Shift

Something kind of wonderful happened on the flight over from Toronto to Vancouver.

I’ve been a wheelchair user for a little over 12 years. While I didn’t lose as much as I feared I’d lose, I did gain more than I expected. They never talk to you about that part. I feared I’d lose my ability to fly and to lecture and to make my away about the world. I haven’t. I’ve learned to adapt, do things differently and deal with worries specific to disabled people.

One of the things in the loss column was sitting by the window. I had always preferred a window seat to an aisle seat but my disability forbade it. I simply didn’t have the ability to make my way down between the rows of seats and get into that seat. Couldn’t do it. So, I adapted, I sat on the aisle. I was good with it, but even all this time later, it was in the loss column.

Yestereday we ended up in the bulkhead seats. This was an accident, we never buy these seats because they are made narrow by having no arms that lift up.

There is plenty of room to walk in front of the seats because there isn’t a row right in front. We were about to speak to someone when I said to Joe, I’m going to try it. I sat down in the window seat. It was tight, tighter than what could ever be called comfort. But that’s all it was. Tight. I did a few exercises with my feet to see if circulation was cut off, didn’t seem to be.

Joe took his seat.

I remember a time when I simply could not have fit, where it would not have been tight, it would have been impossible.

And.

I was sitting by the window after all these years.

After a half hour of sitting in the seat my body settled in distributing itself into available space. It got more comfortable.

So, I watched us take off. I took bad pictures out of the window. I watched us land.

For now, sitting in the window is still in the loss column but it’s also in the maybe one day column. A small but might shift.