20222
A New Place by Sarah Anderson
Main BodyLike those who found their way to New Zealand so long ago as well as more recently, I am about to embark on a new journey to a new place. There must be something inside humanity that gets excited by the thought of going somewhere different. I am no exception. My journey doesn’t involve aeroplane tickets or pre-booked hotels or tours. It doesn’t actually involve travelling anywhere outside of my hometown. But it will be an adventure nonetheless.
Because of rapidly declining health I have become more and more crippled and now have to rely on a wheelchair to do much of anything. That is something new and exciting and a great journey to behold!
In my short journey of increasing ill health so far I have already learnt I am now treated as a different species by many ‘normal’ people. I have also encountered much advice on how to appear ‘normal’ from such people. It should be apparent advice like that is an adventure killer, as how can you experience the unknown if you are trying desperately to cling to the known?
Maybe such people are scared of change. Who knows? But I think our forebears and all travellers were and are made of much stronger stuff. So really I think the best way to begin my new journey involves making sure I do not listen to people with such inappropriate advice and make sure I embrace the fun of a new beginning.
Fortunately I have a friend called Julian who is a journeyman, too, and while he is not a cripple he is not afraid to be seen out with me. So we go everywhere round town for a laugh; cafes, restaurants, art stores, pet stores, chocolate shops and so on. We are both curious to see how ‘normal’ people react to a person in a wheelchair. I guess it’s similar to how you watch the ‘locals’ when you go overseas.
It’s only because people often act so weirdly to what you think is ‘normal’ that it’s worth watching. The wheelchair seems to inspire this response; I don’t think it’s my hairdo or anything. The usual response is not malicious, it’s oh so nice. Too nice. Like forced nice.
And some people also very nicely treat you as if you are brain dead despite the fact of being in a wheelchair tends to imply it’s your legs that don’t work not your brain.
Amazing where some people think your brain is located! My friend Julian finds that sort of ignorance quite rude. I used to think it was rude, too, but now I don’t. I just think that those sorts of people have a lot to learn yet and currently they don’t know how to treat the crippled me like a regular person.
The other day Julian and I went to a café. He got upset by how people ‘actively ignored’ us because I’m in a wheelchair. I personally wonder if it is an extension of the ‘nice’ phenomenon. No one wanted to be caught staring so they very nicely ignore us. I think it’s a ‘very nice’ outcome, so much better than some prejudiced person having a go at you because they can.
But Julian really got thinking about the ‘why’ of it later because he was confused by the reaction. He eventually wondered that perhaps people acted like that because we sent a mixed message so they didn’t know what to do. After all we initially appeared to be like the clientele of the café, nicely dressed, attractive looking, middle-aged, and so on. But I was in a wheelchair so all those safety signals for people vanished! Hence the confusion and ‘active ignoring’.
Julian thought if we’d been a little more different and in unkempt clothes, too, we might have got hostile glances and poorer service instead. I don’t know.
But that’s all just a story about local colour really, the real adventure is far deeper.
You see things differently from when you used to be ‘better’ and took so many things for granted. There is a beauty inherent in things and people that used to be quite hidden to me. The language of life seems so much more obvious. Like now I just ‘know’ some things that will happen, but I care less and less that they will happen. I suppose a fortune is waiting to be made on the stock market, but where’s the fun in that? Someone else can chase the money.
As I’ve got sicker I don’t feel the same emotions that other people say they do. No greed, lust, anger, despair, jealousy, none of that. It’s too tiring to even think of such things. And some other people that call me sick feel these things regularly. The irony. Though I do have to say that my lack of difficult emotions may be due to the work I did finding peace with myself and my life with an excellent counsellor some years ago, so perhaps I can’t attribute this one to getting sicker.
Or maybe it was a combination of the good things I both shared and learnt in counselling and getting sicker. Who knows? The result is pleasant no matter what caused it. Anyway my main feeling now is delight in things, like a beautiful scene, a happy child, animals, experiences shared with good friends, yummy food, creative endeavours and on it goes…
My other main feeling is annoyance when I can’t do something I used to do or at ignorant people who think they know best (probably because they can walk so they think that makes them more intelligent than me) and like to take control because they can. Sometimes I wish such people were more respectful and curious. But I guess you can’t have everything.
Oh, and there’s still love. There’s always so much love. That’s a fine thing. And there’s forgiveness. I’m still working on increasing this one. I think it’s important to develop. Especially now I’m so at the mercy of others. Yeah, and as the saying goes, everyone makes mistakes. And everyone does, it’s part of being alive. We’d surely live in a very different world if people didn’t.
But forgiveness, it’s seeing a mistake has been made and then not holding the mistake against the person. You know they’ll do better next time.
My friend Shiani is a Buddhist. She tells me that some Buddhist monks would wish they have all the time on their hands that I do with this illness. She says then they could meditate more and would see the opportunity to do that as a good thing. It was so nice to hear a positive comment like this. Normally I don’t get told anything positive but instead have to put up with people who feel sorry for me because I find some things hard now and I’m not like them anymore.
How is that pitying attitude even helpful? I’m sure such people mean well, but perhaps their operating instructions for this kind of thing are not very useful. Why don’t more people show some respect or even affirmation for someone coping with a difficult fate? And you do have to wonder what happened to such people’s admiration of meeting a good challenge.
I think it’s good for everyone to grow through giving and receiving and the challenge presented by the illness. Even still, I must admit to finding it hard because I was used to being independent but I just can’t be that way anymore. So it is as much a learning thing for me as anyone else.
I must say I have already been impressed by the kindness and willingness of some people to be so helpful to me. So maybe some folks already embody these good principles that I am still learning about. I feel very lucky to have been on the receiving end of the best of humanity with this.
Anyway, like the previously mentioned unknown monks, I very much enjoy meditating. Unlike them I’m not very spiritual. I just do it because it gives me more energy. Energy is king when you have so little.
I don’t know what other things this journey will reveal to me but no doubt it will be interesting. And I’m not looking for and never will search for ‘normal’ on this path, no doubt a similar outlook to the many adventurers that came before me. This piece of writing is dedicated both to them and anyone else starting a new adventure.
May courage, excitement and wonder follow every new moment of discovery. After all, the capriciousness of life is there for us all to enjoy, so let’s embrace whatever journey we are on!
About the writer: Sarah Anderson’s work has appeared in many literary journals both in New Zealand and Australia, the most notable being Landfall. She is a Wellington-based writer, and the person who started the literary magazine Viola Beadleton’s Compendium of Seriously Silly and Astoundingly Amazing Stories, which ran for four years. Next up, a published book…
‘A New Place’ was written for the Memoir & Local History Competition 2011, run annually by the New Zealand Society of Authors Bay of Plenty Region with support from Tauranga Writers.
—-
This page archived at Perma CC in October of 2016: https://perma.cc/FL3D-G88R
Because of rapidly declining health I have become more and more crippled and now have to rely on a wheelchair to do much of anything. That is something new and exciting and a great journey to behold!
In my short journey of increasing ill health so far I have already learnt I am now treated as a different species by many ‘normal’ people. I have also encountered much advice on how to appear ‘normal’ from such people. It should be apparent advice like that is an adventure killer, as how can you experience the unknown if you are trying desperately to cling to the known?
Maybe such people are scared of change. Who knows? But I think our forebears and all travellers were and are made of much stronger stuff. So really I think the best way to begin my new journey involves making sure I do not listen to people with such inappropriate advice and make sure I embrace the fun of a new beginning.
Fortunately I have a friend called Julian who is a journeyman, too, and while he is not a cripple he is not afraid to be seen out with me. So we go everywhere round town for a laugh; cafes, restaurants, art stores, pet stores, chocolate shops and so on. We are both curious to see how ‘normal’ people react to a person in a wheelchair. I guess it’s similar to how you watch the ‘locals’ when you go overseas.
It’s only because people often act so weirdly to what you think is ‘normal’ that it’s worth watching. The wheelchair seems to inspire this response; I don’t think it’s my hairdo or anything. The usual response is not malicious, it’s oh so nice. Too nice. Like forced nice.
And some people also very nicely treat you as if you are brain dead despite the fact of being in a wheelchair tends to imply it’s your legs that don’t work not your brain.
Amazing where some people think your brain is located! My friend Julian finds that sort of ignorance quite rude. I used to think it was rude, too, but now I don’t. I just think that those sorts of people have a lot to learn yet and currently they don’t know how to treat the crippled me like a regular person.
The other day Julian and I went to a café. He got upset by how people ‘actively ignored’ us because I’m in a wheelchair. I personally wonder if it is an extension of the ‘nice’ phenomenon. No one wanted to be caught staring so they very nicely ignore us. I think it’s a ‘very nice’ outcome, so much better than some prejudiced person having a go at you because they can.
But Julian really got thinking about the ‘why’ of it later because he was confused by the reaction. He eventually wondered that perhaps people acted like that because we sent a mixed message so they didn’t know what to do. After all we initially appeared to be like the clientele of the café, nicely dressed, attractive looking, middle-aged, and so on. But I was in a wheelchair so all those safety signals for people vanished! Hence the confusion and ‘active ignoring’.
Julian thought if we’d been a little more different and in unkempt clothes, too, we might have got hostile glances and poorer service instead. I don’t know.
But that’s all just a story about local colour really, the real adventure is far deeper.
You see things differently from when you used to be ‘better’ and took so many things for granted. There is a beauty inherent in things and people that used to be quite hidden to me. The language of life seems so much more obvious. Like now I just ‘know’ some things that will happen, but I care less and less that they will happen. I suppose a fortune is waiting to be made on the stock market, but where’s the fun in that? Someone else can chase the money.
As I’ve got sicker I don’t feel the same emotions that other people say they do. No greed, lust, anger, despair, jealousy, none of that. It’s too tiring to even think of such things. And some other people that call me sick feel these things regularly. The irony. Though I do have to say that my lack of difficult emotions may be due to the work I did finding peace with myself and my life with an excellent counsellor some years ago, so perhaps I can’t attribute this one to getting sicker.
Or maybe it was a combination of the good things I both shared and learnt in counselling and getting sicker. Who knows? The result is pleasant no matter what caused it. Anyway my main feeling now is delight in things, like a beautiful scene, a happy child, animals, experiences shared with good friends, yummy food, creative endeavours and on it goes…
My other main feeling is annoyance when I can’t do something I used to do or at ignorant people who think they know best (probably because they can walk so they think that makes them more intelligent than me) and like to take control because they can. Sometimes I wish such people were more respectful and curious. But I guess you can’t have everything.
Oh, and there’s still love. There’s always so much love. That’s a fine thing. And there’s forgiveness. I’m still working on increasing this one. I think it’s important to develop. Especially now I’m so at the mercy of others. Yeah, and as the saying goes, everyone makes mistakes. And everyone does, it’s part of being alive. We’d surely live in a very different world if people didn’t.
But forgiveness, it’s seeing a mistake has been made and then not holding the mistake against the person. You know they’ll do better next time.
My friend Shiani is a Buddhist. She tells me that some Buddhist monks would wish they have all the time on their hands that I do with this illness. She says then they could meditate more and would see the opportunity to do that as a good thing. It was so nice to hear a positive comment like this. Normally I don’t get told anything positive but instead have to put up with people who feel sorry for me because I find some things hard now and I’m not like them anymore.
How is that pitying attitude even helpful? I’m sure such people mean well, but perhaps their operating instructions for this kind of thing are not very useful. Why don’t more people show some respect or even affirmation for someone coping with a difficult fate? And you do have to wonder what happened to such people’s admiration of meeting a good challenge.
I think it’s good for everyone to grow through giving and receiving and the challenge presented by the illness. Even still, I must admit to finding it hard because I was used to being independent but I just can’t be that way anymore. So it is as much a learning thing for me as anyone else.
I must say I have already been impressed by the kindness and willingness of some people to be so helpful to me. So maybe some folks already embody these good principles that I am still learning about. I feel very lucky to have been on the receiving end of the best of humanity with this.
Anyway, like the previously mentioned unknown monks, I very much enjoy meditating. Unlike them I’m not very spiritual. I just do it because it gives me more energy. Energy is king when you have so little.
I don’t know what other things this journey will reveal to me but no doubt it will be interesting. And I’m not looking for and never will search for ‘normal’ on this path, no doubt a similar outlook to the many adventurers that came before me. This piece of writing is dedicated both to them and anyone else starting a new adventure.
May courage, excitement and wonder follow every new moment of discovery. After all, the capriciousness of life is there for us all to enjoy, so let’s embrace whatever journey we are on!
About the writer: Sarah Anderson’s work has appeared in many literary journals both in New Zealand and Australia, the most notable being Landfall. She is a Wellington-based writer, and the person who started the literary magazine Viola Beadleton’s Compendium of Seriously Silly and Astoundingly Amazing Stories, which ran for four years. Next up, a published book…
‘A New Place’ was written for the Memoir & Local History Competition 2011, run annually by the New Zealand Society of Authors Bay of Plenty Region with support from Tauranga Writers.
—-
This page archived at Perma CC in October of 2016: https://perma.cc/FL3D-G88R
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Sarah Anderson, A New Place by Sarah Anderson. Pae Korokī, accessed 27/03/2025, https://paekoroki.tauranga.govt.nz/nodes/view/20222
