Disability is dangerous. We represent danger to the normate world, and rightly so. Disabled people live closer to the edge. We are more vulnerable, or perhaps it is that we show our human vulnerability without being able to hide it in the ways that nondisabled people can hide and deny the vulnerability that is an essential part of being human. But there is something glorious in being considered so odd, so marginal to society. Disability brings with it a wonderful range of remarkable and powerful vantage points. It is so much easier to see when you can gain a little distance, a little perspective. Some of what we see is peculiar to disability, as suggested in Stephen Kuusisto’s “Harvest,” in which the speaker admires “the white moon of the morning, / even if my eyes tell me there are two moons.” But most of what we perceive isn’t peculiar to disability — it’s peculiar to human life. And that’s what we need to be writing. -- Jim Ferris
Posted on: Mon, 01 Dec 2014 15:56:16 +0000
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