The Cape, the Colours, and the Mobility Scooter: Disability Style Every Day

What's up with the cape? Read on and I'll tell you all about yet another aspect of Disability Style that might never have crossed your mind.

Let's start with the cold. Riding on a mobility scooter in late autumn is f*cking cold. Even on the west coast here, where we don't get much of a winter, it's f*cking cold. I can't even imagine what people in colder climates do. I also wonder how they get through snow.

This was an early and failed attempt at braving the rains on my scooter. My forearms were freezing!

Of course, in my city, there is also the rain to contend with, and I mean, a lot of rain. 

Imagine driving a car down a wet, cold road at night -- with no roof, windows, doors, floor, or walls. Remember, you're not walking, cycling, or running, so you are generating no body heat whatsoever. Remember too that, unlike when you walk, the rain and wind are coming straight at your face, sideways, not downward onto the top of your head.

It's cold! Really cold.

Now think about your average winter clothing. Most of it is designed to keep your torso warm but not your legs because, well, you're walking, right? So your legs aren't cold, right? Wrong. Even winter coats and rain coats designed to cover the legs only do so when you're standing upright. Try it. Put on your long, button-up, rain coat. Now sit down. See how it splits over your lap? See how much leg is exposed? All that leg will get drenched and/or freezing when you're on your scooter or wheelchair.

The friendly folks at Ugly Sh*t for Disabled People have come up with some truly hideous solutions. Garbage bag fashion, anyone?

How about a sleeping bag to wear in public? This woman looks about as happy to be wearing this as I would be.

I can't speak for others but, for me, being disabled really does kind of totally suck. This is my "I hate being disabled" face. It's especially evident when I've just crossed a street that's not properly accessible, meaning I've had to risk life and limb by waiting in traffic to get across the road. 

Here's another woman thrilled to be disabled, actually having to ride on the road to get to her destination!

I like her style though. She clearly knows all about how freezing it is to ride a scooter so she's bundled up in a pretty great coat and a richly coloured blanket that just happens to match the outfit I'm wearing in this post.

Still, if I can help it, I'm going to avoid the whole "blanket on my lap," "garbage bag over all," disability solution. I may not succeed, but I'm trying.

Boots, cape, brooches, scarf, and earrings: vintage; Hat: boutique ; Gloves: found on Amazon; Dress; from JQ Clothing

For now, my solution is a wonderful, vintage, wool cape. I think it looks pretty amazing if I do say so myself. It's one of the very first things I bought when my disability claim was finally approved and I started getting money again. (My disability payments have been cut off again, due to clerical bungling on the part of my insurance company. I'm trying hard not to let my blood boil, but I haven't been paid in well over a month, yet again.)

My cape is from the 1960s when there was a real vogue for them. The hat in this one kind of even matches mine.

Here's another thing to contemplate as a disabled person. I wear hats even on sunny days because of the cold on my scooter. On rainy days, they are a must for me, because carrying an umbrella is painful and, with a cane, very awkward. So, when I'm deciding on my hair style for the day, I have to figure out one that won't be ruined by a hat. 

I suppose those of you in colder climates haven't much sympathy for me, as you have to wear toques (now there's a good Canadian word for you: toque) all winter long, rain or shine, disabled or not.

A longer cape is essential for me in winter. Otherwise it won't cover my legs. This one, from Saint Laurent in 1971, is divine. Talk about style!

Louis Vuitton

I hadn't really registered that capes are having another moment in the sun (and snow and rain) these days until I got my own cape. Then I noticed that they've been showing up on runways all over the place. I guess I'm just fashion forward even when I don't know it, eh? 

I just wanted to look as cool as I could even though riding a scooter feels pretty darned uncool.

Valentino

Some of the capes are absolutely stunning, vibrant and daring. I would wear this in a heartbeat, though I'm not so sure about wearing it in leather.

I'm certainly in the market for more long capes, including ones with bold patterns and colours. I'm not shy about that sort of thing at all.

Dolce and Gabbana

But, for my first my first cape, I needed something neutral so I could wear it often, with a great range of outfits. It needed to be something versatile for every day use.

The outfit I chose on this day was one rich with berry colours.

The only flashy thing about my cape is its shiny, satin lining, and that won't clash with anything, even berries.

When I got my cape, I certainly wasn't thinking of modern runways. I was thinking of a very different look. When I put it on, I felt like I should be ringing a bell and asking people to find Jesus. It's very like the original Salvation Army capes, as you can see. Indeed, my file of photos for this post is called the Sally Ann Cape.

I'm not sure why dark capes are associated with various "do gooder" and conservative Christian pursuits. My cape also looks like something a nurse might have worn while tending to a man's wounds -- and asking him to find Jesus.

When paired with the right boots ...

... it makes me like Mary Poppins, which is odd because I don't think she ever actually wears a cape in the movie.

I seem to have combined Mary Poppins and Maria in my head and come up with a woman in a cape.

Of course, I'd rather my cape conjured up Julie Andrews' role in Victor/Victoria, when she plays a woman, playing a man, impersonating a woman. (You follow that?) She starts out a number in a satin cape, her back to the audience ...

... turns around and stares imperiously at her/his soon to be adoring fans ...

... daring them to believe she/he is a woman ...

... and then tosses off her cape to reveal the splendour beneath it.

Yeah, that's what I'd like to look like. Oh well.

I digressed, didn't I?

Okay, back to my cape. It soon became clear to me that, when using my scooter, I was going to have to wear more layers than I usually do here. Honestly, sometimes I feel like I'm back in Montreal, for crying out loud!

And yet still the cold creeps in ...

... and I have to readjust my cape to cover my shivering legs.

See how my forearms poke out of the cape there?

After my first ride on the scooter with the cape, I knew I was going to need very long gloves. This too is disability style but oh! what style! I think these gloves are super sexy.

Talk about feeling imperious.

They just add authority and sophisticated sass to any look, don't you think?

The layering is actually kind of fun. I get to wear more fabulous things at once, and that's a good thing, right? This sweater looked pretty dowdy but the belt easily transformed it into something more stylish. 

The belt also accents my waist, something any woman with an hourglass figure should do, no matter what her size -- in my humble opinion. 

I thought the overall effect was quite slimming and flattering ... 

... from every angle. See? Hourglass. Beau loves my hourglass shape.

I'm really into berry colours these days. I think they suit me quite well and they are great for autumn, but my recent adoration for them goes beyond that. They just seem so pretty, feminine, without being resorting to Barbie pinks.

My pinks -- in my scarf, my belt, my tights, my earrings -- were all more like wine than like Pepto Bismal. They're hearty pinks that can take on the cold and woollen textures. 

And, in case you're wondering, that berry shimmer on my lips is Burt's tinted Beeswax, in Fig. I wear it all the time, often with no other makeup at all.

To add a little colour variety, I wore my brand new (to me), Hollycraft earrings. The pink matched my outfit, and the effect of the colour combination is just so rich that I snapped these up on Etsy. 

Only when they arrived in the mail did I notice that they're almost a perfect match for a brooch I already had.

And yeah, there's a little bit of orange kitty fur on my cape just to complete the look. You can actually just spot him in a few of the photos in this post, glowing in the beautiful light.

Voila! With my slightly pigeon-toed pose, I'm a modern, retro, pin-up girl. Seriously, have you noticed how hip pigeon-toed poses are these days in "alt," "lady-like" fashion? It's everywhere on style blogs and "hip" clothing sites.

My pose is born of back pain. You can see this pose all over my blog. My physiotherapist explained it to me once, something about relieving some pressure on my hips. I forget exactly, but there it is, in post after post after post. I wasn't even aware I was doing it until I started this Sublime Mercies.

And I'm off, ready to take on the world, one personal benediction at a time. 

Honestly, it does take courage to get out there into the world with chronic pain and a mobility aid. I didn't realize how small I look in my scooter! It's a bit scary to see that. I sometimes feel like a target: "Look at me. I can't fight back. Mug me. Rape me. Whatever. I'm an easy target."

So I do whatever I can to make myself feel more powerful, from getting to know all the big guys in my neighbourhood, so they can help out when needed, to being a bit mouthy ... 

... to wearing an outfit that makes me feel beautiful. I'm not even sure why  beauty gives me courage, but it does. And courage is a thing I need so I'll take it where I can.

(I'm sharing this with Share In Style, Spy Girl, Hat Attack on The Style Crone, and Visible Mondays at Not Dead Yet..)

When the Metaphors Fail: Nature, God, and Individual Suffering

When I was eight, I came face to face with a bear and learned a lesson I would never forget: I am a mere part of nature, a mere mammal amongst mammals, no more, no less.

I was living up in a remote, Canadian mountain range at the time, and a bunch of adult hippies and I were skinny dipping in a stream. I was uncomfortable with the nudity but knew better than to say so. Instead, I disobeyed instructions not to wade around the bend in the stream where the adults would no longer be able to see me, and, more importantly for me, I wouldn't have to see them.

And that's where I saw the bear crossing the stream right in front of me. As I'd been taught, I stood perfectly still and showed no fear. In fact, I was not afraid. The bear was so obviously calm and relaxed. As it walked, it swung its head slowly from side to side, as bears do, and, when it swung its head toward me, our eyes locked. I could see in its eyes that it found me utterly and completely boring, unexceptional, just another of the various mammals of the mountains. I was neither a threat, nor food, so I was of no interest.

It swung its head in the other direction and kept on with its slow, steady wade to the other side of the stream. I returned to my humans, who were far more threatening to me than the bear, and told them nothing of what had just happened.

But forever after, I have known that I am a part of nature, that I am just one more animal among many.

This knowledge is a source of many emotions for me. I feel joy in being a part of something so wondrous and immense. I feel somehow spiritually connected to that which encompasses nature and is nature: something that might be called God. I feel a great sense of responsibility as a part of the animal species -- humans -- that has the power to destroy or save the very thing that gives me, and all other creatures, life. I do try to lead a lifestyle that takes this responsibility seriously.

Boots, cape, brooch, sunglasses, and earrings: vintage; Shirt and jeans: Reitman's; Right hand ring: Birks; Engagement ring: Britton Diamonds

Knowing I am a part of nature also makes me keenly aware of my own frailty, as one tiny piece of this vast natural world. Nature tenaciously sustains and creates Life, often in the most cruel and improbable of circumstances -- but within the logic of Nature and Life, there is no value or importance in the sanctity of individual lives and identities. When that bear died, it did so alone, with no-one and nothing to rescue it, no-one and nothing to ease its suffering, and no-one and nothing to mourn its loss.

Just silent indifference.

So too with the small animals that the bear killed and tore apart for its meals. They too died alone, as did any young that were depending on them.

Nature is beautiful. It is also cruel.

As a victim of child sex trafficking, I should know. Like a rabbit torn apart by a bear, I too was torn apart by animals -- human animals.

The difference is that humans are the only animals who know the difference between good and evil; they're the only animals with the ability to choose evil. And choose it they do. Humans are the only animals I know who can be cruel merely for fun and pleasure. 

I've heard pedophiles' behaviour described as beastly and inhuman. I beg to differ. The desire to harm for pleasure is a distinctly human trait. The willingness to earn money in the trade of human depravity? That too is a particularly human trait.

My torturers' only concern was their own pleasure in the repeated, sadistic rape of a small child with no defenses and no defenders. Me. That child was me. I had a name and aspirations and interests. I was an avid reader and a lover of nature. But nothing about my identity was of interest to my attackers. They were utterly indifferent to my suffering, utterly indifferent to me. 

They permanently damaged my back, in more than one place. That's why I use a scooter. That's why I use a cane. I am in pain all the time.

I try to find some comforting metaphor for my own experience in the tenacity of Life in Nature -- but I'm failing. I'd like a metaphor that permits for truth and justice, not just for the survival of Nature as a whole, but for the survival of individual victims and the punishment individual tormentors. The logic of nature has no room for this, and the tidal wave of human cruelty -- against nature, against other creatures, against each other -- and the deafening, silent indifference of the witnesses, make a mockery of my naïve little dreams of justice and the victory of good over evil.

With all that's been in the news in the last few months, I've been thinking about this topic a lot lately.

A white police officer in Ferguson shot an unarmed black youth twelve times -- and he was not even indicted for the crime, because it was not seen as a crime. Indigenous women and girls have been going missing on Canada's famous "Highway of Tears" for years but the powers that be say there is no problem. Recently, the beaten and raped body of Tina Fontaine, a fifteen year old Native girl, was found dumped in a river. The police had found her earlier, alive, in a stolen car driven by drunk, adult man. Even though she had been reported missing, they did nothing to try to help her but instead let her go. But there is no racism against Natives in Canada. Really?

One of our most popular, Canadian radio hosts, Jian Ghomeshi, has been charged with multiple counts of sexual assault. Bill Cosby is now said to have drugged and raped numerous women over the years. 

People had heard rumours. People knew. And they did nothing.

Me, at about four or five, my misery evident in my face.

The same is true of the abuse I suffered. Looking at my little face, people knew something was wrong -- they have even told me so now that I am an adult -- but they did nothing. The police have repeatedly heard rumours of pedophile rings up in those Canadian mountains where I was abused -- but they do nothing. Just as they did nothing year after year when people kept telling them that there was a serial killer of women -- "disposable", drug addicted prostitutes, many of them Native -- in Vancouver's skid row. As far as we know, Robert Pickton managed to kill 49 women before he was caught. It did not have to be like that. 

Closer to home, after eleven months, Victims Compensation has turned down my claim for lack of, as they put it, "corroborative information." In other words, they're insinuating that I'm lying about the abuse I endured. I have been to the police three times about the abuse it. Without ever telling me, they closed two files and, it would seem, lost the third. Thus the lack of "corroborative information." Ironically, when women stepped forward to corroborate Jian Ghomeshi's accuser/victim's claims, he called it something else. He called it collusion. And, for a while, people believed him.

Injustice rolls down like a mighty river (Amos 5:24). The simile is from nature. It is apt, I guess.

When I was in university, the philosophers I read kept saying that only two things were really important: Beauty and Truth. I never really understood that. Now I do. Truth ... well truth seems in short supply in our world.

So I turn to beauty. At least that I can find. And I find it most poignantly in nature, even as nature simultaneously provides me with metaphors for the absence of truth and its natural cousin, justice.

Nature has been a comfort to me since I was a small child listening to the roar of the maple trees in the wind, drowning out the sound of my parents fighting.

I'm the teeny one on the right, wearing a cape even then, and falling in love with the mountains.

When I moved to this part of the world, I fell in love with the mountains. I remember the exact moment; it was when this photo was taken. That's me on the right there, in the autumn of 1976, in a little cape just like the one I'm wearing in the park in the autumn of 2014: same cape, same mountains, same feeling. I remember exactly what I was thinking, all of six years old, as I looked at that view: "I get to stay here!" I could not believe my great good fortune in coming to and living in a land of such beauty. 

The mountains were my friends, my silent witnesses, closer to God than either I or my abusers would ever be, even if an abuser was standing right next to me. That was a comfort to me.

I used to jog in this park. Year after year, no matter what the weather, I'd jog here. This was my favourite view. I would stop here and gaze at the mountains and feel something that I call God, something bigger and more benevolent than humans or nature, yet encompassing both.

I can't jog anymore. My damaged body just couldn't stand forever.

In thinking of myself, I have often thought of Psalm 121: "I will lift up mine eyes to the hills, from whence cometh my help." I always thought the word was "comfort," not "help." I knew nothing and no-one, not even God, could actually help me in any practical sense, but I did value the comfort.

Recently, though, I've learned that there are two conflicting readings of that line. Does the speaker lift her eyes to the hills and say that they are her source of help, or does she lift her eyes to the hills and, finding no help, ask, desperate, "Where does my comfort come from?" Is she saying something hopeful or something devoid of hope? I always thought it was the former, but now? I don't know.

Regardless, given my own experiences with nature, I am not surprised when so many people say that nature is their cathedral. It is often mine too.

I think most of us have felt it in nature: that sense of awe, that sense of the nearness of something bigger than ourselves and bigger than nature -- that sense of God, if you will. The Romantic poet, Percy Shelley described it as "a certain propinquity [nearness] with the beautiful and the true, that partial apprehension of the agencies of the invisible world which is called religion." A person, he said, could only achieve such nearness in nature.

The Romantic poets called this the sublime, and it is from this idea that I named my blog Sublime Mercies. That sense of the divine and of beauty is a mercy to me, a balm to my wounds. I too feel it most keenly in nature.

But the sublime is also that which is beyond human comprehension. God, beauty, nature: I surely can't understand it all, not its beauty and not its cruelties.

I think it is in autumn that I experience the sublime in nature the most. Perhaps because of my auburn hair, which matched the colours of the changing leaves back east where I was born, I have always had a particular affinity with autumn. 

I'm the teeny one on the left.

I've always thought of autumn as my season.

Is it fitting that the season with which I feel the most affinity is the one which always brings with it melancholy and a distinct sense of loss and death. Leaves fall, flowers die, mammals hibernate, birds fly south.

 

It is autumn that gives us one of our most poignant metaphors for the impermanence of beauty and individual life.

We are told that, just as the deaths of autumn feed the new life of spring, our own deaths are just a part of the cycle of nature. We never truly die, and our suffering is never really in vain, because Life will prevail.

This is supposed to be a source of comfort and joy, and sometimes it is, but, as Sylvia Plath says in her poem, Black Rook in Rainy Weather, "I admit I desire, occasionally, some backtalk from the mute sky... [something in nature] to seize my eyelids up, and grant a brief respite from fear of total neutrality." 

No matter the beauty in nature, its absolute, neutral silence in the face of suffering can be ... dispiriting. 

Okay, so I'm a part of nature. Even my aging hands are proof its cycle of life and death.

I may suffer greatly and die ...

... but I'm still a part of nature's glorious magnitude ...

... larger, I'm told, than my individual struggle to walk, or the pedophiles that made even the simple act of walking a daily challenge for me.

I am a part of nature's minutae ...

... its patterns ...

... just a mammal among mammals ...

... and birds ...

 

... its flora ...

... its colours ...

... and its death and decay.

Death feeding life and life succumbing to death, all for the greater survival of Life.

So does my suffering somehow feed future life?

I raise my tiny voice, railing against the mighty river of silence and human indifference to the suffering in their midst. And I hope that this makes a difference. I hope that, even in my mortal suffering, I am feeding the rich soil of the future.

Like a naïve child, I still hold out hope for justice, for a victory of good over evil. Those who came before me, fighting for justice and often dying in silence and obscurity, fed the rich soil that feeds my own life and contributes to my own courage to speak out.

But the rewards are few and the suffering is often direct and immense. Recently in Germany, a young woman stepped in to help two teenage girls who were being sexually harassed. Tugce Albayrak's reward? Death at the hands of one of the harassers.

Even with such risks, I live in a country where I have free speech, and can't be imprisoned for the crime of telling the truth. So I'd damn well better speak out! I've always considered it my God given duty. I just never really understood how useless it sometimes feels. Lately, it feels useless.

I hate that the injustices in my own life forced me to contemplate these issues in what was supposed to be a carefree childhood. By the time I was seven, I was keenly aware of my own mortality ...

... and I longed for death. I longed for death most of my life. Then, I thought, I could be with God, and far away from the torments and entrapment of having a body, what Shakespeare called this mortal coil. Being one with nature was all well and good, but nature brings pain too. It was a source of comfort in my childhood, but it was also the source of my pain. 

If I had no body, nobody could assault it. So death seemed liberating.

I was so god damned alone!

Beau has changed that for me. I don't want to die anymore. I couldn't leave Beau alone!

For the first time in my life, I fear death. Not mine. His!

And having a body -- even a body in constant pain -- is kind of nice, when it means I can kiss and cuddle my Beau.

With Beau, I experience the same gentle warmth of affection that all animals feel when they are cuddled close and safe in love. It is my very body, my part in nature, that makes this possible.

That warmth of love makes the world a better place, even while the world's cruelties make it a worse place.

I don't know what it all means. I really don't. But I'm asking the questions and I'm trying to do what very little I can do to keep truth and beauty from dying in the face of lies and human ugliness. It doesn't feel like enough. But I don't know what else I can do.

I cannot be silent. I cannot be indifferent. It's just not in my nature.

(I'm sharing this with Share In Style, Not Dressed as Lamb, and Visible Mondays at Not Dead Yet.)