krishanna|dot|com

Truth About Writers

From the LA Times: The Truth About Writers.

Ask a writer what she values most in her creative life, and she is likely to respond, "Time to write." Not many of us have the luxury of writing full- time; we have spouses, families, day jobs. To the people closest to the writer, "writing time" may seem like so much self-indulgence: Why should we get to sit around thinking all day? Normal people don't require hour after continuous hour of solitude and silence. Normal people can be flexible.

And yet, we writers tell our friends and children, there is nothing more sacrosanct, more vital to our intellectual and emotional well-being, than writing time. But we writers have a secret.

We don't spend much time writing.

Read the rest...

Miss Dorothy Parker

Learning To Be Disabled

Disability Blog Carnival #48: Capacities and Capabilities

"I can be changed by what happens to me, but I refuse to be reduced by it." -: Maya Angelou

I have been "disabled" now for 10 years. Most people who know me think of me as "strong", "brave", "persevering". People admire me for this; as though those qualities didn't exist before I became disabled. They admire me for continuing to live and pursue my dreams freely, "in spite of" a spinal cord injury and the chronic pain and depression that accompanies it.

But for me, it doesn't seem to be so great a thing, such an admirable feat. For me, it was a matter of practicality and realism.You do what you have to do. I am  "strong", "brave", "persevering" but I was BEFORE I became disabled. Those are the things that assist you in finding a way to continue living  instead of curling  yourself  up into a tight ball in the corner of a dark room and waiting to die.

People without disabilities assume that I write, create things, keep moving forward, work at keeping a decently positive attitude, "in spite of" my disability. People with disabilities, admire my resilience and capacity for not allowing my disability to stop me from living and expecting the best I can get from life.

Oddly, no one ever assumes I do what I do and I live the way I live with the attitude I have BECAUSE of my disability.

I have taught myself many things because I am an experiential learner. I taught myself a lot of how to live and be in this world due to a crappy hand in childhood. I taught myself to use computers back in the dark ages. I am a self-taught artist and thingmaker. Becoming disabled was no different. I had to learn how to be disabled because I wasn't born that way.

True enough, I am not paralyzed. I don't use a chair to get from point A to point B, it's true. But, I need a cane and I need a scooter to participate in activities and events that require walking and standing for long periods of time. I need to use a shopping cart to lean on in the grocery store, even if I am only getting one item. There are days when the pain is so bad, it's all I can do to get through the bare minimum and hope the next day, the next hour, the next minute is a better one. My life was changed and I needed to learn how to cope with the newness of it all.

When I was working full-time and more able-bodied , art and writing were things I poked at when I had the time. Once I became disabled and had nothing but time during recovery from surgeries and in between doctor appointments,they  became the lifeline and the preserver that kept me afloat. When it became clear I was never going to be able to go back to work as I once had, art and writing there to indicate a new path on which to travel. My disability gave me the time and space I needed to forge a new career for myself and this time one I had passion and patience for. I was no longer bogged down by doing the 9-to-5 thing and that left a lot of unfettered, creative energy energy to float among the rocks that rattled around in my head.

More than that though, I had to learn what it was like to be disabled in a culture that worships ability and perfection and a disability culture that viewed me as not "truly disabled".  I have always tossed conformity and convention out the window. Ever since I can remember, I have always been too much of one thing and not enough of another to fit in most pigeonholes. Disability, evidently, was going to be no exception. Within able-bodied circles, I was not able-bodied enough and within the disability community, I was not disabled enough or worse, I wasn't really disabled at all because I hadn't been born that way. It filled me with consternation and frustration. I was, it seemed, a woman without a country.

So I created my own. The country of Krishanna.

Just as I had balked at accepting the term "alcoholic" to define who I was years before, I rejected "disabled" to define my identity again. So many people get so caught up in labeling their identity that they forget who they are. To define who I am or can by limiting myself to what I can't do seems to me fruitless. "Disabled" is just one label to describe one part of who I am, just as being a feminist or an advocate, or a cranky artist describe other parts of who I am.

There is no one label for who I am. I am who I am. I am distinctly me and there's no one else on the face of the planet is that is just like me. Sounds hokey and rote, but it is true. For every one thing I can't do, there are half a dozen more I can.

Beyond our lists of all we are not and our litanies of all we cannot do, I believe the intrinsic knowledge we are only limited by our imaginations and dreams lies within us; indeed in spite of ourselves.

Disability Blog Carnival Reminder

The next Disability Blog Carnival is at Barriers, Bridges and Books. The theme is “Capacities and Capabilities”.  On that blog, Terri recently posted a reminder about the blog carnival, in which she said:

“What have you learned or become that you might not have without and encounter with disability? Have you become a medical expert, education specialist, behavioral manager, mechanic, efficiency expert, law specialist, problem-solver, activist, interpreter, ambassador, poet? Or something else that I haven’t thought of….Has your faith, creativity, determination, efficiency, patience, impatience, techno-savviness, assertiveness, connectedness, sensitivity, sense of humor or some other trait grown or been changed? Any of the above? All of the above? None of the above, but something else entirely??”

I'm participating are you?

A Room of One's Own

Okay, so it's been a few weeks. I've had a bunch to do in preparation for getting the equipment for my new workspace.

I had to transform this:

To this (with some help of course):

Doing that meant moving the furkids into the kitchen and finding a place for everything else, which is no easy feat nor for the faint of heart.

We live in a small house that is positively CRAMMED with stuff and so when you move one thing, you have to move at least three other things. It's a bit like living in a jigsaw puzzle. So when you move substantial things around like storage space or furniture or furkids kennels, it takes awhile. Then add me and my spine to the mix, it probably takes 3 times as long for me to get anything done even with help.

But it is done now and once I got to work in here, I realized how much I missed having a space of my own in which to write. I had been working and writing at a station in the living room which is perfect for web surfing, light e-mail reading and photo editing but it lacks the flat space and the environment conducive to productivity and writing. And it's nice to have a desk again with a good comfortable chair in which to lean back in and think deep thoughts about social media and writing and and art- whatever pops into my head to feed my insatiable curiosity and active imagination.

Though I share this space with the washer and dryer and an art making nook, I have really been enjoying  have a space where I can be alone, that is mine to write in again. In her book, "A Room of One's Own", Virginia Woolf wrote, "'a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction". I don;t have a lot of money so I don't write a lot of fiction but I have to say it has been lovely to write and work with no other person in the room; no TV droning on and on with programs I detest. I have caught myself wondering if this isn't more important than having having a studio. Perhaps not.  Perhaps they are equally important and I am just a space hog.

What do you think?  How important is having a space in which to create where you can be alone ? Do you have a space of your own at home where you can be alone to blog or do art or write or mix music or whatever it is you do? If so, how important is it to you? If not, how do you manage?

Well, Poo!

From Terry Pratchett

AN EMBUGGERANCE                                                             

Folks,

I would have liked to keep this one quiet for a little while, but because of upcoming conventions and of course the need to keep my publishers informed, it seems to me unfair to withhold the news. I have been diagnosed with a very rare form of early onset Alzheimer's, which lay behind this year's phantom "stroke".

We are taking it fairly philosophically down here and possibly with a mild optimism. For now work is continuing on the completion of Nation                        and the basic notes are already   being laid down for Unseen Academicals. All other things being equal, I expect to meet most current and, as far as possible, future commitments but will discuss things with the various organisers. Frankly, I would prefer it if people kept things cheerful, because I think there's time for at least a few more books yet :o)

            

            

PS I would just like to draw attention to everyone reading the above that this should be interpreted as 'I am not dead'. I will, of course, be dead at some future point, as will everybody else. For me, this maybe further off than you think - it's too soon to tell. I know it's a very human thing to say "Is there anything I can do", but in this case I would only entertain offers from very high-end experts in brain chemistry.

Snarfed from PJSM Prints, courtesy of Sandra Kidby of PJSM Prints.