Today I have my first guest blogger! Below is a blog written for me by Megan Taylor – make sure you visit her blog for more of her great writing –
https://megantaylor.com.au/ 

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Out of my comfort zone.

How am I supposed to define that, I wonder as I look around my kitchen. When almost everything in my world involves me stepping out of that soft place. Be it the microwave with its conspicuously silent touch pad, demanding I memorise its configuration, to the cluster of not dissimilar jars crowding the top shelf in the fridge or the rows of identically shaped tins in the pantry. I have casually drizzled Worcestershire sauce instead of golden syrup on my ice-cream more times than I care to remember, she says with a wry smile.

The fact is, this world is not geared toward someone like me. Someone who is blind or has low vision. This is a world that prizes its sight above all else, and continues to exercise its superiority over my sensory impairment in ever more innovative but often unnecessary ways. Therefore it is difficult to say where my comfort zone begins, because I am seldom within it.

I have a disability that forces my hand at most turns. Be it a simple walk to the café, which although I may have done a thousand times before, and should be able to walk that route without thought, there is no room for complacency. For what if there is a garbage bin, a car, some old furniture, a temporary road works sign, wayward A-frame or any other unknown obstacle in my path that wasn’t there yesterday. Let alone my reliance on the wait staff once I get there, to tell me what is on the specials board, or help me find an empty table. To something more substantial as finding a taxi, a service counter, a previously unknown destination. Let alone navigating a hostile digital environment whereby I have to negotiate and advocate for the basic right to information at almost every turn, or entering a room full of strangers at a networking event.

Okay, so I don’t know anyone who enjoys that last example, however my reasons are perhaps a little different than you expect. The stranger part is easy, given how often I encounter them. Be it to ask for directions, they trip over my white mobility cane because they are too busy looking at their phone, or they grab me at random intervals throughout my day. It is the low level humiliation of not knowing where the registration table is situated, the toilets, the chairs or most importantly the wine. It is not being able to make eye contact, return a smile, or know when someone has put their hand out for me to shake. It is the knowing I am being judged first and foremost on my disability, and what that means to them, based on some misconception or mythical idea and thus I am already at a disadvantage. It is people’s discomfort with my presence, let alone articulation, cleverness or capacity, because it doesn’t fit with their experience, and I haven’t even opened my mouth to say hello.

My comfort zone is so small, sometimes I can barely find it. For example, although tucked up in the corner of the lounge might seem like a fairly comfortable place, it is not, because that is where I go when the rest of the world is too much, and I’m not comfortable with that. I’m not comfortable with the too much of it all. I’m not comfortable with the overwhelm, the able-ism, the inequity the isolation or the anxiety and anger my disability affords. I’m not comfortable doing nothing, but nor am I comfortable when I am doing. Because the doing is always some sort of defense, justification, work around or want for something else. Sure, I find comfort in a good long hard run up a mountain, but I don’t find comfort in having to ask a girlfriend to take me, because otherwise I will be stuck on the treadmill forever. I am comfortable with a good cup of coffee, but I am not comfortable when the barista doesn’t hand it to me directly, and I am left fumbling across a counter, hoping I don’t knock that liquid gold over by accident. I am comfortable designing a park, writing a workshop, or giving a keynote presentation on a stage. But I am not comfortable with being seen as inspirational just for getting out of bed and putting on my hard hat or heels. I am comfortable in the hidden folds of motherhood, but I am not comfortable when people tell my three year old she should look after her mummy because they assume I cannot look after myself. The fact that these things are daily occurrences, doesn’t make them comfortable. All it does is make them normal. Because despite what we are sold regarding the nature of comfort, just because you are outside of its boundaries, it doesn’t mean you are extraordinary, accomplished or empowered. All it means is that you’re not comfortable.

Megan Taylor Bio: 

Megan has always pushed the envelope when it comes to equity and inclusion within her own life and the lives of others. Even as a child, she was not content to settle for less. Her first example of low vision wayfinding infrastructure was implemented at the age of ten. Megan’s interest and experience spans a broad spectrum of inclusive practices, places and spaces. She is just as comfortable creating policy in the boardroom as she is climbing equipment in a park. Her years of participating in the forefront of integration and inclusion of people with disability, along with her extensive behind the scenes work in research, education and the application of inclusive design principles across multiple mediums, environments and sectors, both public and private, give her a wealth of knowledge and lived experience to draw upon as a dynamic and provocative story teller. Now as a PhD candidate in the Faculty of Design, Architecture and Building, School of Built Environment at the University of Technology Sydney, she is putting her three decades of professional advocacy and experience across the socio-political and built environment sectors into an academic context.     https://megantaylor.com.au/