From all to...what?!

So I have already talked a little bit about Javad's impact on my life within social justice education. Well today I am stuck on it. Whether it be experiences at work or during my trainings this week I can't help it. Over the last (almost) 12 years I have both silently, and out loud, expressed my anguish and frustrations when things didn't work the way I needed them to work. Rather, I was never afraid of talking about how the way places did things, be them work, school, the mall, a park, you name it, alienated specific populations. ESPECIALLY, if they made it so that people like my brother couldn't participate.

I know what "reasonable accommodations" means. I think it's a load of crap, but I know what it means. I have never been in a city that didn't strive to fullfil their accommodations. I am used to being able to say, "this shit doesn't work" and having someone asking me to propose a solution. I am not used to being in an environment that does, what I feel, is a minimal solution.

In my life with Javad everything is about adjustments and accommodations. Javad doesn't talk. He doesn't walk. He doesn't eat. He can't sit up on his own for extended periods of time. He can't do a lot of things in the way that a lot of other people do things. That DOES NOT mean that he can't do them. It just means that someone who cares and is willing to, has to come up with a way that he can do it. I remember my first year at camp with Javad. I was trying to convince him to play sports, which he DID NOT want to do, and I was problem solving how to attach a hockey stick and baseball bat to his chair so he could play. It wasn't hard to figure out. I spent a few hours on it, but I could have done it if he wanted to play.

Adjusting things is never the first solution. It takes more planning and it takes more thought to it. It takes questions and utilizing resources. It's not the first thing that comes to mind. It's process of elimination and testing things out to find the best method. I wish everyone was willing to make this effort. Being here, in this new job has reminded me why I am getting the tattoo I am getting in November. I will be getting a(n almost) half sleeve. It's a scene fromt he lorax with a quote from Naomi Klein. The Lorax is in the foreground standing on the stump of the first tree that was cut down. The quote is "Social Change comes when you least expect it, all you can do is be ready."

So how do you make ready a place that sees no need for change? How do you rise above the barriers and move into a new world of possibility? How do you rise to the occasion of social change?

I care a whole awful lot. Now what do I have to do to make it better?