The phrase I keep saying ever since Sunday is “furnishing the margins.” Like, now that even my (ex-)synagogue has knowingly and gleefully pushed disabled people out, even after some members of the board said they themselves would be pushed out and marginalized by the decision, there is no public offline community space remaining that I can fully participate in. I have been pushed out of public life. Pushed to the margins of society. Pushed to live in cracks and crevices. Seen in public only for errands or while working, but still the eyes scan over, trying not to see. Not quite fully a person like an able bodied person is. Perhaps one fourth of one.
So I’m a bit of a doomer right now. Maybe I will find a way to build hope again after I recover from this or if COVID somehow improves and I’m able to be in majority majority spaces again and not stuck in the margins for people more or less just like me.
So for now, if I have to live in the margins, it might as well be comfortable. Let’s furnish these margins. There should be a couch, and gentle warm lighting. Let there be some small gatherings from time to time. Perhaps we can sing here, in the margins, some songs just for our ears. Perhaps we can make some art for us to hang on the walls of these margins. Perhaps at least within this narrow space we can be kind to each other and give each other the space we are not offered by the world.
I hope this outlook is temporary, but for now focusing on this is what is keeping me grounded. I will put a coffee table in the margins and on it will be a bowl of stim toys/fidgets.
