Putting hands on the chair
Today I’m wheeling on my regular Saturday 10k route. It’s hard, I’m not going to pretend it isn’t. Four kissing gates, rolling through tunnels of trees offroad, gravel and stones, inquisitive cows, are all fun features of this challenging trail. There are also a few brief but steep hills that are at the upper limit of inclines I can overcome.
The problem with inclines isn’t strength, but balance.
When I’m pushing uphill my arms are strong enough to bear the weight of the chair and my ass together. But when an incline is too steep, pushing the chair uphill risks tipping it backwards. It’s honestly terrifying when you push forward, lean as far into it as possible, and the chair tips back. The only way to recover is to release the wheels, roll back, and spin round to face downhill. It’d be fun if it wasn’t such a visceral experience.
My stomach is in so many knots by the end I need an experienced sailor to help me relax. I mean I’ll never turn down an experienced sailor to help me to relax. Wait, what was I saying?
One of these hills is, ironically, an installed ramp offered as an alternative to the steps on a ‘shopmobility’ route. This ramp has such an incline over 10 metres that it requires gargantuan effort and a stomach of stainless steel to overcome. But I’m nothing if not adventurous.
Importantly, I can overcome this hill. I don’t look particularly graceful, there is a fair amount of grunting, sweaty muscular effort involved, and that’s before the experienced sailor shows up, but I can do it.
On my 10k it’s really hard because this hill is about 7k into the push, and I’m already tired. But I can. Do. It.
I take a run-up. A roll-up? I hit the hill and grind my way up it.
About half-way up a man approaches me hurriedly from behind and says something to me. I can’t hear him. I have noise cancelling headphones on and removing them requires my hands, which are in use right now. Without being able to hear him I know he’s offering help, because people are coooooooonstantly offering help, often multiple times a day. I decline instinctively.
I suddenly feel hands on my chair and, smiling, this man pushes me the last several metres to the top of this hill.
Of course this is one of those fun juxtapositions in perception. To this guy he sees a young woman (let me have this, ok?) struggling up a difficult hill. He hurries over, steps out on the ledge for her, and rescues her from the unfair challenge such a hill imposes. The world should be more accessible, but when it isn’t at least there are still heroes who will help.
To me, I’m on my regular workout lifting weights in the gym, when someone comes over and offers to carry them for me. When I protest, a little confused, and politely tell him I’m ok, he takes them off my hands regardless and, smiling at his heroism, lifts them for me.
It’s that weird.
We’ve talked before about the challenges offers of help pose to the self-concepts of disabled folk. When I strive to see myself as overcoming, others see me as struggling, and honestly neither narrative is really accurate. I’m just on my regular walk, neither overcoming nor struggling, just pondering whether I can get away with grabbing a coffee on my way home and wondering whether the barista will pay me a compliment today, as she often does. I’m such a sucker for sales strategies. Say something nice about my hair and I’ll buy you a coffee… I’ll even share my experienced sailor with you.
So I reach the top of this hill and, of course, I thank this kind man profusely. I don’t want to have to manage the emotional fallout of me protesting a stranger putting hands on me. When he realises what he’s just done he’s going to feel really bad about himself and it’ll be up to me to reassure him. I don’t have the patience right now. So I thank him and do my best to look relieved. I even consider swooning a little.
Then I roll myself back down the same hill, turn at the bottom, and start to push myself back up it.
A few moments later I see another man run toward me. He’s offering help. I decline. He reaches toward the chair. I decline a little harder.
A strange dance takes place where the man kind of spots me. He puts hands near the chair, but not on it, in case I start to slide backwards into total chaos. I imagine to him this woman is moments from catastrophe, and when she almost inevitably fails she’s going to fly, somehow, into a nearby river and he could have stopped it. Why didn’t he stop it!? He had the chance to be a hero and he let a little thing like consent get in the way of saving a life!!
I finally reach the top of the hill. I thank this man and, what is now clear, his friends for all protecting me together. I explain that I’m trying to work out here and they look at one another, nod confusedly.