Until recently, I never took anything written by art critics personally. But a few weeks ago I started reading criticism of Andrew Wyeth’s painting “Christina’s World.” With each critique, it was as if I were looking…
Through her loosely autobiographical graphic novel, “El Deafo,” author Cece Bell introduces readers to her childhood self as she tries to navigate her way through relationships and hijinks at school while managing her deafness. I write “loosely” because Bell…
“I like your shirt.” I didn’t expect to hear such a comment while wearing my Charcot-Marie-Tooth Association (CMTA) T-shirt. It happened twice in the past two months, and when I turned around I didn’t find a fellow CMTer, a…
I leave strange footprints. Luckily, I usually walk on solid ground and don’t need to think about them. Most days, I only encounter paved streets and driveways, carpeted floors, and grassy fields. And I like that. After all, anything that can assist with stability is…
“Askew,” a work of art by American painter and sculptor Roxy Paine, stands just outside the West Building at the North Carolina Museum of Art. It’s an almost 50-foot, tree-like metal structure, with a trunk and…
At the start of 2019, I knew little about Charcot-Marie-Tooth (CMT). My lack of knowledge about the disease meant that I had gaps in understanding of myself, a person with CMT, and a beneficiary of a wider disability rights movement. I owe much of my growth this year…
Tina Trahan said she was sitting in a parking lot in May 2015 when she cried out to God, asking him to give her cancer. Cancer, she thought, offered a greater chance of survival than what a neurologist had just told her she had —…
A high school Spanish teacher introduced me to the practice of meditation. A few times a semester, he would begin or end his class with it. During these sessions, he would suggest that my classmates and I sit in a relaxed position, head on our desks or back straight, with…
September is CMT Awareness Month, and my social media feeds have been flooded with inspirational quotes and infographics related to Charcot-Marie-Tooth (CMT). It’s rare that one of these posts gives me information I hadn’t heard before, but one infographic caught me…
“Maybe there will be others at the conference who will commiserate with me,” my sister said as we sat among our bags at gate B6 in Detroit’s Metro Airport. Despite being prechecked by the Transportation Security Administration hours earlier at John Glenn International in Columbus, Ohio, my sister…
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