Public Paralympics and Private Desire

Bloody hell, we put on a bloody good show to open the Paralympics, and the rest of the world . . . couldn't be bothered to turn up.

Shit. There was the biggest, brashest, shiniest, showiest and totally unashamed and utterly positive celebration of how to be proud of being a cripple, and not only that, but 60,000 people showing their support and respect, in a way that hopefully will last in the way people look at people with disabilities in Britain for decades, and. . .

For the rest of the world, it might as well never have happened.

I'm not going to let the euphoria wear off, but honestly, the rest of you should feels thoroughly ashamed of yourselves.

I'm quite optimistic that the London Paralympics and all the publicity it's got here have already changed the way people think and behave.

I happen to have to use wheels for the moment, and I noticed yesterday— I had to go on the road occasionally, because the silly prats who stacked the Carnival crowd barriers had gone and blocked several of the dropped kerbs with them, so I couldn't get onto the pavement—even car drivers stopped to wave me across and smiled.

Blimey. That's a change and a half. Quite apart from people yesterday offering to help without once looking as though it was some kind of favour instead of, well, just an ordinary normal sort of thing to do.

And after that show (people hanging 50m up on wires in wheelchairs over the arena? A guy without legs shooting down a zip wire from as high as the top of the Eiffel Tower of the Statue of Liberty with the torch? A guy with no legs and a deformed spine performing a ballet?) I've got a feeling people might be even more respectful . . .Pity a lot of the rest of the world didn't (or won't) see that.

Whatever I hope it's done for the way people look at and treat people with disabilities in normal life, I know one thing: for the first time since I became a cripple myself nearly a decade ago, I feel proud to be one.

Not that I've ever felt ashamed of it,  but feeling proud is different.  People, I hope, are going to see me after today and think "My god, he can probably do some of those things I saw on Wednesday night; and I never thought."* So it's a shame disabled people elsewhere might not get the same out of it.

*Especially, maybe, the older bloke who came up to me in my wheelchair at the bus-stop on Tuesday night and said he hoped I'd enjoyed the concert.  It did strike me as a bit odd that being on wheels meant I might not enjoy an opera as much as anyone else . . .Still, it was kindly meant, and obviously his way of being a part of this new 'respek for cripples' I think's happening.

Better than Eggwina Currie tweeting that Even in wheelchairs Italians looked gorgeous. Being half-Italian as well as using a wheelchair, I take massive exception to that. I look just as gorgeous out of one or in one, I'll have you know. Especially wearing my new designer shades. It's the bloody wheelchair that spoils the effect. Since I can't afford the really super flashy 'boy raver' carbon fibre designer one I lust after.

Now with one of those, 'gorgeous' wouldn't be enough of a word for it . . . As good a babe magnet as a Lamborghini, I reckon. And cubic metre for cubic metre, about as bloody expensive, alas.

Paralympics Paradoxes

In the first flush of enthusiasm about the Paralympics, I was very optimistic about the 'Paralympics effect'. I thought, along with quite a few other people, seeing a variety of people with disabilities would improve non-disabled people's attitudes to us. And their general behaviour.

Thinking about it though  (and reading a number of comments) dented the enthusiasm somewhat. It became a little obvious, especially with the current political 'blame culture' that's common in some circles in the UK, that all those who look at us oddly, avoid us altogether, or worse, denigrate us in often small, but insidious and unpleasant ways, were not going to change.

From friends who went to the Paralympics and commented not just on the numbers, but on the 'naturalness' of the youngsters surrounded by disability, I came to the conclusion I'd better place my faith in younger generations.

Certainly, among the older ones, that brief spell when I found people smiling and being courteous and helpful (I spent most of the Paralympics period using a wheelchair myself) seems to have worn off pretty damn rapidly.

The wrinklies, I see, have reverted to type. I'm now back on my feet (and crutches) at least for short distances, and some people's behaviour is getting all too familiar. coming back on the bus from the supermarket of late, almost every time I've had to stand, or clamber up a step to a seat, because the clearly labelled 'disabled' seats have been taken up with one person and their shopping bags. And I've had to aske the driver if I can get off by the front entrance instead of the rear exit because I can't manoeuvre past buggies or shopping trolleys in the aisle.

Now that, in itself, is not a huge problem (at least some of the time) since, apart from the disability that's affected my spine, keeps me in quite a lot of pain, and left me with one pretty well useless leg, I'm actually (ironically) reasonably physically fit. I can hang on tight to a grab rail to support myself. I can stand up from a high seat, awkward though it is. I call the method my 'monkey on a stick trick'. I basically have to use my arms and wrists to 'climb' up my crutch, just like those old toys.

But what I loathe (and am facing again, now, only a few weeks after the Paralympics ended) is the glare of the wrinklies. That look as you get on the bus that says: "Yes I know perfectly well I'm taking up two seats and I could move to another empty seat, or even put my shopping in the luggage space,  to make things easier for you, but I'm not damn well going to. Both you and I can see I can't see you."

And then, of course, the 'Paralympics Paradox' some disabled people feared comes into play. I see it from their covert glances. "If you're fit enough to do that" (like my monkey-on-a-stick, or hold three shopping bags in one hand, hang on to a grab rail, and manipulate a crutch with the other) "I was right not to help, because you're not really disabled are you?"

It's just another version of what the more egregious anti-disabled commenters have been saying. "If they can do that, they don't need our help anyway, do they?"

I've long expected this 'Paralympics Paradox' to come back and bite me. I've actually lived with it a long time. Once I got over the shock of becoming disabled, and, more importantly, came to terms with the idea it was never going to change (much harder!)  I decided I would do my best to appear, as far as I could, not disabled. I don't want pity. (I can pity myself enough for half a dozen sometimes at night.)
I don't want sympathy, or, worse, attempts at empathy. Non-disabled people cannot really understand enough to make either meaningful. And I'm not really interested in explaining my disability. Any more than I'd be interested in explaining to a stranger why I have green eyes.

So for years, I've been, on the whole, happiest when it's taken people (especially somewhere public, like a bar or a club) a while to realise I am disabled. After all, the 'me' I was before I was is still the 'me' I am now. It's a trickier thing to pull off in a wheelchair, of course, and I'm still working on it. Whether I'll crack it before I end up using one most of the time instead of some of it, I don't know.

But there is hope: but not from many people over fifty, by the look of it. The 2012 'Young Paralympics' generation, maybe. I don't mind (actually, I like) teenagers wanting demos of wheelies or whatever as though a wheelchair was really merely a version of a mountain bike.  Even though I'm not a kid myself. . . far from it. Pity I can't afford an equivalent flashy racing wheelchair . . .

But the older ones . . .forgeddit.