SIXTEEN

I spend my days touring my apartment with new eyes, imagining what it would be like for a friend who uses a wheelchair to visit. I assess the accessibility of the space, picturing how we’d navigate together, share experiences, and find solidarity in the everyday frustrations and triumphs of disabled life. I long for that kind of connection—for my access needs to be seen without explanation and to share unspoken understanding with someone whose reality mirrors my own.

But I wonder—am I only writing about disability, accessibility, and visibility? Or is my life completely shaped by them? I worry that my writing and photos will revolve endlessly around my wheelchair until I remember that it’s a part of me now. It’s my focus, not necessarily anyone else’s. For the last 11 months—no, three years, no, thirty years—this has been my reality. At what point do these daily acts of survival coalesce into a life well-lived?

My apartment has three steps into the back entrance, a slight incline in the kitchen, and a bathroom you can’t wheel into. But with some help, you can make it work. It’s not perfect, but it’s manageable. I rehearse these descriptions as though they were for someone else, for that imagined friend, but really, they’re for me. I’m relearning my space, my routines—grocery stores, bars, nail salons—cutting myself no slack. Tom helps load and unload the chair, and we practice with the SmartDrive by the lake. I feel unstoppable as it climbs grass, and my mind races to future projects—a backup wheelchair, a concert in November, a trip to D.C. in December. I need to know what I can do.