“Living Under Circe’s Spell” By Matthew Soyster Newsweek 1993 “Life is brief, time’s a thief." This ribbon of pop lyricism keens from an an apartment-house radio into the hot afternoon air. Across the street I am sprawled in the gutter behind my minivan, bits of glass and scrap metal chewing at my knees and elbows, a cut on my hand beginning to well crimson. There has been no assailant, no wound except to my psyche. I'm just a clumsy cripple whose legs buckled before he reached his wheelchair. A moment ago I yanked it from my tailgate, as I've done a thousand times. But when it spun off at a crazy angle I missed the seat and slumped to the ground. Now the spasms start, shooting outward from the small of my back, forcing me prone, grinding my cheek into the asphalt. What will I look like to the first casual passerby before he catches sight of the telltale chair? A wine-soaked rummy? A hit-and-run victim? Maybe an amateur mechanic checking the rear suspension, wrong side up. I'm too young and vital looking to be this helpless. I shrink from the inevitable clucking and concern. Then again, this isn't the best neighborhood. The first person to come along may simply kick me and take my wallet. No wonder I'm ambivalent about rescue, needing but not wanting to be discovered. With detachment I savor the hush of this deserted street, the symphony of birdsong in the treetops. I am trying to remember Rilke's line about waiting without hope, because hope would be hope for the wrong thing. Instead, that idiot TV commercial for the medical alarm-pager keeps ringing through my brain: "Help me. I've fallen and I can't get up." It was only a matter of time. I've known for months that my hair's-breadth maneuvering would eventually fail me. For years, in fact. When I first learned that I had multiple sclerosis I was a marathon runner and whitewater-rafting guide, a cyclist and skier, the quintessential California golden boy. Cardiovascular fitness had long since become our state religion. I lived for and through my legs. But that's only the ad-slick surface of the California dream, the sunshine without the shadow. The town I live in is also the mecca of the disabled, the home of the Independent Living Movement, the place where broken people come to patch together their dignity and their dreams. Yin and yang. In Berkeley, there are wheelchair users on every corner. Propped in sagging hospital- issue chairs. Space-age sports chairs. Motor-driven dreadnoughts. When I could still walk, I crossed the street to avoid them. What an odd tribe they seemed, with their spindly, agitated limbs, always hurtling down the avenue on some manic errand. How could I imagine my own swift decline? A few months or years passed. Soon I was relying on a cane, then crutches, and finally-after many thigh-bruising falls and a numbness so intense it turned my legs to driftwood-a wheelchair. My response to these ...

1. “Living Under Circe’s Spell”
By Matthew Soyster
Newsweek
1993
“Life is brief, time’s a thief." This ribbon of pop lyricism keens
from an an apartment-house radio
into the hot afternoon air. Across the street I am sprawled in the
gutter behind my minivan, bits of
glass and scrap metal chewing at my knees and elbows, a cut on
my hand beginning to well crimson.
There has been no assailant, no wound except to my psyche. I'm
just a clumsy cripple whose legs
buckled before he reached his wheelchair. A moment ago I
yanked it from my tailgate, as I've done a
thousand times. But when it spun off at a crazy angle I missed
the seat and slumped to the ground.
Now the spasms start, shooting outward from the small of my
back, forcing me prone, grinding my
cheek into the asphalt. What will I look like to the first casual

2. passerby before he catches sight of the
telltale chair? A wine-soaked rummy? A hit-and-run victim?
Maybe an amateur mechanic checking
the rear suspension, wrong side up.
I'm too young and vital looking to be this helpless. I shrink
from the inevitable clucking and concern.
Then again, this isn't the best neighborhood. The first person to
come along may simply kick me and
take my wallet. No wonder I'm ambivalent about rescue,
needing but not wanting to be discovered.
With detachment I savor the hush of this deserted street, the
symphony of birdsong in the treetops.
I am trying to remember Rilke's line about waiting without
hope, because hope would be hope for the
wrong thing. Instead, that idiot TV commercial for the medical
alarm-pager keeps ringing through
my brain: "Help me. I've fallen and I can't get up."
It was only a matter of time. I've known for months that my
hair's-breadth maneuvering would
eventually fail me. For years, in fact. When I first learned that I
had multiple sclerosis I was a

3. marathon runner and whitewater-rafting guide, a cyclist and
skier, the quintessential California
golden boy. Cardiovascular fitness had long since become our
state religion. I lived for and through
my legs.
But that's only the ad-slick surface of the California dream, the
sunshine without the shadow. The
town I live in is also the mecca of the disabled, the home of the
Independent Living Movement, the
place where broken people come to patch together their dignity
and their dreams.
Yin and yang. In Berkeley, there are wheelchair users on every
corner. Propped in sagging hospital-
issue chairs. Space-age sports chairs. Motor-driven
dreadnoughts. When I could still walk, I crossed
the street to avoid them. What an odd tribe they seemed, with
their spindly, agitated limbs, always
hurtling down the avenue on some manic errand.
How could I imagine my own swift decline? A few months or
years passed. Soon I was relying on a
cane, then crutches, and finally-after many thigh-bruising falls
and a numbness so intense it turned

4. my legs to driftwood-a wheelchair. My response to these
limitations was compensation and denial. I
thought I could become a disabled Olympian: wheelchair racing,
tennis, rugby. I thought I could go
on as before.
“Living Under Circe’s Spell” 2
Wrong again. To paraphrase Tolstoy, all able-bodied people are
alike, but each disabled person is
crippled in his own way. MS not only played havoc with my
upper-body strength and agility; it
clouded my mind and sapped my energy. I could totter a few
steps supported at both wrists, but my
days in the winter surf, high peaks and desert canyons were
over.
So what is it like to spend your fife forked at the waist, face-
level with children? The syndrome has
been amply described. People see through me now, or over me.
They don't see me at all. Or they fix
me with that plangent, aching stare: sympathy.

5. They offer too much assistance, scurrying to open doors,
scrambling out of my way with unnecessary
apologies, or they leave me no space at all, barking their shins
on my foot pedals. My spirit rallies in
the face of such humiliations; they have their comic aspect.
What disturbs me most is not how others
see me, but how I've lost my vision of myself
Growing crippled is a bitch. First your body undergoes a strange
enchantment. Circe's spell. Then
your identity gives way. You become someone or something
other, but for a long time you're not
sure what that other is.
Along the way, I've had to give up activities and passions that
define me, my safe position in society,
my very sense of manhood. In our species, the pecking order is
distinctly vertical. True for women.
Doubly true for men. A man stands tall, stands firm, stands up
for things. These are more than
metaphors. The very act of sitting implies demotion. Anyone
who's witnessed boardroom politics
knows this much. Have a seat, barks the boss. It's not an

6. invitation, it's an order.
All of this brings me back to the gutter, where I lie listening to
birdsong. Recognizing but not
apologizing for the obstinacy that landed me here. For months
my friends and family have watched
my legs grow weaker. They've prodded me relentlessly to refit
my van with a wheelchair lift in order
to avoid just this disaster. But I've refused.
Twice a day at least, I've dragged my reluctant legs from
beneath the steering column, hauled myself
erect beside the driver's seat, inched my way down the roof rail
to the rear stowage. And removed the
chair by hand, standing.
Why have I clung to this ritual, knowing it's dangerous and
futile? It's the only task I rise for anymore,
in a sitting life. For a moment in the driver's door-way, I'm in
control, unreliant on technology or
assistance, upright. Or so I've told myself But that moment is so
fragile, the control so illusory.
When the time comes to change, I've said, I'll know.

7. Now I know.
I feel the lesson, sharp as the rap of a Zen master's stick. Lying
in the hot gutter, I take a deep breath
and my whole body relaxes. Tuning in to Rod Stewart's tinny
wisdom from the window. Listening
for a passing car or pedestrian.
Waiting.
HOMEWORK JOURNAL #8: In a 300-word analysis, describe,
in detail, the writer’s attitude about
the disabled before he, himself, became “a clumsy cripple.”
(Submit to DROPBOX)