I will marry the woman who has the same love of “man walks into a bar” jokes that I do. It’s possible I may need to switch out the word “love” for “tolerate” when it comes to this particular dealbreaker. I have, after all, been single for quite a long time.
Anyhoo… to business.
Another hike this weekend, this time a five miler along the Bay Ridge Trail. Our little trio – Loren brought Audra along for the fun this time – hiked through the early morning fog of a San Francisco Saturday. I’m starting to get the hang of following the sound of the trekking pole ahead of me, and of course, hiking with a professional writer is great when communication is key… Loren being the professional, of course, as I’m maintaining my amateur status so I can write in the Summer Olympics.
This trail had a completely different sound and feel to it. Since it runs through the Presidio, a decommissioned Army post that is now mostly residential, large parts of the route were more urban, or at least suburban, but it’s hard to be upset about it when you’re never more than a three par away from the water’s edge. When we dipped into the woods on the stretches that didn’t pace the road to the Golden Gate Bridge, the smell of the Monterey pines and eucalyptus was overpowering in a good way. The trail wends its way past World War II era battery posts and around a military cemetery I had never heard about, but which had gravesites that date back to the days when San Francisco was still Yerba Buena. The one campground we passed is the only official campground in the city limits, although why anyone would want to pay the $100 fee just to be able to say they camped in San Francisco is a bit of a mystery to me, especially since the Marin Headlands are all but within shouting distance. To each their own, I suppose.
The hike was accentuated by the sound of foghorns and the view of the Point Bonita lighthouse, itself barely visible through the fog, even though it was less than a mile away. A great morning, and once again I was reminded how fortunate I am to have friends who are up for the patience and challenge of helping me get my footing, literally, but who take it on as nothing more than a fun weekend outing.
It led me to ponder, again, something that’s been on my mind lately. It has to do with perceptions and expectations.
Do perceptions shape expectations, or is it the other way around?
When you walk with a cane, you hit things. Utility poles, recycling bins, anyone walking and sexting (this is quite common here), and so forth. What took me time to accept is that when the cane hits something and I have to stop and assess the situation, this means I’m doing it right. The cane hits objects so that I the rest of me doesn’t, so I also accept the truth that if this was hard for me to get used to, it must be just as uncomfortable for others to watch or let happen. It just doesn’t compute that if I’m stopped short by an obstacle that most people can easily avoid, I’m doing it right when I feel my way around it, first by striking it with my cane, and then tapping into the correct route around it.
There’s been a lot of construction in my neighborhood this summer. It reminds me of the two years I spent in South Dakota, where the joke was that there were only two seasons: winter and construction. Construction and repair work is a year-round affair in San Francisco, though, so you get used to dodging obstacles. It’s an unusual day if I don’t find myself a few seconds away, often less, from walking into a temporary fence, and then navigating my way around the concrete barriers that line the wooden planks through the upheaval.
One of these mini obstacle courses is set up about two blocks from my house, and as I found my way through it to normal sidewalk, I heard footsteps behind me, and saw a woman rushing up to me.
“I was coming up to help you,” she said. “But you got it yourself!” Before I could say anything, she added, “You’re just amazing!” And then she said it again. “Just amazing!”
You want to be polite in situations like this, but it’s not hard to feel pretty uncomfortable as well. I have a four year old cousin who can do this too, cross the street, and get far less attention, is what I’m trying to say.
“Just amazing. I don’t know how you did it. Are you okay the rest of the way?”
I assured her I was fine. That this was not, calling into service a phrase that has gotten a lot of play in the rotation recently, my first rodeo, and then I realized there was a kicker to this story. She bid me a good day, and returned, not to her walk, but to her car, which was parked by the curb with the engine running. This woman had been driving up the street and pulled over to help what she thought was a blind man cross the street. I can’t see much, but the indignity of it all made me see red – not that I needed help, but that she assumed that I needed help
Exhibit B.
Later this same week, I was on the bus, again on the way home, but rather than face the walk up Castro Street with a backpack and two bags full of groceries, I decided to take advantage of every square inch of luxury the #24 Divisadero has to offer. Sometimes, I do love to spoil myself
A brief aside – people here complain about the mass transit system. That it’s not as robust as it should be, that the buses are always late, that the buses are too crowded and any number of other proclaimed injustices. To those people, I would simply say this: live in Birmingham, Alabama – my hometown and last port of call – for one day. Try using the mass transit system, such as it is, you’ll come back to San Francisco and give each and every driver a Bull Durham-esque long, slow, deep wet kiss that lasts for three days. If the bus system in Birmingham shut down entirely, this would be an enormous improvement as far as reliability is concerned, because at least you’ll know for certain that the bus isn’t coming, rather than play the daily guessing game that includes wondering whether or not a driver showed up, whether the bus broke down with no replacement parts in the garage or the staff on hand to fix it, whether it ran so late that the transit center finally decided not to run it at all that hour… or any number of more creative excuses for what a system called, I assume ironically, the Metro Area Express. Sure, in San Francisco we have the #38 line, kind of a Mos Eisley spaceport on wheels (a more wretched hive of scum and villainy you’ll never find…), but it runs every ten minutes and it gets you where you want to go. That’s really all I ask out of a bus.
But I digress.
As we crested the last rise of the hill on the way to my house, I rang the bell for my stop, and the elderly man sitting next to me said, “That was amazing! How did you know when to ring the bell?”
There’s that word again. Amazing. How does one answer this in the five seconds before my stop? That the regular series of turns, ascents and descents the bus made were as familiar to me as my own breathing. That even if I missed those cues, which happens all the time, I would know I’m close to where I want to be because I live at the top of the hill. And oh yes, today, all the equipment on the bus was working (a nice add, methinks) and the automated speaker system was calling out the stops.
“Actually,” I said, “This is the easiest part of my day.”
“Well, I think it’s quite amazing,” he said. “Quite amazing.”
“Not my first rodeo,” I said with a little bit of a sigh. I did not succeed as well as I wanted in keeping the irritation out of my voice.
So the question persists. Does the perception of inability lead to an expectation of helplessness, or does the expectation of helplessness lead to the perception of inability. Both alternatives are laced with damaging assumptions, and they color how many people act around people with a handicap. Those perceptions and expectations establish a pretty low threshold for using the word “amazing.” There’s a certain amount of condescension behind the use of that word when it’s used for such mundane activities as riding a bus or crossing a street, and I think it leads to lowered expectations from the handicapped person himself or herself.
There’s an old saying that the reason a talking dog is so interesting has nothing to do with what he’s talking about. It’s just the fact he’s talking at all. When random strangers compliment me on my ability to cross a street or find my way home on the bus without getting lost, I feel like the talking dog. I think we as a society owe the handicapped much more than the lowered expectations that are equivalent to what we would expect from a small child. I think expectations and perceptions should be set very high.
What I’m really talking about… is dignity.
I started this journey, such as it is, with one request… more of a statement, really. I’m still me. Good and bad, skills and shortcomings. My goals are the same as anyone else’s – I want to push myself hard, and be pushed hard in return
So the moral of this story, I think, is this: perceive ability, expect everything. If that’s the bar, it doesn’t matter which comes first.
Oh, and the bartender says to the horse, “Why the long face?”
