull the emergency stop button which makes everything better for about two seconds. Then the elevator alarm sounds thus bringing this situation to more people’s attention.

              There is nothing in all my years that has even begun to prepare me for this situation. I don’t think that there has ever been a Miss Manners column to date about what the classy thing to do is once you have become impeded by a corpse. I begin to think two things. First I feel sorry for the poor man who has died in a London train station during the wee morning hours. And second, if my mother ever makes me take the etiquette lesson she’s threatening me with, I am so asking about this in class.

              By the time we’ve cleared the corpse out of the way, I’m being bombarded with questions by other station staff. Why is he there? How long has he been there? Do I know him? Will I come down to the office and answer some questions?

              “I don’t know anything. The elevator door just opened and there he was!” Some brilliant officer commented that it seems like an unlikely story. Yeah, you’re telling me.

              For several weeks now I’ve been trying to come up with some higher meaning for the whole incident. I keep thinking this must be a metaphor for something. But I’ve had no luck with coming up with an answer. Life just is messy and sometimes you don’t know what file to put something under. Was it tragic for whoever he was? Was it comedy? Can one negate the other? What am I supposed to be feeling by this? Sometimes in life there is no acceptable response. Even Emily Post might be flabbergasted by what is there once the door opens.

When I was in Prague a few years ago I saw a blind violinist on the street. He played his instrument so lovingly well that, without thinking I pulled out a bill (as to not make noise with cumbersome coins) and placed it into the tin cup in front of him. When I returned to my traveling companions  one of them was enraged.

“I thought you didn’t believe in charity,” she snapped. This was news to me. We had sat up many a night debating politics and the role of government. She, of course, had different views from my own (most people do). I wracked my brian trying to figure out when I had said that I didn’t believe in charity. I couldn’t find anything.

I’m a little bit older now and can recognize something which I couldn’t see before.  One of which is, of course my companion’s insecurity about her own views. Another is, I see what often passes for “charity” and I do not like it.

Charity does not equate paying your tax dollars. Period. End of Story. The next time someone tries to tell you that paying taxes is ‘charitable,’ remember that charity is by definition a voluntary action. Paying taxes is not voluntary. Here is where my companion’s assumption went wrong. I want to help people. A lot of folks want to help people who also want to keep taxes and the government in check. I just don’t want to fool myself into thinking that paying taxes is my moral deed done for the day.

I also don’t want to give charity because “it’s the right thing to do,” like earning some Girlscout badge or ticking something off my list. The word charity comes from the Latin ‘carus’ which means ‘dear.’ Charity is as much of a trade as anything commercial. One cannot be charitable until he values what he is giving to. I received something from you/ your cause, you gave me an idea, you made me think or, I am just glad to know you are in the world. Charity or aid should be about recognizing inherent value of the recipient, not the action.

I do believe in charity and gifts. What I don’t believe in is that you should give because you ought  or, worse still, because you are ‘privileged.’ We have come into a time (no thanks to the redefinition of taxes) where charity has become defined as giving a check rather than service. The more “the government takes care of it” the less we have to see the hunger, the less with have to heal the illnesses, and the less we have to fight the injustices ourselves. Thus, the less we have to feel the painful pull that makes us grit our teeth and do everything we can to make it better.

When people say its ‘society’s duty to be charitable,’ I can’t help but squirm. What is this “society” you speak of? And how can duty ever be on the same plane as charity? Society never cured anything. People, individuals, took action to overcome. And they did. And they will again. Society has never changed en masse. It took individuals prodding them for things to get better. Call it Newton’s Social law if you’d like.

I still remember that violinist and can hear him play. I just wish I knew what he was to have given me over the years. I would have paid him more.

Money is a very strange thing. Money when you are a follower of Christ is an even stranger thing. It is too easy to fall into the trap which absolutely states that money is the root of all evil. For too many, every mouthful of food on your spoon is one that is taken out of the stomachs of starving children in some impoverished country. And thus, not having money becomes an opportunity for reverse snobbishness as much as having money does.

If we are to believe that a person’s value in not determined by his bank account, then it should also follow that his morality should not be determined by his poverty. At this point most of my friends say, “Well that’s easy for you to say because you’re considered extremely privileged by the rest of the world’s standards.”

If you can read this, you are extremely privileged too. There, what do we do now?

One of my dearest friends now lives in Russia. Her family has adopted 9 children and there are always rumors of more. My friend lives her life on a shoestring with so much class and honor she’d make Emily Post squirm. Devoting her life to serving others, she uses every bit of her advanced liberal arts education to make ends meet. When we pack for trips together I’m almost embarrassed by the lotions, the extra tires, the tools, the creams I need to pack to have a ‘normal life.’ And I can’t help but wonder when I crossed over into the realm of high maintenance?

And when she came to visit me in the UK for the first time, she came into my flat and said “wow, being here is so restful.” There wasn’t an ounce of judgment in it.

She doesn’t expect me to live like her. And in this lack of expectation she is the richest person I know. She knows first hand how hard living cheaply truly is. And because of this, she knows that I can’t walk everywhere or sew buttons back on my clothes. And while we both have the responsibility to use our resources as wisely as possible, that’s not going to look anything the same for both of us.

No two people are uniform, so why should their budgets be identical? If a family has a kid whose wheelchair can only fit into an Escalade, should they be ashamed to buy one? On what grounds should they apologize for it? For that matter, which one of their peers has to deem it a ‘need’ before it is the moral vehicle to buy? Or is it the government’s role to determine that?

For the moralist out there, it never says ‘money is the root of all evil.’ Maybe to you we seem the incongruous pair. God has given us very different resources to use wisely. There were many times that the Hebrews and the Gentiles both were aided by very wealthy people. These are the types of people who support my friend, who buy her groceries so she can serve without needing an income producing job at Starbucks. Without giving people like that, nobody could afford to take a vow of poverty.

            When Sarah Palin mentioned special needs children in her speech at the RNC last year, there should’ve been a reaction akin to opening Pandora’s box. There wasn’t even a puff of smoke. Glenn Beck has a daughter with Cerebral Palsy. Fox News analyst Neil Cavuto was diagnosed with MS a number of years ago. Columnist Charles Krauthammer has been paralyzed since the 1970’s due to a car accident. Limbaugh received clocear implants. The more I watch the news, the more I see Washington pundits affected by disability. And still nothing changes.

            Disability, of course, knows no party lines. It is a true equal opportunity force that will mess up your life. But it does seem that key figureheads leaning right are being affected by disability. The lack of attention given to the subject shouldn’t be particularly surprising of course. It is often part of conservative ideology to ignore weakness and hide any deficiency. But for a party that is attempting to win back public favor, they’re missing a huge chance.

            If we are to define conservatism as a strict interpretation of the US Constitution, disability access goes under the heading of Jefferson’s promise. The role of a conservative government is to protect the right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” while assuming that “all men are created equal.”  In terms of simply physical access, the Untied States have a very long way to go in creating equal opportunity for those of us who are disabled. I’m not talking about expert programs and government cheques which are designed to increase dependency. Democrats are really good at this technique,  but it only serves to cripple people even more. But what about physical access issues. For example, most people forget that Brown v. Board of Education does not guarantee equal access to education for all children. Ask any mom who has battled special education and she’ll tell you, schools will often place advanced placement classes in a room that isn’t wheelchair accessible assuming that no student with a disability will ever be smart enough to attend those classes. Sarah Palin knew this. Most Americans do not.

            What if the conservatives understood the disabled population as disenfranchised people rather than leeches trying to work the system? An inaccessible main street is as taxing as any tariff the government may impose.  What good are constitutional rights when you can’t even get out of your own home? The rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are not inalienable as Jefferson claimed. You just need to injure your back to figure that one out.

            Even with a strict interpretation of the Constitution there are still human rights battles which need to be fought. We haven’t outgrown that document, as some politicians would have us believe. The fact is we haven’t even fulfilled it. We are people who love life and see potential in everyone. We are feeble humans fighting a losing battle against gravity and age. To deny our own humanity is to shrink our rights when they are no longer self evident. Which is when one needs them the most.

Sometimes I feel like going through the streets of London is like being a high school quarterback. Of course, that experience is not one that is unique on the field. Dodging individuals trying to make out in the middle of the pathway or young mothers suddenly stopping to grab their children by the hand before they totter away can be equally as dangerous as trying to beat the clock for that last-minute touchdown.

London is considered by many to be the most civilized and, oddly enough, the most advanced city in the world. And, looking at the city as a whole on a good day, this is largely true. You can top up your cell phone at any ATM, the trains run on time (as long as you fit into the ideal London body), you can go through your day relatively smoothly with your iPod in your ears and your purse in your hand, conducting business on the go, dropping into Fleet Street when necessary, and jumping on the train just before the door closes to make the most of time. **

Oddly enough, with all this advancement and adaptation that is supposed to make life go as smooth as the silk of a new White House/Black Market dress, we’ve lost something. As human beings in London, we have lost the entire skill of spatial awareness. The irony is, of course, Westerners, particularly British Westerners, in comparison to most cultures, feel the necessity of a relatively large amount of personal space. With this notion, one would assume, comes the ability to remain extremely well placed in the environment. Not so.

It would be easy for me to say that American tourists are the worst. And they are pretty bad – don’t get me wrong. As an American, myself, I often groan at the middle-aged woman in khaki shorts with her fanny pack with her flat drawl that can only come from Minnesota. She is in London to experience culture, and as such, she’s doing her best to herd her children like a flock of geese. In doing so, of course, she is completely oblivious to those of us who still have to work on a 9 to 5 job while she is on vacation. 

But it does not end with the tourists. It doesn’t end with the individuals trying to get that perfect shot of Big Ben when they might just as easily hop into a local newspaper agent and get one ten times better. It doesn’t stop with Regent’s Park where the young people make out freely. It doesn’t even stop in Covent Garden where the mixture of bipeds and motorists proves to be so deadly that no law can dare define the area. No, it doesn’t stop there. Londoners will take their half out of the middle as much as Americans. I stop in awkward spots as much, if not more than the young couple across the street wanting to show off their make-out skills. And sometimes, just sometimes, the fact that millions of us are trying to go in completely opposite directions backfires in a way that can only be described as inner-London traffic. 

Getting around in London should really be the new Olympic sport for 2012. It can be called “urban slalom,” and you lose points for every biker you hit, every time you disrupt the flow, and maybe even gain a few points for every time you dodge out in front of an oncoming car, knowing full well that you have plenty of time and ample speed to be across by the time he reaches the crosswalk. The British, of course, would have the home court advantage and make sure that even a New Yorker would get a run for his money. I might just be the champion as I dodge and ram, predicting an entire sidewalks’ move and how to avoid a lawsuit while going at top speeds with a 500 pound electric wheelchair. It’s as much art and skill as it is athletics and critical thinking, and I challenge anyone who thinks they can master the London sidewalks to do it in an electric wheelchair.

Today I found myself in Cambridge Circus, one of my most dreaded areas where Charing Cross meets Tottenham Court Road in an utter mess of confusion and terrible planning. Getting through the crosswalk of Cambridge Circus proves to be the most annoying endeavor in the entire city as buses tend to enjoy stopping for the light directly over the crosswalk, thereby blocking the wheelchair ramp to cross. Sunglasses on, my iPod in my ears to ensure that nothing would annoy me and I could have a completely private walk in a city of millions, I waited for the stoplight to turn and the crosswalk not to be blocked. Finally an African woman took my hand just as the light was about to change back to “don’t walk.” 

“Come on, honey. We’re going.”

And with that, she held her hand in front of the oncoming taxi to make sure they would continue to stay still even after the light had changed so I could get across with a clear shot. 

Then again, there are some times where you need a city full of strangers just to get by. 

My Dear Friend,

Last night you asked me how I could claim to be a capitalist and state that all men and created equal. You asked me how I could ever reconcile my political views with my faith without claiming hypocrisy. I wasn’t very impressed with my own answer. I don’t think you were either. You are right – On the surface these two will never mesh.  But my life is full of what seems to be contradictions. I invite you to check your premises, starting with the fact that all capitalists are “greedy.” Beware of such absolutes, it only takes one oddball to prove you wrong.

One of the things I so love about you is your fierceness in protecting your own freedoms. Here is something that you and I stand together on, for I would rather die than lose my independence. I have seen you give up the predictable comforts which come from having a “safe life” in order to have the life you want to lead. I have seen you  defend my freedoms to those who cling dogmatically to their prejudicious. And I have seen you demand from others that they rise up and assume the responsibility that comes from freedom.

So why are you shackling yourself with your own economic theory?

It disturbs me to see you claim that everyone should have the same amount of money, assets, or capital. What this will turn you into is someone who sees others with one of two lenses. The man who has even just a little bit more than you, you can only resent. Whatever he has should be rightfully yours. The person that has a little more than you is terrifying. What you have should be his. If he cannot have it, then you are the source of injustice. You only have two options for relating to people, fear and hate. Both put chains around your ankles. Neither will give you the freedom you yearn for. 

But people should work regardless of payment, you told me. Maybe they should, but they won’t. You know that. Why should you work that extra hour at the office if it’s only going into the pocket book of someone else? Why not work two hours more then? Or four? How can you even bother to go home, as doing so only takes food out of society’s mouth?

Don’t say that this is an extreme example. It isn’t. It has happened to every system which has attempted economic equality. If a system does not hold true within extreme examples, how will it ever hold up under the strain of reality?  

This is where I believe charity and service do come in. I’m not saying if someone can’t help themselves ‘that’s just too bad.’ But give it to the efforts and people you value, the ones who you want to see helped in the world, the causes that no one else is fighting for. You earned that money, you have a right to decide exactly where it goes and who it helps.

I believe God made all men equal. I believe that God made man to be free. I believe that God made man to work. These are not contradictory, they are self evident. But these three tenants do not promise anything, be it wealth or safety. They don’t promise an easy ride, or that you’ll be born where opportunity simply rolls out in front of you. All they give you is the right to exist with the knowledge that you have the same innate value as every other person who will ever exist and it is not based on your bank account. After that, it is up to you to remain free. 

I hope you keep your freedom.