Why We Can Still Love

Did you ever happen to wonder or think twice about the basic, essential facts and the fundamental truths of men and women with Cerebral Palsy? Have you ever raised the question within yourself about our feelings on romantic identities, and why it is that we as challenged individuals cannot be looked at equally, talked to on an equal basis, or understood completely? We are dismissed because our disability is thought to make us stupid. Do you think it is always us? This area of dissection, which is readily unspoken about, is most difficult for the largest part to swallow. It is hard to believe, to the average person’s eye; that there indeed are some very capable people out there with disabilities such as myself.

Unfortunately, people find it to dark an area to discuss, or talk about, let alone- cope with! It is all too easy to put on our rose color glasses and hide with a false comfort. In general, people and the world around us would rather ignore the matter at hand. They would rather turn away from the neediness and the desperateness that over-shadows disabled people’s true being. They would rather continue to believe the myths, and regard us as the “cute, innocent, naive children” forever living in this forgotten bubble, who have no desires at all!

This morose and morbid fascination with our capabilities, or to be more specific, our incapability’s in the romantic arena or lack there off is ignored. The fact that we may wish, or think of having an ordinary, healthy, friendship, or even a romantic relationship with another consenting, loving, caring, human being; much less get married, is just too disgusting, too revolting, and too sickening. It is too extreme, too challenging, and too confrontational. Moreover, it is very provocative and shocking to others and the norm.

For pretty much my entire life, I unyieldingly struggled with every bated breath I have taken. Not only was it for my own core essence and being to exist, but, it was in my chosen passion, which was of the arts… It was the desire to be able to express myself freely in a world of dance, music, and literature; which helped me to relinquish and release the bars that I wore on my leg and in my brain– also, because I did not want to be looked down upon as a typical helpless victim.

Thus, I did everything in my power to strive and thrive- I had wants, needs, and desires, and I wanted to be given the same equality and chance to express myself in the areas I loved and cherished most. I reasoned… that if other men and women of my age and generation could accomplish their goals and dreams- including having a boyfriend, then why couldn’t I! I could easily work on my inner-self- my strengths and weaknesses, to become the best person I could be. I felt that that was the healthiest way to approach my life. However, too often, others where quick to judge! Consequently time and time again I was put to the test- only to searched my soul, readjusted my thoughts, and daily re-committed myself to living that healthy “normal life,” in a society, which continued to tell me “I couldn’t!”

My self-worth came from the gentle, romantic way in which I cared for myself. It was the way that I dressed, the time that I took to primp and fuss, and the way I took that extra moment to look the very best that I could for each given situation. It was the way that I nourished my body, my mind, and the way I acted. It was the honest and pro-active, empowering way I conducted myself. It was the way I looked up to those eloquent people who were positive, happy and joyfully succeeding in life. I took the good, positive; things I liked, and let go of all the rest; as I continued to develop a sense of my own inner-being. I began to see how others were attracted to me. They began to look beyond my left side hemiplegia, Cerebral Palsy, and learning disability. They began to see me for me. Thus, I embraced myself and my life even more than I already had. My romantic sense came from all this innate wisdom, insight, willingness to change, and the knowledge I read.

Yes, I have been challenged, ridiculed, stood up on dates, however, disputed all the intense examinations, crewl remarks, I have risen despite the harshest of securitization. I have found a man who loves me for me, and I have happily been married, for twenty years now. Despite my physical challenges I was able to find a love, a partner, and a life of my own, despite what the world thought of me.

Tags: Relationships
Posted in Living With a Physical Disability, Published Articles | 3 Comments »

Incident Under Investigation

It was 1976, a day like all others.  I was 25 years old, walking out of a beige and brown stucco building from a meeting that just ended with California Department of Rehabilitation.   What was different was that I had had just about all I could handle!  I was infuriated, humiliated, and dishonored.  As I walked out the door of the office, and took the elevator to the main level, step by step the anger grew inside of me.  I felt as though I had just been whipped and tortured.

I walked to my car, opened my car door, and began to cry hysterically.  I was hurt, marred, and very wounded.  I was just told that I would not be able to carry out my life the way I desired.  Somebody else in power was trying to impose their idea of what a “normal” life or a person with a disability should be.

I was told that I could not go to college like other “normal young adults.”   I was conveniently labeled mentally retarded for a second time in my life, and my dreams of becoming a dance and recreation therapist were shattered.  My dreams of learning the things I never learned in 12 years of grade school felt like they were being stripped away for good.  My chance to live a life, like everyone else, and to be looked at with dignity and respect were immediately being crushed, trodden over, and violently subdued.   

All I wanted was to be able to live my life like all people.  All I wanted was to be accepted in this world, and society, and live a productive life; with purpose and meaning in the areas I knew best.  All I wanted was a chance to move forth, to learn, and to better myself, and the conditions I was all too familiar with.  I wanted to succeed and make something of myself.  I did not want to fritter my life away in front of the television set becoming a vegetable of the state. 

I had much, much higher goals and expectations of myself.  I had far more dignity and pride than they were willing to toss me.  And, what’s more, is that I had far more tenacity and courage then they could ever muster!  They did not know who they were dealing with.  Know body knew who Karen Lynn Hershkowitz was.

I wanted to do more.  I was open, resilient, and receptive to learn.  I was willing to do what ever it took. I wanted to properly be able to construct and write a clear, clean, concise, put together sentence without any help from others.  Not so far fetched in this 21^st century, although for the 20^th century, which I was born, and raised; it was an enormous obstacle!  They were not going to allow me to learn.  They, the (State Department of Rehabilitation) were not going to allow “this” disabled person, with Cerebral Palsy and a learning disability to go to college.  It’s very true that we are conveniently discriminated against and still are subtly.

I was not going to put up with this indirect abuse.  Nor was I going to sit back on my laurels.  Something snapped.  Something deep within my soul told me to not give up or give in.  I got in my car, drove home and began to plot.  I could not sit still on this matter.  Thus, the next day, I was writing letter after letter and making phone call after phone call to file a lawsuit to solve this issue at hand.  What I did not know is that I would have to fight this battle completely alone.  I did not know how long this would take, or how much agony I would have to go through.  But I knew that I would be fighting for an entire people.

 This act that I was about to take, had never been done before.  It had never been undertaken so boldly, and never had such a person such as myself; from the disabled community, chosen to break out of what “the experts believed she could do!”  So bold the act was, it never been dreamed of before.  No one in the disabled community before me ever had the nerve, guts, courage, spirit, and bravery to challenge the system, and the established stereotypes, and all their beliefs, verbal battering, and contempt’s for our desires, efforts, and needs, were held to be meaningless.

I would not sit in an office, and surrender control of my life and being; to a perfect stranger, who sat higher on the totem pole, without any understanding of the price I had to pay.  They had their degree, they had their title, and they were determined not to allow me to have either.   They could handle more severe versions of my disability because those people they thought could be controlled.  There was no way, heaven on earth that I was going to be controlled, manipulated and forbidden to carry out my plans or destiny in the manor I saw fit.  It would take years, but I won.  I got the degree, and now, twenty-eight years later, I am proudly working towards a B.A.

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To All you Readers

I have been hard at work developing the best blog there could be. I have come up with many topics and ways that all of us can share and communicate with one another.  Now I would like to give my readers the chance to share some books and other media which they have enjoyed, learned from and use to teach others.  This is your chance to tell the world about that rare book, movie, or music that you personally know about.  I’ll be waiting to hear from you.

Tags: Sharing with Others
Posted in Readers Recipe | No Comments »

Promise of the Park

“The Promise of the Park”

Friday, February 5th, 2009

REVIEW by Professor of American History Sean Dineen, MA, Kean University, NJ

The history of disability inclusion began earlier than you think, although the issue has always been a struggle. We in the Disability Community have spent our lives watching the struggle for inclusion unfold, bit by bit, inch by inch, and sometimes, by the grace of God, triumph.  It is very easy to fall into the misunderstanding that no one was really thinking about “our issues” prior to 1973.   It was my pleasure to learn that this is not true at all.

I recently observed Theatre in Motion’s musical play “The Promise of the Park,” a fetching, time traveling tale about the first American park open to everyone, New York City’s Central Park, and its maverick first Architect in Chief, Frederick Law Olmsted, Sr. “The Promise of the Park” is well-researched and handsomely written by Ms. Leslie Fanelli (Artistic Director and Founder of Theatre in Motion). The performance I saw was engagingly fresh and exciting, juxtaposed to the fact that Central Park’s history germinated in the nineteenth century.

It took sixteen years to build and officially open the park in 1873. This was a full century before the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which laid the foundation for equality in education and physical accessibility in government buildings in the twentieth century and beyond.  In the nineteenth century, Mr. Olmsted and his co-creator, Calvert Vaux, designed Central Park as largely physically accessible via the use of ingenious landscape architecture—specifically, the park’s sunken transverse roads. These sunken roads separated “the frantic zeal of the cross-town traffic” from “the rustic beauty” and patrons traveling about the park. In fact, in the original 1857 design called “The Greensward Plan,” Olmsted and Vaux had pointed out that the transverse roads would allow for the inclusion and safety of people with disabilities—and ladies (in big, hoop skirts)! Olmsted and his two sons would go on to design thousands of American landscapes, and in 1893, Olmsted, Sr., designed the grounds for the spectacular Chicago World’s Fair. He also designed breathtakingly beautiful grounds for a number of hospitals. In this arena, he was brilliantly ahead of his time because he espoused bright, air-filled treatment rooms, in place of the stark “cells” of the era. Plus, of course, he believed his lovely grounds to be naturally therapeutic. It is ironic that he spent his last few years after acquiring dementia in the McLean Psychiatric Hospital, where he had previously designed the becalming scenery.

Throughout his career, the genius landscape architect Olmsted saw the need to use public spaces to bring people together.   In a time when any concern for the non elite was dismissed as radical, or dispensed with the disdain of paternalistic disengagement, a public park for all humankind to share—black and white, rich and poor—was unheard of.  Even before he sustained his decided, permanent limp in a frightening carriage accident, he understood the need to integrate those with disabilities into his parks, and by extension, the wider world. In fact, as Ms. Fanelli’s play reveals, he designed the first wheelchair accessible trail to the top of Mount Royale in Canada in the 1870’s.

The play is executed in a whimsical, yet compelling manner, like all of Ms. Fanelli’s vibrant works. In “The Promise of the Park,” she is director, actress, and singer—in addition to being the playwright. Her teenage persona (along with her friend and conscience, “Amy”) is played with zest and humor. Ms. Amelia Fowler as “Amy” is endearing, piquant, and funny in her role. In one scene, they are having a picnic in the park when, to their disbelief, they encounter Olmsted himself, who has traveled through time to see his beloved park in the twenty-first century.   Initially, they cannot believe that Olmsted, whom they have never heard of, is anything more than an actor or confused soul, but he is able to convince them that he is, in fact, Central Park’s first Architect in Chief. That accomplished, the three share an exciting journey back into the park’s creation, after which, they time travel forward into the present to better understand and heed the critical environmental concerns facing the world now.

I would be remiss not to mention Bill Houpt at the piano—a fine, keyboard “one man orchestra.” He not only plays the pleasing accompaniment, but plays the sound effects, as well.

The lion Olmsted, brought to life by Mr. William Dembaugh, experiences great wonder at this new world. He believes a jet plane to be a new bird, and the tall buildings on the perimeter of the park to be incredible structures, especially because in 1873, there were virtually no buildings surrounding the park—and certainly none as tall as today’s skyscrapers! He proceeds to teach and mentor the two young people on how to protect this park treasure that he has given to everyone. “The First American People’s Park.”

As the mighty protagonist Olmsted, William Dembaugh is humbly resplendent. His exquisite, tenor voice captures the beauty of Olmsted’s life and work. The entrancing music, created by an artistic team headed by Ms. Susan Mondzak, is delightful and, when needed, dramatically engaging. “The Things I See” and “Back in 1873” are bracing, musical stand-outs. With regard to the musical drama, Mr. Dembaugh is careful to portray Olmsted not as an archaism, but rather, a forward-thinking, inclusive artist.

Yes, indeed, the history of disability inclusion began earlier than you think.

Frederick Law Olmsted, Sr.—a man of his time, a patriarch before we knew what that really meant.

Theatre in Motion is an award-winning, professional, non-profit theatre company that features intergenerational creative and performing artists with and without disabilities—serving intergenerational audiences with and without disabilities via original dramatic and musical productions.

Theatre in Motion’s New Music CD, “The Promise of Central Park,” is available at CDBaby:

http://cdbaby.com/cd/theatreinmotion

Tags: achievements
Posted in Media and Commuications Convayer, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »