Ups and Downs

Good Evening! Kind of a late installment, but it took me quite a while to get myself up and at 'em today:( I have days like that a lot, where I'm dragging myself from place to place until magically I'm showered and dressed, well fed and well put together, some place downtown. Such was how I found myself this afternoon, at Grand Rapids' annual Asia Pacific festival! At long last; they've been posting almost daily on their Facebook page (thumbs up promoters...there was quite a turnout!), and some of the presenters and others in native costume were absolutely stunning. I tried to take pictures but, that's where I ran into the first problem. The stairs surrounding the stage, which create a cool, amphitheater atmosphere and are fantastic for watching ice skaters in the winter...put just about everyone up higher than me! Unless I hoisted my walker over a step or carefully slid it down over one--a bunch of times:( But no matter, life goes on, right? I stood in line and tried to get food at one of the stalls, only to discover--oops! I only had $1 and they didn't take cards:) Why would they in an open air event? The understanding cashier pointed me to an ATM, which miraculously I got to, after having to turn my walker around (yelling "excuse me! Turning around! the whole time), and walking over cords covered by thin but considerate mats. The accessible features WERE there, as they usually are if you know where to look--but they were way, way off to the side. So then, the ATM didn't work. And some homeless guy (I presume he was homeless, but I'm so jaded by the street people in this city, at this point I don't know) had the brazen lack of respect for anyone or anything to ask ME to "help him out" once I was done with my transaction. I flat out told him "no." There is no excuse for that behavior. And no reason in the world, (other than perhaps the influence of a drug or alcohol) to make him approach a woman alone at an ATM, in broad daylight with loads of people around, and panhandle! Really annoyed me for a second. But then I pulled myself together and walked away from him. If you're not used to that type of thing after three years, you shouldn't be living downtown. Went to a blessedly barrier free restaurant (with a very heavy door that NO ONE graciously offered to help me with) and got the exact same thing I was going to have at the Festival. At that point I was just happy to have it. And I got it to go so I could still enjoy some of the festivities. Apologized profusely to the lady behind the stall cash register from whom I WOULD have ordered, had the ATM been working, then enjoyed my chicken pad tai with lovely bean sprouts, ground peanuts, and lemon atop the rice noodles! I always say I could eat Asian flavors every day. And yes, I've come to find out, the lemon is essential:) After THAT fiasco, I "wasn't feeling" the Asia-Pacific festival very much any more. With hardly a second look, I left after eating and people watching on the stairs, occasionally spilling noodles on my jeans even with (or possibly because of) a little plastic fork instead of chop sticks. I should have asked for chop sticks. Oh well! So it was on to my safe haven, the UICA. Wonderfully open late, and showing the movie I didn't go see the day I wrote "Playing the Violin." That movie is "You Were Never Really Here"--kind of a strange, artsy, gritty, intense movie with Joaquin Phoenix, who I didn't realize until tonight, talking to the 20-something concessions volunteer, is about my age:) I must say though, Phoenix wears the grays in his beard much better than I wear them on my head!! My parting thought is of some fan mail I got from church:) ME! FAN MAIL!! A woman I've met before and spoken to over the phone and during fellowship thanked me for an article I wrote for "The LaGrave News", LaGrave Avenue CRC's newsletter that members get. "Especially the part about personalities" she said! This was in reference to a line in the article pointing out that the Disabled have very distinct, interesting personalities in ADDITION to whatever physical challenges they face. The physical foibles are just another part of who we are, not who we are entirely. That letter was waiting for me once I got home, after my long night of varied and emotional highs and lows. The stairs, the crowds, the ATM, the movie, the ramps, the open doors, the familiar faces. Life's like that sometimes. And sometimes if we're luckier than we ever expected to be, out of nowhere we get a letter of thanks.