Wednesday, January 20, 2010

A Writer Writes

Today I am thinking about what makes a writer a writer.
A writer is someone who writes right?
If that’s the case, why do the people who read what I wrote say, “You should be a writer.”

I looked up the definition of writer and found these statements:
1 - A person who writes or is able to write
2 - A person who commits his or her thoughts, ideas, etc., to writing
3 - A person engaged in writing books, articles, stories, etc., esp. as an occupation or profession; an author or journalist


For my thinking process, I analyzed each: A person who writes or is able to write – Although I have been told I can be an animal at times, I am a person. Check!
My handwriting due to my disability is illegible but the typing diploma I received from LaGuardia Community College at age five is proof of compensation. I hand type instead of hand write. Is typing then writing? Back to the dictionary - Writing: that which is written; characters or matter written with a pen or the like. “The like” is the keyboard so check!

So far so good, the next statement was: A person who commits his or her thoughts, ideas, etc., to writing. As I said, I am thinking so therefore I have thoughts and ideas and am writing this blog so again check!

The last is where it gets a bit tricky: A person engaged in writing books, articles, stories, etc., esp. as an occupation or profession; an author or journalist. From the time I learned to put words together I have been writing songs, and poems. In high school I wrote articles for the school newspaper and of course in college I wrote the required research papers with which I earned a Bachelor of Arts degree. I volunteered my time as editor of a newspaper that advocates for the disabled and developed Martensnetwork, an in-depth website depicting what life with a disability is like. I also had a poem published in an anthology.

Doesn’t all this mean I am a writer or does money have to be my reward? The definition did say occupation or profession. Is this where I fall short of being a writer? Ok I admit it who wouldn’t want the big payoff for their talent of being able to relate an idea by way of story or the ability to report daily happenings from whatever part of the world they are in and then return home to money in the bank.

Money however is not the only reward for using one’s talents to the best of their ability. Reward is when your poem is chosen out of 200 others, to be published. It’s having your thesis be used as a teaching guide for college students. One of my greatest rewards was being interviewed for Associated Content by Kat Mitschke after she read something I wrote about being a disabled mother.

Is the payoff the paycheck or is it people knowing the name of an author and saying, “What a great writer he or she is.” What happens then to all the writers that became famous after their deaths? Anne Frank had no idea her diary would become a book that has been translated into forty languages. How big was her book deal? She’ll never know!

Come to think of it the market for traditional published text is decreasing daily. Years ago you could buy a newspaper for twenty-five cents. Now they cost a dollar on weekdays and two dollars on weekends. Book and magazine prices have also done nothing but increase. Not only is the internet responsible for all this but those writers who are publishing and marketing themselves.

Therefore, when people say, “You should be a writer.” They mean I should market and publish my writings because then people would know me and what I think about. For them fame and fortune is what defines a writer.

Using words to express my thoughts, ideas and experiences and have people read them, make them think, feel and somehow make a difference is why this writer writes.

To those who have read my works and said, “You should write a book.”
That’s another story!

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Best Friends Never Die

Have you ever moved and in the process lost something precious and dear to you like a favorite doll, teddy or toy and you can’t for the life of you figure out how it could be gone or where it went? One minute you were holding on to it for dear life and the next you have no clue what happened to it. I have but it wasn’t a plaything it was my best friend I lost the day she moved away.

We were five year old kids in grade school, with the same disability cerebral palsy, we went to the same school and lived in the same town. After school we’d talk on the phone for so long that my father would say, “You spent the whole day together, what can you possibly have to talk about? Hang up the phone! I need to use it!” He didn’t always have to use it but our phone bill was high. An hour later Eva would call me and we’d talk until bedtime. In school Eva was shier than shy and only talked to me. Her seat was next to mine and although I was the one with the speech impairment, she’d whisper in my ear whenever she wanted something. Our teacher would say, “Eva, look at me and tell me what you want.” I was her voice and always answered for her. Eva always thanked me with a smile.

Weekends were spent at her house. She had two sisters and a brother so there was always something going on there. For summer vacations we went to camp together. We basically did everything together. If I had it my way I’d have her habits too! She had this strange one of not eating the skin of frankfurters. I remember eating there and my mom saying to me, “Don’t even think about it – I’m not going to peel the skin off your frankfurters just because Eva eats them that way. You will also continue to eat the crust on your bread!”

We were starting our teen years when all this changed in 1977. Eva’s parent’s decided to pack up everything and leave Glendale, Queens to start a new life in California. I can still see the enclosed front porch once cluttered with the toys and bikes of the four Munson children, empty. “Where did all your stuff go?” I asked on my last visit. We didn’t have anything to play with that day so we sat on her front steps and watched her parents and my parents, pack everything into the back of their car and moving truck. When everything was loaded up we all exchanged hugs as once by one they got into they’re car. Hugging me, Eva said what all good friends say when they move away, “I’ll write and send you my address.”

I waited and waited and then the promised letter came in 1983. In it was a short note saying she liked living in California and she was doing fine. There was a high school photo enclosed but no return address. I was dying to send her my high school photo. Through my tears I asked my mom, “Now what? How do I write back? She sent me her picture but how do I send her mine?”

“I don’t understand it. You two were such good friends.” Were the only words she had. She was as lost as I was. There was nothing else left for me to do but wait for the day I’d hear from her again.

Four years later we moved from Glendale to Long Island so any mail that might have come after the six month postal forwarding time was lost. Our address and phone number were no longer the same. I realized there was no way Eva could find me anymore and I began to wonder how I could find her.

In 1988 I went back to Queens for a Young Adults weekend retreat at the Bishop Malloy retreat house. It there I met a man who through our sense of humor, I just “clicked” with. Although I had assigned help from a woman also on retreat and a nun, Rex took it upon himself to push me where I wanted to go and sat with me to help me eat. In talking with him, I learned he lived on 68th street in Glendale, just a few doors away from the Munsons. He too had known them as a kid and lost touch with them. “The last I remember they were living somewhere in Van Nuys, California. I’ll send you the address when I get home.” I was so excited about this that it was the first thing I told my parents when they came to pick me up. A week later I had an address, wrote to it and enclosed my college photo.

Nothing came – not from Eva or from Rex but I couldn’t give up and decided I wouldn’t until I knew where she was. I tried looking up an Eva Munson on Switchboard.com in Van Nuys. There was one listed but when I dialed the number I got a recording that said the number had been disconnected. I then tried a few others listed for the state of California but they told me I had the wrong number – they never lived in New York.

It then dawned on me that Eva might have married and wasn’t using the name Munson anymore. I married an ITer in 1999 and told him about my search. He joined me looking on Google and various genealogy sites but through the years, all lead to dead ends. He suggested making a profile on Myspace a social networking site which I did by writing a blog about myself. Of course Eva was mentioned in it. I figured if she or someone she knew saw it they would contact me. Again no luck, just a few hundred “friends” I didn’t know.

In the spring of 2009 a friend introduced me to Facebook. Myspace was too impersonal and although I kept my profile active, I had lost interest in it. On Facebook I found many of my real-life friends. Two of them even lived on my block when growing up in Glendale. It was while looking at one of their profiles that I saw a familiar name and face. It was Rex! He too moved from Glendale and was living in another state. I sent my friend a message asking if he was the same man that lived on 68th street and was at the retreat house. It was and she had also known him when we were kids. The strange thing is although we had these friends in common and spend a lot of time at their houses, we don’t remember each other from there.

Once I had my profile set up I looked for all the Munsons listed. I wrote each of them the following:
Hi, I am searching for a woman whose name is the same as yours. She is in her 40s now. She was my best friend in grade school. Her parent’s names were Fred and Evelyn Munson. She had two sisters, Coleen, Heather and a brother Ricky. They were from Queens New York and moved to California. I hope you don't mind me asking if you could ask people in your family if they'd ever heard of these Munson's. I'd greatly appreciate your help.

While some would not respond, others would explain they did not have a connection to New York. I was at a complete and total loss! I would watch TV shows that found “missing” people and comment to my husband, “I don’t get it – how the heck do they find people and why can’t we find Eva?” His reply was, “If we had the money, I’d hire a private investigator for you.”

On January 5, 2010 I had to sign into Myspace – I needed some info from a blog. While I was in there I checked the messages in my inbox. This is what I saw:
Subject: This is Eva Munson from Glendale NY
Message: Hi. This is Eva’s sister Heather. Just a little update Eva passed away May 12 2009 she has two girls we all often think about you glad to see you’re doing good would love to hear from you.

It was dated July 20, 2009 – my birthday. What a gift! This is what I sent back:
My god Heather!!! I just found your email and noticed it was dated July 20th 2009. My birthday! You have given me such a gift. Although I am saddened beyond words that Eva isn't in this world anymore - I finally know where she is! I cannot tell you how much I have missed her since you all moved to California. So many times I tried to find her! She was really my best friend growing up!! She and your family will always be in my heart. How did you ever find me?? I haven't been on Myspace in ages and just signed on today. I hope we can keep in touch. Please email me and tell me more about your family your folks, Ricky and Colleen. Do you have a photo of Eva I could please have? Thank you soooooo much for writing me! You don't know how much it means to hear from you! All my love, Christine

I immediately sent a message to Rex. Then in the silence of my living room, I cried and asked why. Why did it take so long? Why couldn’t I find her? Why didn’t she find me? Why couldn’t we stay in touch? Why did she have to die at age 44?

Just two weeks before I was showing my parents all the friends I found on Facebook. My mother asked me if I ever heard from the Munsons. “What a shame.” You two were such good friends.” She said as I cried.

They say, “God works in mysterious ways” – they’re not kidding! All those years ago I thought Rex would be the one to help me find Eva and her family but as it turns out I was able to help him find them. This gives me such a feeling of happiness. I also have the peace of knowing where Eva is – in my heart where she always was and will be!

Thursday, January 7, 2010

Me In A Nutshell

Now that I’m blogging, I thought you all should know who the blogger is. This is me in a nutshell:

On July 20, 1964, in the middle of a very hot summer, I came into this world kicking and screaming. This might sound like the average birth to you but it was not. After nine months of a healthy pregnancy, I was born anything but healthy. My umbilical cord was wrapped three times around my neck and it was getting harder and harder to breathe. After unraveling me, I was placed in an incubator and a priest gave me my last rights. Little did everyone know then that I was to defy everyone and every negative thought they had.

Five days after delivery my mom was released while I was still under observation. As the doctors and nurses watched me, they called me a “fighter“ but didn’t know there was something just not quite with this newborn. Two weeks after my birth, I was released to my proud parents and thirteen-year old sister Ursula. The first big event in my life – my baptism was different. I was the only baby who could not have the oil or water.

At four months, I was having great difficulty sitting up and keeping my head upright. To my mom this didn’t seem right. She had my sister to compare me to and I was in no way like her. My parents talked to people they knew concerning a baby’s development stages. They told her to wait two or three more months before consulting a doctor - development takes time and every baby is different.

Three months came and went. I was now seven months, but there was still no change. My mom was sure something definitely was wrong, but my dad could and would not accept this. To him his little girl was perfect. Even the pediatrician saw nothing unusual, excusing my behavior as being a “slow” child needing more time to develop. It was when my mom noticed that I had become cross-eyed and was referred to an optometrist. This doctor confirmed her doubts and referred us to a New York hospital specializing child development. The very next day I was being examined there and diagnosed as having Cerebral Palsy. This medical phrase was completely foreign to my parents. The doctor assured them this condition was not fatal and told them it is a malfunction of a small part of the brain that controls the various muscles in the body. This damage was from the umbilical cord being around my neck. Not enough oxygen entered that part of the brain. The cerebrum area of the brain, which is the center of the thought and intelligence, was undamaged. Under his advisement, I was enrolled in a specialized school where children like myself were receiving the proper care and attention.

I attended the United Cerebral Palsy Center’s infant program in Jamaica, Queens. There I was taught how to properly sit, stand, speak, and the other fundamentals of child development. Through vigorous physical therapy, I learned to coordinate my leg and arm muscles. In the very beginning, I sat in a wheelchair, because I could not maintain my balance at all. As the years went along, I graduated to walkers, canes and crutches.

Although I was getting therapy at the center, this was not enough and therefore I needed to go to the hospital in Manhattan for extensive rehabilitation. Mondays – speech therapy, Wednesdays – physical therapy and Fridays – occupational therapy. This was not only going to be a challenge for me, but for my mom as well. Being an immigrant from Germany, living in a city where everything was within walking distance, she had no driver’s license. Through a friend, she quickly learned and got her license on the second try. This was half the battle; she also needed someone to go into Manhattan with us. I could not sit in a chair let alone in a moving vehicle without my head bouncing all over the place. The same friend volunteered.

Summers meant vacation from school but not from therapy so the center sent a visiting nurse to continue poking, pulling and prodding me. We lived on the second floor of a three-family house. When the downstairs doorbell rang, I’d crawl to the top of the stairs and yell down, “When are you going home?” My mom would remind me she hardly had a chance to come through the door. Nonetheless, I wanted to know!

From age five to eight, I appeared on several United Cerebral Palsy telethons as a representative for my school. On one such occasion, they did a segment on me throwing away my crutches completely. I have been walking without them ever since. This new found independence was a fun time in my life because my dad who held my hand everywhere I went, had to get used to letting me walk to where I was going on my own. I’d get up and he’d be there with his hand out and I’d laugh saying, “I can do it!” From there on I believed I could do anything! I had a setback when I could not walk because of a broken leg. I did this while riding a trike. A friend was helping me ride by standing on the back and pushed. I felt we were going too fast and decided to put my left foot in the front wheel to stop. We did, but boy was I in pain!

I had as many friends as anyone else but the teachers and counselors at the center thought it would be a great help if I were to spend time away from my parents. Not only did I need to learn to become independent, but my parents deserved a break also. I was not looking forward to this summer at all. Along with my best friend, Eva Munson, I went to my first sleep away camp for disabled kids. We were not allowed visitors and I stayed for the six-week program while Eva went home after three. There I learned to dress and feed myself. I hated it! I was so homesick! I begged to go home and although I got letters with gum in them every other day, I was not a happy camper! I spent two summers there before the sponsored organization depleted its operation funds. You should have seen me run down the driveway when my dad came home from work the day camp was over! I ran saying, “Daddy, daddy.”

This was not my first camp experience. I went to a day camp that my father built with Eva’s father. It was funded and ran by United Cerebral Palsy of Queens. You see, while my mom was getting me to therapy, my dad was getting a form of therapy of his own. He just couldn’t talk about what was going on with people so he decided to join the father’s support group at the center. There, they not only talked but were given jobs to get them involved with the center. Fred and my dad started out running bingo night and then constructed a house down the street that would house the camp.

I wound up having a great camping experience in New Jersey. At Camp Oakhurst the personnel taught campers such activities as arts and crafts, drama, music, woodworking and photography. I liked it so much I kept returning for fourteen years. They would have let me continue coming for their adult program, but my parents decided I was too old.

In my first year of junior high school I was one of those well-known, well-liked students. By the end of my second year I was fully mainstreamed. In the school’s mainstreaming program, the disabled pupil is placed into classes having as many as forty “non-handicapped” students for the entire school day. I thought this experience was not only very beneficial to me, but to my teachers and classmates as well. Many of the students had never before come in contact with a disabled person. As a result, they would often ask if I was either drunk or stoned; some would just stare or laugh. Since I was able to laugh at myself, I was able to put them at ease. This worked most of the time and my fellow classmates started to ask questions out of pure curiosity and wondered what it was like to be handicapped in a classroom setting, among other things. I understood their curiosity and tried to answer them as openly and honestly as I could. I actually started to enjoy teaching everyone in school about my disability. Sometimes though, it would get very frustrating because deep down I had the feeling knew that no matter how much or how long I talked to them, they would never fully realize what it is to be looked upon as different.

At age of sixteen I went to Francis Lewis High School. Better known as one of the toughest schools in Queens. Since I don’t have the physical ability to write, my notes were taken for me. A teacher, who taught publishing, didn’t want me taking his class because I couldn’t write. When I sat in the seat in front of his desk and I said, “my disability is physical not mental”, he got the idea I wasn’t leaving and I wanted to be a writer very badly.

In 1987 I graduated college with a BA in English. Unfortunately, there was no work in the field where we were living so I stumbled (excuse the pun) into a job with the Nassau County Police Department. I worked there full-time as an inventory custodian.

For most of my spare time, I was heavily involved in sports; wheelchair handball, track and field, equestrian, and trike: all for competitions. In 1994, I went to international competition for trike and bought home a silver medal.

Like I said, I am a person who defies what people say.

I was told me I would never wear "regular" shoes and be able to walk in them - I do!

I was told I could never drive a car - I did as well as ride a horse!

I was told I would never marry because no one other than my parents would want to care for me - I married in 1999.

I was given a dog from people who said I would never have a child - I have a wonderful son!

Life is good!

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Blah, Blah, Blogging

For a while now I have been thinking about starting a blog and as you can see I did! While I was thinking, the same question kept repeating in my head – why bother blogging.

As if twenty-four hours in a day wasn’t little time enough to get all my daily chores done I’ve now added blogging to them. I must be crazy! All these ideas and experiences are screaming in my head, “Let me out! We need to be shared!” I came to the conclusion to let them out here because if I’ve experienced something and learned something, sharing that just might help someone somewhere somehow.

I thought why not – if Carrie Bradshaw the fictional character of Sex and the City, blah, blah, blahed on her pc about her life experiences then why couldn’t I! God knows I’ve been through enough and have my own opinions on such a wide scale of things. All this stuff was now keeping me up at night!

As a writer I am used to being kept up at might by ideas running through my head. As a child of eight, my mom would walk past my bedroom door on her way to the bathroom for her nightly visit and see the light in my bedroom was once again on. She’d come in saying, “It’s 2 in the morning! Are you writing again? Can’t you do that in the godly hours of the morning instead of now? You need your sleep!” She never understood that if I didn’t write down the idea while it was screaming at me it would either be jumbled or gone by the time I woke.

On the last day of 2009 I saw the movie Julie and Julia and thought if Julie Powell could blog about cooking with The Julie/Julia Project, entertain herself, as well as others, then my life as a disabled wife and mother had to touch someone somewhere somehow.

What is a blog anyhow? A means of talking to yourself and not having people think you’ve lost your mind? Or better yet a way of sparing your partner headaches that come from the constant outpouring of ideas and opinions about what’s going on in your little part of the world? Readers of blogs do have inquiring minds and really want to know.

So with the beginning of this New Year I am blah, blah, blogging about the things I know and think about. I hope it does make a difference to someone somewhere somehow.

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Zoomingmamma

Are you not asking yourself what a zoomingmamma is?

The answer is simple – a mother on wheels!
That’s me and this is the story of why I call myself Zoomingmamma.

Having been born with Cerebral Palsy (that’s another blog maybe) I always used wheelchairs, both motorized and manual from time to time. When my son was born, the wheelchair use changed to most of the time because doing things like carrying him from room to room was much easier and safer for us both. Outside I didn’t need a baby carriage. My husband would plop him on my lap and off we went.

Off we went alright, when my son was six weeks old, we travelled from The Netherlands to New York to introduce him to my parents. While we were on the east coast, we decided to travel to my favorite city, Washington, D.C.. The six hour drive took us to an old friend who lived there gave us the grand tour only he knows how to give.

As we headed west there was one more stop I needed to make and will be forever grateful I did! We stopped at the house of Trish Day a woman I met through an internet forum/website. She started the Parents With Disabilities Online Website - http://www.disabledparents.net/It was the resource/information website that answered many of the questions I had during my pregnancy. I was thirty-five, pregnant with my first, had CP and lived in a foreign country. Boy did I have questions. Although feedback came from all members of the website, all my questions were also answered by Trish. We exchanged instant messenger names and phone numbers so we could chat. We really connected and wanted to meet each other so my husband, six-week old son and I had lunch with her and her family at their home in Maryland. It was like reuniting with old friends.

After a wonderful lunch she gave me a book – Mamma Zooms by Jane Cowen Fletcher. Handing it to me she said, “This is nothing really. I have several copies. I give them to disabled mothers as a gift when I meet them. I just love the book because it shows just how many different things a mother in a wheelchair can be.”

She was wrong. That book was anything but nothing! As I turned the pages, tears came to my eyes. Those crisp, colorful pages showed me all the things I could and just maybe would be to my son. The last page was the most impressive – “…Then mama is just mama, and that’s how I like her best.” No words could ever thank Trish enough for giving me that book. No words could ever express what that book meant to me on that day or today.

Today I use that book as a teaching guide at my son’s school. Although my son is now in a higher grade, I volunteer my time once a week in his old third grade class, so that the children come in contact with someone who has a disability. The teacher and I feel that if this interaction is done at an early age, acceptance of people with disabilities will take place while ignorance and fear become less.

So if you see a woman with a child either standing on the back of a motorized wheelchair or sitting on the armrest, think of me – Zoomingmamma!