Openings
to read the whole zine and my post about it, click here.
Well, I've been meaning to write for quite some time. This kind of introduction will probably be a common feature of my wandering posts this year, so I guess I may as well start now. Ideas and experiences piling into mountains, as usual.
I had this great idea that I'd work really hard at recovering my leg this year and I'd get a magical get-out-of-disability-free pass for my Watson. I told myself that this was not the case (see “winning and losing post” back in October), and I earnestly tried to convince myself I was being realistic and responsible with my dreams for the future. But I wasn't. Promptly after recovering from the fracture/callus in my right leg I acquired a symmetrical situation in the left leg. It seems my skeleton wants to gift me with rock-hard callus-laden thunder-thighs, which I wouldn't mind so much if it weren't a such painful crunchy process of development. A friend of mine thinks of it as armor – a creative fortification – and though I'm all about nonviolence and all, I do find it appealing to think of these calluses as tough and protective. After a time, they stop hurting and they harden. I'm drawn to the words of J. Sachse, (badass artist, activist) who writes:
“the truth is, i know i will heal. i know i will heal because i am disabled and if there’s one thing my body knows how to do, it’s harden itself. back to rock, back to island– an ossification so memorized, it has a rhythm that i lock into with my half-a-second quicker right clubbed foot step into click-click of hips.” (originally posted here)
Anyway if you want to know more about my specific disability feel free to check out this mini-zine I made about it for my buddies. I posted it to Facebook a few days ago and have been gratefully overwhelmed by the response! A few people have even sent me personal messages sharing their own experiences with disability or illness, which helps alleviate (ableist) anxieties I feel about being an “over-sharer” or “attention-seeker,” and affirms the belief I hold that sharing personal stories is necessary in making space for people to be vulnerable, honest, and heard about who they are and what they need.
These days, I'm thinking about disability and performance from a lot of different angles... how occupying a more visible symbol of disability – using my wheelchair – makes me more conscious of all aspects of my performance of identity. My chair draws attention to me: it's a rolling stage on which I'm constantly performing “disability” to/for the world around me. I need to be clear that I don't mean to equate performance with pretend. I'm not pretending to be disabled or playing the “role” (heh, roll) of “disabled person.” It's more that I'm hyper aware of the meanings and narratives that are projected onto my body, and the infinite ways in which every choice I make in how I present myself, every action I take, interacts with those narratives. In that sense, a complex, ongoing, collaborative performance. An improvisation.
I'm also having to re-imagine my identity as a performer. Which is productive and necessary and it's been a long time coming (like, since I first caught the theatre bug at age six or so), but also, really hard. I'm looking to other disabled performers, trying to find my way. Exploring new ways to be physically playful and expressive, trying to relearn my body, trying to relearn my identity, trying trying trying.
