Wheel ::: Intro

[i am holding two hand-drawn zines entitled 'wheel', barely visible behind them, wearing red lipstick and a black dress with white cartoon cat faces on it.]

Almost seven months ago I made a zine about my disability and my transition to using a wheelchair part-time, which I posted to facebook and which ended up totally changing my relationship to social media, communication, actually even to my disability (you can read my original mini-zine and post here if it interests you). Bringing stella on this year of traveling and improvising complicates and enriches the whole experience more than I could have ever imagined, and I find myself constantly exploding with more and more to say about it. Sometimes people ask me about it – 'yeah how is wheelchair travel' or 'what's it like to deal with disability onstage or in classes' or 'why did you name stella' – and I get simultaneously relieved, excited, frustrated, and stressed because I really want to honor these questions and engage in these conversations but there is always so much to say and I never feel I can say it all, it's hard to know how much people actually want to know, how appropriate it is for me to keep talking and talking and talking ...

But I forgot! I can make things! And write things! Silly me! Sure of course I have to accept that there's so much I'll never be able to express or explain, but I found it comforting to list, organize, doodle, and write at least some of it down. If you are curious about these conversations I have a lot (always in different iterations with different people, which is something I enjoy and learn a lot from), keep an eye out for blog posts labeled wheel. And if we're in the same physical location and you want a hard-copy of one or all of these little zines (hand-written and with drawings, yea!), let me know and I'll try to get you one. Thank you for sharing great insights, asking great questions, and having great conversations with me. Take care, lovelies!