Kaleidoscope (ISSN 2329-5775) ART COORDINATOR Is Published Online Semiannually
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ALEIDOSCOPE EXPLORING THE EXPERIENCE OF DISABILITY THROUGH LITERATURE AND THE FINE ARTS KNumber 81 Summer/Fall Online 2020 A Season of Hope "Between Rooms" by N.T. McQueen "Nacre Upon Nacre" by Jenna Pashley Smith "Mother Bear" by Melissa Murakami Summer/Fall 2020 ALEIDOSCOPE Number 81 KEXPLORING THE EXPERIENCE OF DISABILITY THROUGH LITERATURE AND THE FINE ARTS Contents FEATURED ESSAY PERSONAL ESSAY Between Rooms 4 My Silent Fury 26 N.T. McQueen B.E. Pengelly You’re Never Too 49 FEATURED ART Anything to Travel! Finding Her Voice 32 Michael Timko Sandy Palmer The Perfect Grandchild 66 FICTION Nancy Julien Kopp Mother Bear 16 Melissa Murakami CREATIVE NONFICTION 1950–Dancing to Tchaikovsky 12 Limbo 19 Suzanne Yuskiw Suzan Christensen Nacre Upon Nacre 22 The Uncertainty Principle 28 Jenna Pashley Smith Grace Rubardt A Painful Reminder 40 Life After Legs 43 Wendy Kennar Judi Calhoun Something Beautiful 50 Lady 54 McCabe Coolidge Britomarte Van Horn Feast or Feathers 64 The Grass is Golden 61 Anjoli Roy Emily Fluke 1 POETRY wheelchair poem #2 11 Doritt Carroll On the Anniversary of Your Diagnosis 15 Thomas Shea The Symphony of Summer 18 Life 18 Amanda M. Robidoux Kimberly Gerry Tucker, Hope, 2018, Paper (mixed media collage), 16” x 20” Lost Keys 20 Fading 21 Echophenomena 21 Awards Season 52 Luigi Coppola Maija Haavisto Time Flies 31 Night Terrors 53 Justine Johnston Hemmestad Liza Marsala talking blocks 39 67 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES C. L. Prater Ode to My Muscles 42 Amanda Grace Shu The Hotel Reading 46 The Braces 47 Here’s Something for the Pain 48 Bryan R. Monte 2 Staff PUBLISHER Brian Thomas, President/CEO United Disability Services MANAGING EDITOR Lisa Armstrong, M.A. Kaleidoscope (ISSN 2329-5775) ART COORDINATOR is published online semiannually. Sandy Palmer Copyright © 2020 Kaleidoscope Press United Disability Services, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF EMERITUS 701 S. Main St., Akron, OH 44311-1019 Darshan Perusek, Ph.D. (330) 762-9755 Phone (330) 762-0912 Fax Gail Willmott, M.Ed. email: [email protected] http://www.kaleidoscopeonline.org HONORARY EDITOR Phyllis Boerner Kaleidoscope retains non-exclusive world rights to published works for purposes of MANUSCRIPT REVIEW PANEL reprinting and/or electronic distribution. All Fiction Review other rights return to the writer/artist upon Mark Decker, Ph.D. publication. Bloomsburg University Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania We request credit for publication as follows: Poetry Review Previously published by Kaleidoscope: Exploring Sandra J. Lindow the Experience of Disability through University of Wisconsin-Stout Literature and the Fine Arts, Menomonie, Wisconsin 701 South Main St., Akron, OH 44311-1019 Indexed in Humanities International Complete and the MLA International Bibliography non-Master List. Listed in International Directory of Little Magazines and Small Presses, Magazines for Libraries, The Standard Periodical Directory. Submissions: Email or online submissions preferred. If submitting hard copy, send copies of originals with SASE if you want your work returned. The editors do not assume responsi- bility for returning submissions without ample return postage. Address all correspon- dence to the editor-in-chief. Funding support: Grants from the Lloyd L. and Louise K. Smith Foundation and the Kenneth L. Calhoun Charitable Trust help support the publication of Kaleidoscope. Kaleidoscope, beginning in 1979, pioneered the exploration of the For more information on how you can experience of disability through the lens of literature and fine arts. help, visit us at KaleidoscopeOnline.org. Fiction, personal essays, poetry, articles, book reviews, and various artistic media including two-dimensional art, three-dimensional art, drama, theater, and dance are featured in the pages of various issues. This award-winning publication expresses the experience of disabil- ity from a variety of perspectives including: individuals, families, friends, caregivers, healthcare professionals, and educators, among others. The material chosen for Kaleidoscope challenges stereotypi- cal, patronizing, and sentimental attitudes about disabilities. 3 FEATURED ESSAY Between Rooms N.T. McQueen inner is over but I know I still smell like my meal. in the hospital or the countless appointments. I’m not sure When Junebug shovels spoonful after spoonful of she truly talks to me or herself, even with her eyes fixed on Dpuree into my mouth, cheeks smeared with her own mine. Sometimes I imagine she is looking into a mirror and leftovers, the majority ends up on my pants. Based on the sees herself reflected somehow from my presence. As if her searing pain of my tongue, I know it was warm but whether true desires or identity has been wrapped up in what I am or not I have burns on my thighs, I can’t say. and not who I am. And I can see that despondent, lost look in the way her shoulders sag and force her shirt strap to fall She wears a purple skirt with a red striped shirt a size too big around her bicep. and spins across the hardwood while Del does the dishes. She always drops the pans on the counter as if she doesn’t “Did you like the trout?” she asks me. care it startles me. But I can’t blame her. Between rooms, I can see Delilah’s back at the sink. My eyes strain as far left She knows I haven’t eaten solid food since and I sure as hell as they can. Just enough to see Junebug stumble and pirou- don’t want her to puree fish into a smoothie for me. Then the ette with her unsteady eyes checking to see if I am watching. words come. Well inside my throat and I can taste them, feel the warmth and the apologies they desperately want to say She’s just old enough to remember the year before. Kids but they cannot blast through my teeth. No not the teeth. The experience trauma in ways adults can’t seem to grasp. She words fail to reach my limp tongue and settle back into my doesn’t notice I don’t hug her anymore or hear me tell her I soul. love her when she’s under her blankets. Maybe she simply doesn’t mention it. She only knows one moment: I am there. “It was farmed but it was on sale at least. I’m thinking of A lamp or a vase or a fixture with eyes, a mouth, a heartbeat. trying scallops but the house will stink for days afterward. She often will run and jump on my lap and I can see her tan- Remember when we . .” gled in my legs. When people come over, they are appalled at how rough she is with me. But to her, I am like jumping She stops. The beauty I adored twenty-two years ago still on the sofa. fills her face. But the joy gets lost in the corners of her mouth and all the weight gets carried underneath her eyes. Between the rooms, Delilah dries her hands on a hand towel and smiles at me. Or perhaps at a joke she heard earlier. She Yes, Del. I remember. I remember everything. talks more now than after Easter last year. More than she did 4 She squeezes my hand then walks past me. Out of sight and my head steady but I couldn’t see who. A droplet slid off into the bedroom I guess. Junebug twirls with her arms lifted my eyelashes and splashed around my open eye. And that is high above her head before me and my feet nearly trip her. I where it stayed. The same lingering itches or tickles fester watch her dance to rhythms she can still hear, still move to, on my skin. and wish I could smile. Del mumbles in her sleep. Did she say my name? The sim- * * * ple act of turning my head toward sound resides only in my memory now. Sounds come and go faster than I can deci- Memories come at night. After hours staring into darkness or pher. The other day, I sat by the open window and the sound at the back of my eyelids, they creep from places I never de- of breaking, of wood and glass, filled my ears. But I couldn’t sire to tread. I often reenact Easter. How the family gathered flinch. Or turn to see what had fallen or who had dropped it. around the pastel-draped tables in the backyard as my nieces The only solace I could hold to was the sound. and nephews splashed in the pool. How it was cloudy but pleasant and Del wore the white dress she bought at Nord- The beep of my heart monitor creeps into my dreams some- strom’s with the open back which made me want her. A fra- times. Faint but close like the actual beat of my heart. The grant ham and nasty potato salads spread out and on paper brightness of the fluorescent lights made me squint but I plates. How Uncle Pete laughed when I told him the story of couldn’t speak. My jaw moved but the words became im- peeing next to Jerry Seinfeld in a Boston airport bathroom, prisoned in this body. The balding doctor with dry, cracked on my way to some conference. London, San Francisco, hands stood with his hands in his coat pockets and told me I Beijing, Miami. Even Boise. Always somewhere. would not have the same life I once had. I often remember the depth of the pool. My pool. How I Mom and Dad and Delilah gathered around my bed, snaked knew how deep it was since I bought it. How the words of with tubing and wires. The bags beneath their eyes carrying Mom echoed through the waves of never diving into shal- all the weight.