Never Walked In High Heels

Recently I’ve taken up baking every Saturday morning with my neighbors. They file in with their dishes and types of specialty tea, one of them bringing eggs, another flour, sugar, recipe book. We catch up on the news of the week as we mix and enjoy one another’s company. I am always slightly ashamed when I bring up my “baking club” to people. I’m even more ashamed when I think of the stereotypes of the craft. I do love this time when we bake together. To me it brings up images of 1950s housewives and the pastel icing that is so perfect it screams never to be eaten. I worry now that I appear like one of those domesticated goddesses who seem to know everything about the kitchen and nothing about the real world. I worry that people think that I take my shoes off when I enter my own house.

But in actuality I’m not baking in order to become this feminine ideal or even make beautiful cakes which everyone will love. I don’t bake to become the heroine of the kitchen. I bake because I am learning so much from the experience.

I bake so I can enjoy my neighbors. It’s actually becoming the equivalent of the Saturday morning cartoon watching ritual when I was a kid. The ladies pile in full of ideas and laughter and I am reminded how much I miss them throughout the busy week. We are forced to watch each other and give opinions about the meringue or marriage. Most of the women are older than I, and so hearing them speak and listening to their responses regarding issues that I am currently struggling with is a good comfort. With our Saturday morning ritual comes a dedicated time when we all come together and escape the busy world to get to know each other and what we need in our lives, better. Today in London I don’t know many other opportunities to do exactly that.

I bake because it forces me to make the best of a situation where there is no script. Inevitably something will go wrong; we run out of flour or someone puts in too much milk, the egg yolk won’t separate and it’s our last egg. All of a sudden five women have to put their heads together and figure out what can be done in an effort to counteract impending culinary doom. For once in life the problems are small and we are able to laugh about them. The cake may not rise, despite our best efforts, but we are able to fail in that limited way. While the cake may not look the way it did in the photograph, it still tastes good. Problem solving skills therefore become like a clever game rather than seeming like a rendition of a modern day Sisyphus.

I bake because it truly opens up a world of skills that I was never exposed to growing up. In England, not only do they measure things in grams, but we actually use a balance scale to tell just how many pistachios to put in the macaroons. For the first time in my life I feel exactly what bread dough needs to feel like before it is placed into an oven. In the past, women taught each other these skills in exactly the same way I am learning them now. They would come over and have the community cook a meal; allowing the younger generation to experience all the details required to perfect the meals well before they reached the helm of the kitchen. Most days we choose recipes by Nigella Lawson who is in a matter of speaking, insanely old fashioned; making everyone whip eggs by hand or blanche almonds themselves. But from this crazy insistence on ritual comes clear traditions passed on within the community from woman to young woman so that she is never isolated even when she is stuck in the domestic realm of plainly perfect housewife.

I love Saturday mornings. It’s my favorite part of the week now. Some mornings I can here the laughter from down the road as the women meet up with each other before entering my flat. Ease and perfection isn’t always considered standard, and simple things are really exciting. I will never fit the perfected housewife mode, I don’t want to. I have other dreams and goals for my life so it’s ok when we make lousy mistakes and burn the pavlova. Real people sometimes get to talking so much about life that they forget that the pudding is still in the oven.

I’ve been told there was recently a horrific earthquake in Haiti. My pastor tells me the president’s approval ratings are at fifty percent. Evidently there’s been a change over in congress. Supposedly Google and China are at odds. Oh and Johnny Depp is dead (I read that one on Twitter… it wound up being a hoax).

Other than that I have no idea what’s going on in the world. I haven’t turned on the news, listened to my favorite talk radio station, or opened a paper since New Year’s Eve. This was the resolution I made for myself. And so, what I know of the world I get in snippets: the boldface overly dramatic Evening Standard sign, conversations with friends, a headline I happen to see from the paper the man opposite me on the tube is holding or a dubious Twitter feed. There are no images of mass graves coming into my home while I’m eating dinner. I haven’t seen a lying politician for months. And my blood pressure has probably dropped.

This year long experiment has already changed my worldview in so many ways. I can no longer assume myself to be the most jaded one at a cocktail party as every piece of news hits me fresh. I listen to other people and their opinions more, because I cannot offer my own. And once I hear of an incident, it is the principles rather than the particulars which I am left to think about.

But my favorite effect of not watching the news is I see the things in front of me much more clearly. With the extra time I now have, I’ve made an effort to spend it with the people who surround me in daily life. The truth is, everyone’s life is so dramatic that each person could be their own news show. If broadcasts are supposed to inform us about the events that shape our world, why do we not respond with the same amount of passion when our friend finds out that her husband is having an affair as we do when we hear about a politician doing the same to his wife. How can I honestly say I feel pain for people who lost their homes in a natural disaster, when I don’t even bother to understand why a man outside Waterloo Station has lost his?

I’m not even saying ‘love thy neighbor as thyself’ and everything will be fine. The truth is I don’t like the idea of being nice for niceness sake, it becomes another excuse for legalism. I think western society’s obsession with the news can be another form of this devotion to the standards of society. We appear to care about the world around us while not actually looking at the issues close to home. It’s like driving in the desert; everyone is looking at the mountains, which are miles away, wondering how the people there can live in such harsh conditions. We almost marvel at the drama of it. What we miss are the folks who we drive past that desperately need a cup of water. Perhaps we are even on our way to help the folks on the mountainside ourselves. But while this is admirable, we aren’t anywhere close to our destination. The fact is, when can’t even get where we think help needs to be without looking around and seeing first where we are.

I can tell that it is him pushing my wheelchair without looking behind me. The way his black gloved hand grabs the push bar sends a surge of confidence through the entire chair. I can feel it in my spine. And then after that shudder comes a feeling of such relief and relaxation that I sit back in my chair a bit more peacefully. I don’t have to look for every crack in the sidewalk, every possible stick my front wheels could get stuck on. My eyes, my mind, my muscles can all rest for a few moments knowing that he has my back and is thinking for both of us.

We dodge in and out of the commuters at London Bridge Station, a fog of air coming out of out mouths giving the only visible sign of exertion. He tells me that people stare at us all the time. I have never noticed, and he has long stopped caring… or maybe he never did to begin with. Our contrast is almost more shocking than the obvious. Me in my white fur hat, him in a battered bomber style one. His coat tattered and grey, I’ve just gotten mine for Christmas, the bright red making me look like a special holiday doll which is never allowed to be played with. Rarely do people comment on the fact we do not look like we belong together. In our circle of friends it’s assumed we can get by in the most chaotic of situations.

Arriving at the elevator we wait alongside mothers with their young children draped in fleece blankets and tucked inside a multitude of layers. The women avoid eye contact with us. He and I are clearly the odd ones out. But the children, even I can see them look at me with as much curiosity as they’ve ever had. This is when my friend’s imagination gets the better of him. He leans over and whispers in my ear.

“It’s almost like they’re saying ‘wow, she has a really big stroller. Maybe if I play my cards right, I won’t ever have to get out of mine.’”

This is why he and I get along so well.

I’ve stepped out of the Ethiopian restaurant in Elephant and Castle absolutely stuffed. Night had fallen by the time we had finished our meal and we dragged our overfull belies to the bus stop. The first bus passes us by even though we attempt to flag him down like mad. There are 12 minutes to wait in between the buses at this particular stop.

And then I see a homeless man who makes eye contact with me and I instinctively know that there is going to be trouble. He crosses the road carrying his bag and wants to kiss me on the lips. “Just one kiss.” And like always, I am stunned and speechless. He attempts to make a move. It is my friend’s 19 year old boyfriend who responds, shoving him backwards and making fierce eye contact with a strong “No” attached to it. “What? I just anted to kiss her, it’s not like I was going to hurt her.” “No.” he says again firmly. The homeless man shuffles off, yelling curses at Alex.

After we get home, I am in the shower and I feel filthy. Not because a homeless guy laid hands on me and attempted to kiss me, but rather I realize that it was the first time in my life that anyone had mentioned that this sort of behavior is wrong.

Perhaps I should explain. People, absolute strangers, try to kiss me all the time. While I was living in Chicago, homeless men and women would invade my space wanting to know my name or where I was going. And I was taught to accept it. Actually, taught is most likely the wrong word. But, to avoid commotion, I let it happen. This, combined with the fact that no one else knew what to do in such a situation meant that I was kissed by strangers a lot. Or followed while being asked annoying questions. My space is constantly invaded and I am used to it.

There comes a point in everyone’s life when people tell you something is wrong which always bothered you but you never thought to put an end to it, and all of a sudden you feel ashamed for your naïveté. You didn’t know that such behavior was a violation. You never thought that you were vulnerable and it was entirely possible to become a victim so easily. And then the fact that it took a 19 year old to know despite his immaturity what was appropriate and what was not, simply rocks the foundation of your world. You no longer feel like an adult. You no longer feel like you can take on the rest of society and live safely. The world suddenly gets very big and very dark. After this particular incident I felt helpless for several days, even in fear, and then like most things, it wore off and I moved on.

It still happens occasionally. How old the person is or what they’re wearing doesn’t seem to matter. I can usually spot trouble when it meets me on the street and I try to avoid it as much as possible. Sometimes even crossing the street myself after they have crossed it and are approaching me. Some areas seem less affected by these people. Some areas more. Elephant and Castle is particularly a place where I am on my guard. But sometimes I have no idea it’s going to happen. And as much as I want to cry out that my body is not public property, it still catches me off guard, particularly in the nice areas of town.

One night I was with two friends heading over to the Tesco Trafalgar Square. It was a late evening and one of them had just gotten out of a show that he was starring in. On our way over to the store, the two others decided that they didn’t need anything and would head home shortly thereafter. Then I saw him, another person who simply went into our cluster and tried to break into our conversation and touch me. I got out of our group and went inside Tesco while it was still lit. My friends followed me and I acted as though nothing was wrong. Then I made eye contact with one of them. “Can you stay here for a minute until he leaves? I don’t trust him.” “Yes, I will stay. Just go about your business.” So I picked up some sushi and milk, a combination that is most likely my own but being easy to get to as I realized I could get out of the store sooner, and went to the checkout extremely aware of my surroundings. Pretty soon after I was in line, one of my friends came over to me and said “We’re leaving now.” I looked over to him and said, “Is he gone?” “Yes” he said, “he’s gone.”

There’s a homeless man outside of Waterloo Station. There’s always a homeless man outside of Waterloo Station, and I didn’t think today would be any exception. The biting cold whips around the coats and scarves of myself and my companion. She is older, considers herself a hippie and only wears natural fibers that are organically grown. Her hair turns silver a little more each day adding to the image of wisdom and magic she already exudes. By the time she was my age she was already taking place in college protests demanding peace and equal treatment around the world. I respect her for her passionate views on humanity and her liberal amounts of love.

The homeless guy spots us and smiles, reaching out his Costa cup that has been torn in half and begins asking us for money. My friend holds on to my arm tighter and urges us to keep walking even though I hesitate and slow down to look him in the eye. I smile, shake my head and walk on. “Keep walking. We have a government that can take care of him better than we can. We’re not experts in his condition and problems.”

I’m confused by her statement. Why do we assume, all over the world, that the government will take care of people in need? That the government can make all of the problems disappear? That someday there will be no poverty and no homeless if only we had the right set of social institutions and collective practices? We all have some idea that if just our party, our guy, our religion, our class, our race got into office somehow, that everything would better. And we lie to ourselves about this every election year.

Most people think that my political views don’t include things like charity or giving the little guy a chance. They assume that I’m highly liberal or highly conservative, fitting into one of the extreme poles of the situation. More often than not people say that I don’t care or I’m selfish because I don’t fit with their ideologies about what human rights are or what charity is. That’s simply not true. I believe that human rights are better described as human responsibilities and we as individuals have responsibilities to everyone else, to make sure they can and will achieve the highest standards they can possibly reach. This does mean taking action at an individual level rather than waiting for someone in Washington D.C. or Parliament to agree with us and letting them take it from there. I’m afraid that it is our nature to assume that just because a government has a program somewhere, everything is ok and it is reaching the people that it needs to. I see this all the time in America. People assuming that just because there is a law against disability discrimination that it never happens, this simply isn’t the case. Governments cannot pinpoint specific problems the way we can as individuals, and so saying it should be everyone’s responsibility is essentially saying it never will be anyone’s responsibility. Like everything else, responsibility and the enforcement of justice gets diffused so that nobody feels that they can toe the line alone.

I know I probably pass by too many people in need on the street, not just the ones crouching in the shadowed doorways trying to keep warm, but the ones who need help in my own neighborhood, who have a home and food on the table, but are desperate for so many other things. I assume when I see them living their lives independently and unobstructed by a set of stairs, I assume everything is ok and everything is provided for simply because they have two hands and two legs that work. And to some extent I need to do this in order to get anything done in my life and in order to fight for justice and expand the borderlands of creativity (my two objectives while I’m on this planet). I can’t spend every single night taking people to churches and shelters ensuring that they get help, when I need help myself so much of the time, but I also know that things put in my path, regardless of if they’re directed towards me or just in the obscure corners of my field of vision, they are there, in whatever form it may be, whether it be a physical obstacle or the fellow human in need, to be aware of and to face. And while I might not be able to do anything for him in that moment, knowing he exists, knowing that the situation, the condition of life exists, means that someday, when I am in a position to do so, I may be able to advocate for him, having never seen him again. In this way, it is my duty to acknowledge the injustices, if anything, to stay grounded in reality.

In one of my favorite books, the hero tells his love interest, “nobody gets anywhere by denying reality.” I think of this often, the second I try to avoid uncomfortable conversation or pretend that everything is fine. I’m in the car with my mother and we are discussing this book. The conversation soon turns to the difference between lying to oneself rather than lying to others. Two different categories of sins, in my opinion. The latter we all know is wrong. But the former?  How does one begin to lie to oneself, if he knows reality to begin with?

But we do exactly that. We all hate certain aspects of our lives, our relationships, much preferring to push those into a corner and soothe ourselves, rather than face what are seemingly minor problems full on. I never really understood what lying to yourself meant, until last semester when I was faced with conditions in my home that I really didn’t want to see. However, in my small two-bedroom flat, there was very few options to get away from person problems. What insisting on not lying to yourself actually means is that you have to see what is directly in front of you.

In acting, we call it living in the moment, which sounds easy, but is extremely difficult if not next to impossible to accomplish, both onstage and in reality. It’s better to understand what it means in life by first understanding what it means in acting. Briefly, it means that while an actor is onstage, he cannot be thinking about how he delivered the last line or how he will deliver the next. He can’t be thinking about what he left inside his dressing room or the technical difficulties that arise in the next scene. He has to be listening, in only the matter of the moment. He has no idea what will come next, no idea how the play will end, and at this point in time it doesn’t matter. He only needs to accomplish what has to be done now.

This is not to say that the actor denies planning ahead. Indeed every option that is offered to him by other characters, he must consider the possible outcomes of. But it does mean that nothing exists beyond what is on the stage.

In life, problems resemble a cancer. The more you ignore them or fear them, the bigger they grow. Oddly enough, if you obsess over a problem, the same thing happens. It’s a sort of ontological joke. That is, if you don’t imagine a successful outcome to begin with, if you don’t envision your cancer actually getting smaller, chances are greatly lessened that you will ever make a full recovery. So you must first get diagnosed and then take action accordingly. But denying that there is a problem and denying that there is a solution is ultimately practicing a form of escapism in your own life.

Emily, in the play “Our Town,” says it best when she questions whether anyone ever appreciates a single moment that they live in. According to the stage manager no one but poets and saints are able to even begin to do that. What’s in front of us on a daily basis is without a doubt highly overwhelming. Even looking at a chair and thinking about all the actions and reactions that are going on within the world of that chair on the subatomic level is enough to make your head spin. But, to then try to plot and plan what may or may not happen a month, year, or even a week down the road is biting off more than anyone can chew. All that we have control of is here, now, and barely that. No amount of lying in order to make oneself feel better, safer, and more at ease, will change what actually may and will happen.

Having a disability helps master this task to some degree. You have good days, and you have bad days. Days when you literally can climb a mountain, and days when you fall out of bed. On the good days, you know that there are bad days coming, you’re not suddenly going to be healed and have that be that, but you also know that you have to enjoy a good day when it comes. Going outside for a walk that lasts a little longer. And on the bad days, it means that you can’t go any further before you figure out how to, quite literally, unlock the door in front of you when your hand is shaking from spasms. And then, after you unlock the front door, you figure out what the next step is. And then the next. And then the next…

I’ve recently discovered that there are some situations in which public transportation is completely inappropriate. I’m not speaking about situations where vehicles are inaccessible, or difficult for me to use, rather, just the opposite. I’m not having unsaid difficulty. But someone else is in a situation on public transport that is absolutely bizarre.

Today I was on the bus going home. The bus was shockingly empty, until about halfway through, at which point twenty people entered the bus at once. Being preoccupied with my work, I continued reading the book I was currently using as a resource for my occupation. The bus traveled on a little way and I noticed two things: the first thing was how exceptionally quiet this particular bus ride was. It was 1:30 in the afternoon, and of course children were still at school, babies were home for naps, and the businessmen were still in their cubicles, causing an absolute dead silence on the bus, unique for London Transport. In this city, you don’t talk to strangers. Ironically back home, the reason you don’t talk to strangers is that they might be weird, whereas here, the strangers will probably think you are weird for talking to them. And so, we all listened to our  iPods, read our books, and faced forwards in silence.

The second thing I noticed was that I could swear I suddenly smelled fresh water fish. Strange smells are unfortunately a common enough occurrence on public transportation, particularly on a bus, and so I dismissed the smell assuming it to be on account of someone’s poor hygiene.

As I was reading, out of the corner of my left eye, I saw what looked like a bit of trash. Again, a very mundane thing. And then I noticed that the trash wasn’t obeying the laws of physics. When the bus would slam on the breaks, this object would go towards the back of the bus, not towards the front, as the rules of inertia dictated. I took a closer look…

My first reaction was that someone had let a frog loose on the bus. Perhaps a school kid wanting to cause trouble, or simply losing his pet. And then I noticed that this object was not only alive, but crawling with eight legs. Frogs, to the best of my knowledge, don’t typically crawl (or for that matter have eight legs), and so my mind went into desert mode. Immediately I thought it’s a tarantula. And then, as I examined the creature underneath the seats of the bus (fortunately on the opposite side of me), I began to wonder where on earth anyone would have the resources to get a tarantula in London, given how much they guard the selling of lockable knives and chewing tobacco, I was amazed that someone not only was able to get a hold of a tarantula, but also had the boldness of releasing it on a bus. Boldness or stupidity…you choose. But, my reasoning further deduced, arachnids are typically hairy. And this looked slimy. I watched it a little more and realized it was a crab. Over 5 inches in diameter, it was a crab. There was a crab loose on a public bus in London.

Now, this immediately put me into a very unique position, because being on public transport, if I am to say anything to a stranger, such as “Hey there’s a giant fresh water crab on that seat and it’s really scary,” they would immediately assume me to be one of the crazy people. It’s part of the territory when you have a disability. You get to be the victim of everyone’s stereotypes about disability. And they would smile and nod, claiming that they didn’t understand. I know because I’ve relived this situation over and over. I was not about to do it again. So, I closed my book, sat back, and tried to watch the scene unfold.

Within seconds a woman in full African dress goes from being seated to jumping with both feet on the seat and screaming (how on earth she was able to do this in an ankle length skirt, I don’t know). And then, the small Chinese woman from the front of the bus runs to the back, picks up the crab, runs back to her seat, and places it into a blue plastic grocery bag, which is also full of, well, crabs. While doing this act, she crosses from the front of the bus to the back apologizing to every person along the way, as in, looking at each of us and saying, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” And I sat there in utter disbelief of the entire absurdity and, might I add, multicultural diversity of the situation. The rest of the bus ride was silent.

The entire thing felt like something out of Annie Hall, which made me immediately wonder, did Annie and Alvy take live lobsters on the subway with them in order to get them back to Annie’s kitchen? What do you do in a society that is dependent on public transportation if you need to transport something really absurd such as sea life or crustaceans? For a public transport system that attempts to meet everyone’s needs, there are some things even the folks at TFL can never even dream up.

The Asian woman waited until 5 stops later to get off, securely holding her two grocery bags of live creatures. I can only assume that somebody had some very fresh crabs for dinner that night.

I once went out with a guy who claimed I had luck. Not good luck, or bad luck, just luck in general. I was born with a disability that affects 1 person in 400—this was how I started life. If there is a slight, slight risk of a medication having some weird side effect, I will get it. If there is slight, slight risk of a great success, somehow I will find it. My luck if you will, seems to go from one extreme to the other. So much so that I worry about getting fortuitous whip lash and then wonder if while in the emergency room I would have good luck or bad luck resulting in malpractice and having my head amputated.

I didn’t used to believe in luck at all, even after my friend mentioned that I had luck. After all, as a Christian I believe that things happen for reasons, or at least I used to believe that. Now, I’m seriously beginning to wonder…

While having dinner with friends at a restaurant, which I will currently leave nameless, I excused myself and went into the disabled toilet. In the UK accessible loos are completely separate rooms from the men’s room or the ladies room, and my date was courteous enough to wait outside the accessible toilet for me. While washing my hands, I heard a hugely loud crash, which in turn made me jump and forced me to fall over into a puddle of water. When I finally turned around to see what had made the crash I realized that the toilet had fallen completely off the wall. Having just gotten up off of the thing, I’m still deeply disturbed by the incident several days later. Water was not gushing out of the hole in the wall as if a fire hydrant had been opened. My trousers, my everything was soaked, and my friend outside yelled to make sure I was okay and asked what happened. When he asked me this question I literally had no words to explain what had taken place. I did the simplest thing I knew to do. I unlocked the door in order to show him the scene of the disaster.

There’s something about when you “beat the odds” which takes a second to register. Visiting my parents in Vegas, there’s always that second when money starts pouring out of a slot machine and leaves a gambler stupefied and wondering if the world is going to collapse around them. It reminds me of the philosophy of Immanuel Kant who explains that you cannot know a thing in itself and that’s the way you can’t know all the possibilities of life. There’s just too many beyond our imagination, like is said in Hamlet, “There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” In the unexpected things falling out of the sky, are often the to challenge us in our tiny little lives we’ve securely sought out for ourselves.

It seems like from the point of view of a disabled woman, I’ve lived my life beating the odds in one form or another and sometime depending on miracles. I’ve since learned that trying to plan ahead for all possible things that can go wrong, as a roommate once suggested me to do, is impossible because how can you foresee a toilet falling off of a wall when you just got off of it. Even the most unexpected things will happen. Sometimes in our favor and sometimes not, and there’s always that moment of stupidity where it seems that the sky is literally falling and there’s no logical explanation for anything. At that point you can either believe in luck or something else. Either way, you cannot escape reality.

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.