Donna Latham
Feminist playwright Donna Latham writes plays with teeth and heart that champion unruly women ignored by history. Her plays have been produced coast to coast in the US and around the world. She’s the recipient of the Prize for Climate Justice and the Kennedy Center Mark David Cohen Playwriting Award. She grew up in a haunted house in the wilds of Chicagoland and is a proud member of Honor Roll! Playwrights and the Dramatists Guild. Her disability, which she calls “the sad knee,” toggles between visible and invisible.
INVISIBLISH
“You don’t look confident.”
Baxter thunders out of the gym so furiously he rustles up a swampy wind gust.
“Not when you baby yourself with the railing.”
He glowers at me. At the railing. Back at me.
I, for one, do not give a rat’s ass.
“My body, my choice, sillykins. Not here for your viewing pleasure,” I say. Blithely
waggle my fingers. Grab the railing again.
I do it every time. Clutch the railing in a death grip. Climb steep steel stairs from the—
dun-dun-dun—basement weight room. I never climb up without holding on.
Baxter scowls as I ascend. He refuses to recognize I have a disability. Refuses to accept
what he can’t perceive. What’s not visible to his eyes.
I’m exhausted. Won’t waste spoons attempting to convince him of my reality. When he’s
determined to deny it.
Visible to whom, exactly?
Some days, my disability’s fully, limpingly visible. When the sad knee’s rickety. And I
whip out that sassy tiger-print cane for extra oomph. When I’m a flushed Jazzercizer in
an old-school gymnasium. Performing imperfect chassés and shimmies on a 19th-century
wooden floor. And most of all? When I hoist my weary body up a dizzying pitch. With
assistance from a railing. As a musclebound dude in a cropped MAHA tank top rolls his
eyes. Bolts past me with righteous disapproval.
That, my friends, is confidence. Confidence in my own agency. My own judgment. My
own pain-twinged reality.
Most days? My disability is invisiblish. Others can’t perceive it, while it yanks at my
sleeve. When an invisible mad scientist jolts my body with electrical currents. And agony
creeps onto my face. Dims my brightest fuchsia lipstick. Casts shadows in the hollows
under my eyes. Shallows my breathing as I gird my loins. When I assess a challenge.
Make my cautious way over treacherous terrain. Amble along on a slant. Fret about false
perceptions of public intoxication. When I reject slick and snowy cement steps without a
railing. Linger for a moment. Ponder my options. Take a firm pass rather than a possible
fall.
Invisiblish.
But indivisible, too. Part of my identity. Only a mere piece in the vibrant mosaic. I’ll
never have enough spoons to convince Baxter I’m confident.
And I, for one, do not give a rat’s ass. It’s clearly visible. To me.
Leave a Reply