#SeasonalSonnets 2019: 14th December

Hello my lovely readers

Continuing the theme of shifting perspectives proposed in yesterday's post, today I'm writing again about some of the access arrangements I've been navigating whilst here (pictured in the featured photo). Because, sure, it's frustrating - and both my heart and body ache each time I hit a bump slightly skew - but there's a satisfaction in successfully being able to get somewhere and engage with society. And sometimes, functional necessity can even be made fun. Humour, after all, is the constant companion of disabled people.

Before you read this poem, please know I'm not being flippant - I'm still devastated about the situation back 'home' in the UK (the quotation marks signify the steadily-eroding sense of connection I have to the country in its current state). And it's had a real impact on my mental health.

I'm heartsore for me and my friends, and all other people who will be struggling (and have already, over the last nine years of austerity).

Thanks in large part to a Skype chat with a very dear person last night, followed by drinks with my lovely cousin James, I woke up this morning with a realisation that extends yesterday's thoughts. If I'm living in a place where the government seems to prefer that people like me don't exist, then just the very fact of existing is rebellious. So, whilst I'm still trying to recoup enough energy to feel that I can be properly imaginative and hopeful and creative about the future, it's helpful to remember that taking time to ensure my basic needs are met is a radical act on its own. That self-care includes finding ways (however alternative, and possibly slightly awkward) to be in environments which aren't the most conducive to bodies like mine, having fun and making my presence felt. Because I deserve to be out in nature, or to go to a bar. I deserve to do whatever existence means for me at any particular point, and feel good and welcome.

And so do we all.

14th December 2019

This morning I was struck by an epiphany

(admittedly I've had such thoughts before -

self-loathing, though, is tricky in its tendency

to hold on; love takes effort to restore).

And yet I woke today with a reminder

that I must also strive to fit myself

in any resolution to be kinder

'cause I, as much as others, deserve health.

That kindness can include time out in nature

or places that weren't 'made' for those like me,

since I am just as worthy to be nurtured,

to be included and to feel free.

It might involve some wheelchair parkour;

that's worth it if my sense of self's secure.