​When I finish exercising, I’m so tired that I need to lie in bed and rest. Then, my nurse aid has lunch ready for me. She puts the tray on my lap and clips a kitchen towel on my shoulders (no matter how careful I am as I eat, I always spill food on me). In summer, the weather gives me an excuse to stay home: it’s cloudy or rainy or humid or unbearably hot, or unbearably humid and hot.  So, I stay in bed with the living room window shut, and the air conditioner and fans on. I hate artificial air and closed windows – open windows that let fresh air in the house are much better. But on hot and humid days, I prefer the cool air fill the rooms. I’m sitting in bed, my computer on a pillow on my lap, and, write, read, or translate.
            When I could walk and work, I reserved some time a week to read and write. Eric and Nathan would eat out, and I’d walk to my favorite coffee shop, order a decaf latte, choose a remote empty place, and sit down to sip my coffee while I read and wrote. I ‘d always look forward to that weekly evening spent in solitude. I had a project for a poetry book on waste (in a metaphorical sense) first, and a book on memory, language, and foreignness later.
Now I don’t need to reserve a personal time: all my time is free. Lately, as I mentioned before, I’ve started translating. I only take jobs that don’t have tight deadlines, and not more than two or three at a time. I’ve even rejected prospective and old clients who contacted me with potential translations. In both cases, they were fairly large organizations, and I had pretty bad experiences with that kind of organization; they have no respect for freelancers. So, now I’ve added translating to the activities that give me a sense of enjoyment and pleasure.
My regular writing practice consists of several steps: I jot down thoughts on my notebook; then I translate these thoughts into poems or essays; then I type them into my computer; and then I edit, and edit, and edit. And in all these steps I find content. When I’m done and the time has come to send what I’ve written to the publisher or editor, a sense of loss washes over me.
            But there’s a further reason I’m in bed with my notebook and computer on my lap: while I remain in bed immersed into the world I’m building with poetry or prose, I can forget of getting up. And if I forget of getting up, I can pretend that I have two good legs. I can picture myself walking confidently and freely.

​On Monday Eric took me to the clinic so that I could have a mammogram. The radiologist studied it and told me what she thought of the images. She didn’t see anything of concern, but recommended an ultrasound in the next two months; I had cystic formations that hampered diagnosis.
Eric rolled me to the desk and left me for a few seconds. I told the assistant that I needed to make an appointment for an ultrasound. As soon as I finished the sentence, Eric came back. That was enough for the assistant; she addressed him to ask about preferred dates and his contact information. His arrival was enough to make me vanish. All of a sudden, I was transformed into a “she.” Anger and frustration drew me into silence. The next day, when my nurse aid asked me how I had faired, I told her all about my experience with the assistant, and she got really angry. Then, I repeated the story to my occupational therapist. (Two therapists are coming to work with me – a physical therapist and an occupational therapist.)
The therapist’s response gave me a lot of food for thought. She told me that when she was going to graduate school, students had to spend all day on a wheelchair as a way to see the perspective of their patients.  It was her turn to sit on the chair. It was summer, and she and a friend went for ice creams. She ordered one to the employee behind the counter, but he paid her no attention. Yet, when her friend came in, he immediately asked her what type of ice cream she wanted. And my therapist ended her account with an observation: what had mattered in this incident was that she was on a wheelchair and her friend was not.
Having heard this story after I’d undergone such a frustrating experience at the clinic brought to mind many instances of the same kind. Furthermore, it reminded me of the reactions I had had when I was young and healthy toward people whose disability was apparent (I write about this in another chapter). This led me to conclude that the wheelchair stood between the person with disabilities (I, in my case) and the healthy ones. The wheelchair is a big sign they (we) carry that reads: I’m not “normal.” They (we) don’t fulfill expectations; they (we) deviate from the definition of “normality.” Abnormality of any kind sets up a barrier; it intimidates. For this reason, the wheelchair makes them (us) invisible, and relegates them (us) to the third-person world.