The two basic foundations of this blog:

I use a manual wheelchair, and because of this, for some reason, people like to tell me their stories.

They tell me about their own personal experiences or the experiences of those close to them with disability, impairment, illness, and tragedy.  They tell my about their triumphs over cancer, share a story about their uncle who uses a wheelchair, or lament how difficult or awful my life must be.  Sometimes it is hard to be civil, sometimes it is hard to be sympathetic, and sometimes it is hard to believe the world a good place.

But most of the time, I am reminded of the strength of the human spirit and the diversity of our experiences, even within a relatively small slice of the global experience.  And so this blog is meant to be a testament to the endurance of the human spirit and the persistent willingness, even eagerness, to share our experiences with others.  In an increasingly isolated world filled with headphones and cell phones and devices that keep us constantly connected but remove us from our surroundings, the experience of riding public transit – just sitting there, not reading a book or a newspaper, not listening to an iPod, not talking on a phone – is, for me, a powerful experience of both our desire to relate and our awkward anxiety about connecting with others.

This line of inquiry is – as my friend and coworker pointed out to encourage me to pursue what I thought was at first a rather obscure idea that I worried most others would find uninteresting (which, to be fair, it probably is) – a novice attempt to draw on a wealth of personal experiences through the lens of my own.