Baby steps

Cooler again today! I've got the window cracked and a I'm watching the yard and the street below more closely than usual. The have wrought iron benches arranged in conversational ways on the grass, and there's a woman sitting on her walker (we never leave home without a seat!) talking to a couple, who were just joined by some one who walked onto the yard from the street through the iron fence. It looks pretty idyllic from this high up:) Everyone included and engaged, just enjoying the relief from weeks and weeks of miserable heat and humidity it seems will NEVER go away. How comforting is it to know that seasons change? Maybe this one day of relief is the start OF that change, and in a few weeks everything will be Fall-like and cool again? Okay, "a few weeks" is a little optimistic. It'll be more like a few months, still. But at least we get these little breaks now and then to remind us that the good season is coming. Things won't always be so harsh and humid, where you take one step outside and your heart starts racing because the AC inside conflicts with the intensity outside. Soon it'll be falling leaves everywhere and pumpkin spice coffee. Although I have recently given up caffeine, so I probably won't partake of said pumpkin spice beverage:) And of course, around the end of March it feels like winter will never end, and that any momentary warm up was just the season backing up for a stronger second bout. But that's life. Disability can feel like that. The progress made in government is DEFINITELY like that. One minute they're signing the ADA into law on July 26, 1990, the next a girl is posting a video on Twitter of herself in a wheelchair, hurt and humiliated because there's no ramp at the movie theater:( Or somebody is singling you out for possibly cutting in front of them in 3 hour line when there are at least 20 people ahead of her, 'cause you went to join you friend for a selfie! Such is the nature of discrimination. This kind of thing has happened to gay people and people of different ethnicities for hundreds of years. As long as there's a reason to "other" a certain race or Nationality, in this country, they are othered. The only difference is the Disabled haven't felt free to leave their homes all THAT long, though it was obviously tried. 1990 was less than two decades ago. And there are definitely those who don't adhere to the specifications it lays out for accessibility standards. Nobody does or says anything. In my case alone, I've been the only one I've noticed who's called out the library--a public space--for having a wobbly seat on the disabled toilet, or a grab bar with loose screws. There's also a certain hotel chain I've had the misfortune to stay at a few times during travel that was woefully ill-equipped to accommodate accessibility needs. It's pretty sad when you think about it. I stayed with them because they had a good rate; that's what EVERYBODY looks for when booking a hotel. Those of us with disabilities don't automatically say, "well let me spend more money just so I can be safe in my hotel room." We want to save just as much as the next guy, and it shouldn't be an inconvenience to the hotel to make these adjustments. Nor the library! How hard is it for an able body to tighten a few screws? Well, at the end of the day there IS the cooler weather outside. And there IS a momentary respite from the Summer that never ends. We're hardly even through the middle of it, really. But just as I'm longing for Spring after the first or second snowfall, I'm prematurely anxious for the crispy weather. But I'll just have to be patient, like all things worth waiting for. We hunker down and wait for Fall the way we pursue equal rights. Rome wasn't built in a day, and all that. People's hearts and minds don't change quickly. But what a great day it will be when they finally do...someday.