TW: This isn’t a happy, feel-good Friday post. It’s a truthtelling post, a public service announcement.
Michael, Jan and I (and several in the audience) talked about ableism at the (wonderful! powerful! superlative!) SoulFood poetry reading last night.
I brought up the irony that one of the disability community’s greatest heroes is a woman named Judy Heumann (follow her in Instagram @theheumannperspective).
There it is, her name practically a billboard to illustrate how we should all be treating folks with disability and illness
—as humans—
and yet even today the reality diverges within our institutions, our social spaces, the internet.
This poem (you are only seeing a part of it) speaks to the way people with chronic illness and/or disability are treated as pariah, as if what’s happened to them is due to some personal failing.
Does calling this out make you uncomfortable?
-isms are like that, they push us between rocks and hard places until we realize our mistake is thinking some are more equal than others.
Healthy people, listen up: One day, y’all are going to face your own mortality, and you’ll only have time and energy to pursue relief.
I know this, we know this; we’re already here.
We could help you.
Please think of the gain you can enjoy if you practice compassion now… the karma it generates will be a huge source of positive energy for you later.
Because there will be a later, and you will need that lift.
I wrote my book to guide others through the day-to-day discoveries that a new chronic illness diagnosis can bring.
Maybe my travels in, through, and back out again will help someone else. That is the theory… but it can only happen if they read it, right?
Want to make a difference this year? Buy a copy for yourself, a friend, your doctor’s office, your library, or order a copy from your local bookstore… trust me, this small act will #makeadifference—100% of my sales profits benefit @acceleratedcure4ms
By doing so, you support the arts, artists, the small press, people with MS, and medical research. More info: www.intentiontremorbook.com
#Janniversary2022 #Janniversary #ms #mslife #msawareness🎗 #multiplesclerosis #poetry #medicalmemoir #pacificnorthwest #intentiontremor #msresearch #smallpress