Living with Cerebral Palsy and Intersectionality

Tonight's the night. At 6:03 pm Mountain Time my first album in over a decade, Resuscitative Efforts debuts.  Resuscitative Efforts track list: 6:04 (First Breaths) tells you that I almost didn't make it past 6:03 42 years ago. Blood and Oxygen is a bluesy journey back to songwriting.  Deep Inside is a rock n’ roll soul tune with biting questions.  On the Interlude is a short narrative about my musical hiatus and the name of the album.  Custom Tailored 2025 Remix is a present day spin on one of my 2008 originals.  Shedding Blues is all about the journey back to myself but with sounds I've never played with. Folsom Prison Blues is a cover of a Johnny Cash classic that I did back in 2010. Voice of the Other is social commentary and observation from someone whose voice has been “too loud.”  Something Like Wild Thing is one hundred percent improvisation to an old school sound. Meaning, I hit record and whatever lyrics came out is what's on the track.  Grea...

  I'll remember that moment for the rest of my life. I tell stories of living with a disability in context. I'm thankful for that context. I wouldn't be who I am if I didn't live with Cerebral Palsy. I wouldn't be who I am if I hadn't watched my parents work through the struggles of addictions and mental health. I wouldn't be who I am if I hadn't spent decades in the Church before leaving. I wouldn't be who I am without songwriting. I wouldn't be who I am without grief. I wouldn't be who I am without loss and love (also the title of my 2007 album). I'm grateful for it all, but I'm especially thankful for the love along the way. Because of my messy and beautiful context, I've spent a lifetime overcoming a deficit and it's not my disability that I'm overcoming. It's a deficit of self-worth. The downside of my context is the negative messages about myself that I believed. Worthless. Sinner. Powerless. Not enough. Slow. Un...

I'm like John Cena, “You can't see me.” I was eighteen years old going into my senior year of high school. I was excited to do senior pictures because you had the freedom to do what you wanted, to fit the photo to your personality. My personality, an anti-authority, anti-censorship, one track, attitude driven teenager in full on defense mode from years of bullying. I was and sometimes still am hypersensitive to how you see my outward appearance. I know my gait and posture are typically a first impression for people. As a teenager, I was in full on internalized ableism mode.  I wanted my CP in the background because I’d had enough of the senseless ridicule. For the senior picture, I wanted my personality to come out. The Matrix was still huge at the time and I wanted to leave a legacy of “cool me.” This backfired in every way. My CP showed up in the photo and it bothered me to no end. My neck naturally tilts to the right instead of remaining centered. Problem one, I didn’t want ...

I got a phone call that changed my life. It was late and I was hanging out with friends, not planning on going home that night. My dad had fallen down the basement stairs on his way to bed for the night and crawled to the phone to call me and if I recall correctly, I called 911 for him. My friends and I raced to my house to meet EMS. I didn't realize it right away, but that night would change the entire course of my life.  I was sitting in Bible study when the phone rang and then rang again. My dad called me to tell me that my mom was found unresponsive and had died from an overdose. That phone call changed my life too. Events like this have made virtually every phone call send chills up my spine.  I got to call my dad to tell him that I was going to be a dad too. It wasn't his first time being a grandpa, but being a grandpa to all of his grandchildren is probably the only thing I remember giving him genuine joy for a very long time.  The phone rang and I felt that famili...

I have a confession, I have a lot of mixed feelings when it comes to the Church. I was born into Evangelical Christian traditions, a stint with Baptists, most of my childhood and early teen years in the Evangelical Presbyterian Church (a mega church in the suburbs no less), and my teens to mid-twenties with the Salvation Army. Then, I went the Exvangelical route and spent like ten or twelve years in the Lutheran tradition. I now live in agnostic apostate territory. The Church gave a lot to me. The Church took a lot from me. I'd say that the Church and I are even and I'm okay being on the outside of it. But, that succinct paragraph packages a couple of decades a little too nicely.  In another life, I was a lot closer to current religious and political uprisings than even I can fully comprehend. But, an old friend and former pastor of mine called me a nonconformist for a reason. I tend to challenge the systems I'm in. When I was an Evangelical, I pushed the limits and rules o...

“The power of love is a curious thing, it makes one man weep, it makes another man sing” (Power of Love, Hewey Lewis and the News).  I've had three or four drivers in life, the first three being love, courage, and creativity. I'm going to use a lot of courage and a little creativity to talk about the former as it relates to living with Cerebral Palsy.  Love is without a doubt my number one driver in life and I don't say that in a cheesey or mushy way, but very seriously. As a human being, I understand that a lot of people see with their eyes first and, whether we want to or not, we assess impressions of people based on what we see.  As a kid growing up with CP, I saw the way people looked at me differently and I worried a lot about how that would influence my relationships with others, especially in the ways of love and attraction. Being told that someone took interest in me out of pity in the seventh grade didn't help that internal anguish.  It's taken me the bette...

I've been “surviving the night just to get through the day” for a long minute now.  That's a line from my poem “Hugs from Strangers.” When I write poems and songs they tell stories, like I'm doing here, but sometimes they tell stories of the things I can't say. Sometimes songs and poems tell my emotional stories. The moments that made me feel something deep.  Like this one that I wrote after reading the medical record of my birth.  33 Weeks       With a flat head and crossed eyes;  The brain bleeds, the lungs gasp, and the heart tries  From the first minute – I shouldn't be alive.  On the eighth day, how did I survive?  Life-threatening and I couldn't even see;  No wonder chaos is where I thrive. Clap your hands to my surprise.  The mirror of your truth and your lies.  Cut me open; ignore my cries.  Mother, dear, we almost died. I long to sit by your side. Father of mine, the jury is out from inside.  33 weeks un...