Take a step back in time with some of the best writers with disabilities as they recount their first adventure, their first heartbreak, and the first time the unexpected treaded into their life. From body transformations to social setbacks, to love affairs and family trauma, Firsts collects the most thought-provoking and exciting stories of our time by people with disabilities. Contributors include Nigel David Kelly, Kimberly Gerry-Tucker, Caitlin Hernandez, Andrew Gurza, and David-Elijah Nahmod.

Excerpt

At age nine, severe rheumatoid arthritis hijacked my life. The disease’s rapid course over the next few years ravaged my joints, making it difficult to walk, wash my hair -- even put on a shirt. I could no longer do things I’d previously done with ease. My mom became my primary caregiver.

To outsiders, she appeared the stereotypical doting parent of a disabled child, the perfect mothering figure. But behind closed doors, my mom had another side. She seemed to struggle with inner demons that could not be tamed. On a good day, she was simply irritable. On bad days, her moods fluctuated between agitation, anger and blind rage. The slightest thing could set her off: an unexpected change of plans, a minor disappointment, or an innocent comment taken the wrong way.

I always thought of my mom’s right index finger as her “witch finger.” The tip of it was half the size of the others and was cloven with a nasty surgical scar, the result of a childhood infection. She often shouted while thrusting her witch finger in the air, bouncing it to and fro with each syllable uttered. It seemed her way of letting others

know she was the self-appointed disciplinarian of the human race -- in case her steady string of pre-judgments and priggish sensibilities weren’t enough. When she was aiming the witch finger at someone else, I secretly delighted in the display of indignation. When aimed at me, I felt profoundly lost and sad, like a motherless child.

For a small woman, my mother’s footfalls were thundering. I could hear her walking from nearly any corner of the house. It was as if her mission in life was to stomp the devil back down to hell. She was deceptively strong. She could lift heavy objects and

scoot large appliances across the floor. Many times, she cut the lawn to help out my dad, pushing the mower with a ferocity I admired. Few of the other moms in our neighborhood were willing to so boldly step out of their assigned gender roles.

My mother was a straight-laced, dry Methodist, and her laces were often stretched to the brink. She had no middle ground. It was impossible for her to utter the adjective “red” without preceding it with “fiery.” Night was “pitch black,” and winter days, “freezing cold.” She loved things, never liked them; hated things, never simply disliked them. She pronounced experiences as “absolutely fantastic” or “terrible, horrible.”

Despite her demons, there were times when she cared for me with thoughtful tenderness. Yet even on those days, I tried my best to stay on her good side. Take my word for it; you don’t want to piss off the person who wipes your ass.

As a kid, I had no clue her baffling mood swings were symptomatic of a personality disorder. I didn’t know that cruel mental demons sometimes made her life unbearable. I only knew I did not want to fuck with her. And the worst possible way to fuck with my mom was to upset her Queen Anne furniture, matching napkin rings, garden club flower shows, and Laura Ashley way of life.

A couple years after my diagnosis, it was clear my disease had no plans to depart. It had entrenched itself like an unwanted houseguest. Climbing the stairs up to my room became impossible. Each night, my dad had to haul me up like a sack of potatoes and back down the next morning….

Dark Clouds

By Nigel David Kelly

I have always tried to live my life by the old Greek saying: a healthy mind in a healthy body.

Until my mid-forties, I seemed to be succeeding in this. But it was when I reached this stage of my life that an initially small, dark cloud started to appear on my horizon. It took the form of increasing hearing loss in my right ear, along with tinnitus. Now for

those of you unfamiliar with what that is, it is a noise in your ear that never goes away. It can be any sound -- most often it is a ringing or buzzing noise. In my case, I can only describe it as I did so often to my wife and to my doctor: it felt like I had a hole in my ear and someone was blowing cold air into it. So I had the physical sensation of having a

hole in my ear and the cold, plus the noise of blowing wind.

As you can imagine, this is very distracting and affects your ability to do even an ordinary, everyday thing like watch TV. And it makes it difficult to get to sleep. However, as years passed, I started to get used to it, and was able to reach the point where I could live with it.

Of course, I had mentioned this to my doctor, but he said I was just getting older and hearing loss was normal and to be expected. But in my mid-forties, I did not think I was old, and I certainly didn’t feel old.

In fact, physically, I was in great shape. I have always been into physical fitness and sports. When I was young(er), I was into martial arts and bodybuilding. By the time I had reached my mid-forties, I had gotten into powerlifting. I had always enjoyed exercising and weight training and I would work out intensely. My wife told me she

couldn’t watch me train as it frightened her. So I was always very physically driven and it meant a lot to me. It was just part of my DNA.

Even as a small boy, I would go around lifting things like stones and gas

cylinders. I had no idea what I was doing. I just did it. When I was nine years old, I could lift a thirty-three-pound cylinder above my head with one hand. So I was naturally strong. I was also big for my age. By the time I entered high school, I was five feet, eight inches tall. However, what I did not realize then was that while I was one of the biggest boys in my year, and as tall as, or taller than, many of the male teachers, I would not actually

grow any taller. In my late teens, when I got into bodybuilding, I read an article that said research showed men who reached their full adult height early, were generally very strong. So, that was the case with me.

I remember arm wrestling a teacher at my school when I was twelve. He was in the army part time and regarded himself as strong and fit, and justifiably so. He had to declare it a draw.

I couldn’t wait for my next workout to see what I could do. Add another rep; add another pound to the bar. If I couldn’t train for even a few days, I would become restless, even anxious.

I put equal time and energy into my mind. I had studied most of my life; I enjoyed it and would often be doing three or even four courses at the same time. By my mid- forties, I was an honors graduate, a published author and member of Mensa. Mensa is a high IQ society. You have to sit for an intellectual evaluation exam and achieve an IQ (intelligence quota) within the top two percent of the population. I discovered I have a genius-level IQ….

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About the Author

Belo Miguel Cipriani is a columnist with the Bay Area Reporter. In 2017, his column on disability issues was recognized by the National Center on Disability and Journalism at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State University.

He is the author of Blind: A Memoir (2011), which received an Honorable Mention for Best Nonfiction Book by the 2011 Rainbow Awards, and an Honorable Mention for Best Culture Book by the 2012 Eric Hoffer Awards.

He has received fellowships from Lambda Literary and Yaddo, and was the first blind writer to attend the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. Cipriani has guest lectured at Yale University, University of San Francisco, and University of Wisconsin at Whitewater, and was the Writer-in-Residence at Holy Names University from 2012 to 2016.

His writing has appeared in several publications, including the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, San Francisco Chronicle, Houston Chronicle, San Antonio Express-News, Business Insider, and HuffPost. He was a contributor to the Ed Baxter Morning Show on iHeart Radio, and was also a frequent commentator on San Francisco’s KGO Radio, as well as on several NPR shows.

Cipriani has received numerous awards for his disability advocacy work, including being named “Best Disability Advocate” by SF Weekly (2015), an “Agent of Change” by HuffPost (2015), and an “ABC7 Star” by KGO-TV (2016). He was also honored as the first blind Grand Marshal at San Francisco’s 45th Annual Gay Pride Parade.

He currently works at the Center for Academic Excellence at Metropolitan State University in St. Paul, MN, where he helps students improve their writing skills.

Connect: Website | Facebook | Twitter: @beloism

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