Hello, Hell - Can I leave yet?

This is such a bad week. I think it's officially the week from Hell, and it far surpasses any previous weeks that seemed hellish.

Unless some prayers get answered pretty quick, in 2 days we'll be living in a hotel room and everything we own will be in a storage unit somewhere. 

I've spent the past week trying to get the apartment we were supposed to be moving into worked out, packing, listing stuff for sale on Craigslist, and doing a heck of a lot of praying. We learned 4 hours ago (less than 48 hours before moving day) that our application got denied for rental history from 6 years ago that we  fully disclosed when we applied 2 weeks ago. For the last 2 weeks, we'd been told time and time again that anything over two years ago didn't matter.  Obviously some supervisor didn't bother to read that memo.

I don't know what we're going to do, where we're going, or how we're going to get there. I'm trying really hard to avoid falling into full-on-depression-mode or full-on-freak-out-mode. But I have to admit, they're both lurking right there on the periphery.

So, I've been listening to Smokie Norfolk's "God's gonna make a way" on repeat for hours. I'm trying to remember that old saying - when you're going through Hell, don't stop on the road. And I'm working on figuring out what the next step is. I'm thinking more searching for a place to live & store stuff would be a good start.

It's going to be a long next two days. We'll figure it out. As long as we're together, that's the important thing. And I know that we'll come out of this trip through Hell stronger than we were before.

Or at least that's what I'm going to keep telling myself until this is over.

The view from Down Here

I've been mulling on something since June 2011, when I attended my first Unitarian Universalist General Assembly (UU GA).  

As I've previously mentioned, I spent that GA in a scooter.  It was an eye-opening experience - not being seen by the crowds in the halls while my head was basically at waist level, not being able to see the projected words for unfamiliar hymns during worship, having to wait in line for the elevator instead of running up stairs, and waiting for people to come along and open doors when I couldn't find the button to do it myself.

I've been mulling on how to articulate what it was like to people who've never sat in a wheelchair or scooter.  How do you explain such a life changing experience, to a fully-abled person who has never been there?  After over a year, it dawned on me whole driving home from church this past Sunday.

I live in Texas - the land of pick-up trucks and SUVs. I drive a compact car - a Toyota Yaris. Being in a scooter or wheelchair is like driving a Yaris in Texas. Now, this might not immediately make sense to you, so let me explain my metaphor.

 Imagine you are driving along the Texas highway, in a 2007 manual transmission Toyota Yaris.  When you sit down in your car, it's a little lower to the ground than your standard dining chair height.

Toyota Yaris by Carolyn C

You are on open highway - you can cruise along at the speed limit with absolutely no problems. The few times you encounter anyone else on the road, you simply change lanes and pass them by. The folks in the vehicles you pass, both small and large, wave at you. It's Texas after all, and we try to be friendly. :)

Texas Highway by CoreBurn

Then, bam! - you hit rush hour traffic.  It's Texas, so your little car is surrounded by pick-up trucks and SUVs.  You can't see over them, so you don't know how long the traffic jam is going to be.  You can't see around them, so you don't know if you can get over and make it to the exit lane.  You resign yourself to sitting in traffic and being late to wherever you're going.  That's when you start having problems.

Dallas traffic by nffcnnr

This is Texas - the pick-up trucks and SUVs think they own the road.  They're the ones with the huge cattle guards on the front of their vehicles, and they assume everyone who's not in the same category should get out of their way.  They don't check their blind spots - they're bigger, therefore you should automatically see them, right?  They have Hemis' under the hood, so it's fine with them if they cut you off, because God forbid they're behind your small car that might take a little longer to get up to speed.  They have the brand-new, straight from the factory brakes that can stop on a dime - what do you mean your little Yaris might take a while to fully stop because it's older, needs a brake job and you need time to shift?

The lane to the right of you starts moving quickly.  So you put on your turn signal, and start looking for an opening.  Truck after truck, SUV after SUV - they whiz by you, completely ignoring you.  Finally, another small car comes along and lets you in.  You finally can get to where you were going.

That's what it's like being in a scooter or wheelchair when you're in the middle of a crowd.  Surrounded by people standing all around you, walking while you're sitting there, unable to navigate.  Having people suddenly stop in front of you, and you are just praying that the scooter will stop before you hit them.  Unable to dart around the groups of people that cause traffic jams in hallways, you patiently (or more often than not, impatiently) wait until traffic clears enough to get around them.  It's driving a Yaris in Texas, wishing the traffic jam would clear up.

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At large gatherings, and sometimes at smaller ones, people are often told "We're a community that included everyone, regardless of ability.  People in wheelchairs and scooters are not invisible - look down every once in a while."  Often, these exhortations mean little until they directly effect the fully-abled.  Once they or a loved one learn what it is like to be ignored, to feel invisible in the middle of a crowd - then, suddenly they're looking down, recognizing barriers and helping to remove them.

General Assembly is the largest single gathering of Unitarian Universalists every year.  We learn from our mistakes and challenges every year, and make improvements.  In 2012, we had mini-hymn books we gave to everyone in scooters or wheelchairs so that when everyone else stood, those of us unable to stand still could sing the hymns.  

Yet, I wonder - are we making progress in our home congregations?  Are our congregations like the open highway where everyone can move around and we all wave at each other?  Or are our congregations like rush hour traffic?  I know my congregation is a bit of both at times - we've been working on becoming more like the open road than we were before.

Here are some great links that you might find useful if you're wondering if your congregation is a traffic jam or an open highway:

• EqUUal Access's Accessibility Guidelines for UU Congregations (opens in MS Word)
• UUA's Accessibility Manual - .pdf file

The UUA's accessibility manual includes a relatively easy and almost free audit that a small group in the congregation can do to assess how accessible the congregation is.  Best part?  It doesn't audit for only mobility impairments - but an entire gamut of things that you might not even realize are problems unless you know someone with invisible disabilities.

Don't wanna...

There are few things in life that I am adamantly opposed to doing.  Things I find unethical or unjust.  Eating brussel sprouts.  Moving... again.

Since 2006, I've moved six times.  And due to circumstances beyond my control, we're moving (again) in less than two weeks.  I'm much more apprehensive about this move than the previous 3 moves.  And I'm trying to figure out exactly why.

In 2006, I moved three times.  First, into a women's shelter when fleeing my abusive ex-husband.  Then, into an apartment that I shared with my sister.  And finally into an apartment with my (at the time) boyfriend.  The shelter was nice enough - a place to hang my hat while I got my head straightened out some and figured out how to cobble my life back together.  The apartment with my sister wasn't bad - I enjoyed her company, and it was close to work; it was a low-income complex, which wasn't bad if you could overlook the lack of basic maintenance and you didn't get on the wrong side of certain folks (no problem, it was better than where I grew up).  The apartment with my then-boyfriend was a bit worse - maintenance was fine, but after about a week, I was no longer comfortable with my son playing outside unsupervised; it was one of the "bad" parts of town.

We moved out that apartment in a hurry.  We'd been there for a year and half when the young child next door got caught in gang-crossfire.  We moved out less than a week later.  Ever since, we've rented houses from private owners, in carefully vetted neighborhoods - are the schools good? are there gangs? are the residents obviously proud of their homes?

As a result, we've ended up in what I call "vanilla" neighborhoods.  Granted, they aren't entirely occupied by white folks - we occasionally see a person of color other than my husband.  And, when it's been possible, we pay the transfer fee to keep my son in a different school that has a much more culturally and racially diverse demographic, even if it isn't the "good" school.

Now, we're moving again.  And none of us are happy about it.  We're going to be moving back into an apartment after years of living in houses with backyards, neighbors that stay put., having enough room to have both an office and an art studio space.  Not only are we moving back into an apartment, we're downsizing significantly, in the hopes that we'll be able to save up enough to eventually "own" our own place.

So, I'm in the middle of figuring out what is going with us, what is going into storage for use at a future house, and what is getting sold.  I'm in the middle of sorting through my feelings about moving, and I'm getting even more fabulously depressed than I already was.  It's amazingly difficult to find a two bedroom on the first floor at a place that is willing to overlook a lease that was broken to keep your family safe.  And I'm worried - about the neighborhood, about the neighbors, about the schools.  I'm worried about moving my 13 year old son to yet another place that he'll find it pointless to make friends at because he knows we'll be moving again.  We've intentionally looked for a diverse area, where as a white person I'd be in the minority.  And I'm praying that it's safe - that the appearance of safety we saw during the day doesn't evaporate as soon as the sun goes down. 

We can't know until we're there.  And that's what scares me.  The unknown.  The future.  And that I feel powerless to change it.  Transitions are never easy for anyone - I find them especially difficult.  I don't like change - I resist it at all costs, screaming and kicking every inch of the way.  And I don't have a choice in this.  I have to face the unknown, the future.  And I don't want to.  I want to kick and scream.  A lot.

Lord, grant me strength and courage in the face of the unknown - mainly so I don't hurt myself with all the kicking and screaming.