I recently read an article in The New Yorker that has stayed with me. It told the story of Sara Fernandez, a lawyer and federal employee with dwarfism who built her career in the Department of Homeland Security’s Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties (CRCL).
As Congress works to finalize a budget to keep the federal government open, the future of programs that support people with disabilities and their families is once again under discussion.
Distance begins with omissions: a question unanswered, a word withheld, a silence recorded but unacknowledged. Alone, they appear intact. Together, they fracture.
Violence, speech, public disagreement, and the limits of a single act.
The U. S. Department of Education recently announced adjustments to grants funded under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA.
When the Rehabilitation Act was passed in 1973, it marked one of the first federal commitments to ending discrimination against people with disabilities.
I remember the morning of September 11th. The sky was clear, its blue suggesting an ordinary day, its calm offering the illusion of safety—even as the world was about to break.
Family, friendship, disability, advocacy, and several paths through work and life.
The paper on the exam table crackled sharply beneath me—too loud in a room where silence felt safest . I tried my best to stay completely still. My legs extended in front of me—straight and stiff, just as they always were.
Vacations are supposed to create distance. They offer space from work, from routines, and from the endless to-do lists that seem to govern the hours. Vacations suggest that rest is possible, that the body and mind can recover when placed in new surroundings.
