constance@spamcop.net

Back To:  The Tyranny of Materiality

THE COMMENTS READ CHRONILOGICALLY STARTING FROM OLDEST AT THE TOP OF THE PAGE TO THE NEWEST AT THE VERY BOTTOM OF THIS PAGE!

Updated December 28, 2003

Really enjoyed your web page. Check mine out at a www.coachinglife.com. We
can talk about more another day. Price

Dear Constance,

Thank you for calling your webpage to my attention.  I have just
finished an hour or so of exploring your site, and I find the
experience quite powerful.  You have composed a remarkable
meditation on image and the body, in addition to interweaving
present and past in a way that makes your life and your
experiences real, filling them with meaning even for bare
acquaintances or total strangers.

Although I know next to nothing about the potential for recognition
inherent in this kind of creative production, I know there are awards
of some kind, and I can't help thinking that you ought to win one.
But award or not, I can;t imagine that your webpage would not gain
you much deserved recognition.  Your work is imaginatively
accessible, painful without sentimentality, moving in its honesty.

Thank you for sharing your intelligence, your insights, and your
abiding love of life, Consctance.  People such as you make the
world a better place to be in.

My best,
Lana Cable

I have gone to your site and looked it over, beautiful site it is. There is this that I have read and realize: except through mirrors and photos we never see our own faces with our own eyes, except for a little bit of the nose. The face we see, our own, is always an image from a mirror or a photo, never seen directly through our eyes. What we feel we look like comes mostly from the reactions to us of other people. And what do they see? This is a mystery isn't it?
I had a friend, a little girl. She never spoke, never ate food, never drank liquids of any kind, never walked, couldn't see well or hear well, from the moment she was born. I met her when she was seven years old. I fell in love with her spirit, with her character, with her personality, with her being. She was tough and strong and beautiful. She had no idea of, or cared about, how she looked, her image.
I visited her every week for almost two years. We spent two to four hours together each week. They were happy hours for both of us. We played and hugged and held hands and just were with one another. She was my hero.
When she was born, the doctors said she could not expect to live more than a year. She died on September 6, 1999, three months before she would have turned ten years old. The day before she died, her mother and I were with her and she was happy and smiling and kept hugging both of us more than usual. Some part of her, in her inner being, knew she was leaving and was saying goodbye to us.
Once I had a dream in which she was speaking. In fact some of what she was saying was not coming out of her mouth nor into my ears, but was coming directly into my mind. However some of it was words spoken. I asked her, "Why havn't you ever spoken before?" She answered, "Because no one was listening."
    Don

Nice site. You are a very talented writer. I read your essay and your comments about the Southern States not treating handicapped people equal are not true. I have lived in North Carolina all my life and even before I became a quadriplegic people around here treated disabled people as equals and would help them in anyway. I've been a C4/C5 quad for 9 years now and I've traveled all over and the south is no different than anywhere else. After my injury the community built me a very nice place to live and they wouldn't hear of me paying them a cent. My voc rehab people payed for me to finish school and
bought everything I needed to be independent. I have Indepent living people that get me up and drive me anywhere I need to go. I'm a sucessfull artist and football coach. Everyone treats me as a an equal peer. The fact you generalized the South as a backward place where people are treated different because they're disabled is false. I've been treated far worse in other parts of the country. The medical care down South is just as good as your Northern care. The fact you generalized the SOUTH hurt my feelings as a fellow disabled person. You are a great writer, don't get me wrong. I wish I could write as good as you, but we all have different talents. This is just my opion so don't take it personal. Please check my site out  RED RIDER STUDIOS

Thanks,
Todd Maness

P.S. Keep up your good work

Ms Constance Claymon

I have been reading your short story: Solitary Confinement and I found it very interesting and well written. I see it as a story of two persons unable to get in touch. The one because she don't know the excistens of the other and he has no idea of how to make contact. Somehow it makes me think of an old Danish song from a bar. The doorman is in love with the waitress, but she only have eyes for the bartender, while he is only looking at the singer who again sights for the doorman. Somehow that song got in my mind even if I can't remember when I last heard it.
Your story has the subject of disability connected to the story, and I can relate to the thoughts that goes through the boys, Jonathat and the boy on the balcony. Some years ago I for a short time dated a nice handicapped girl. I met her on a train, and because we had to get of at the same station I helped her down, and the day after we went back on the same train again. She used crutches to walk. We stayed in touch and wrote letters to each other and spoke on the phone, and about a year later she visited me for three days. We lived in two different town and it was not easy to travel for we both had to use train and it would take a day for one way. Early in the relation she told me a little about her disability, that she was born with it, but she didn't like to talk about it, so when I got the chance I did not dare to take up the subject with her. I can remember my thoughts when we drove from the trainstation to my home. Who would see me with her, and what would they think of me with that girl. Shortly after we just drifted away from each other. I did like her, but I'm not sure if I loved her. Many times since then I have been thinking of her when I saw a disabled girl, and somehow I have been a little ashamed about my thoughts that I would care of what other people would say. In that sence I have been a little wiser reading your story. Thanks for that.
I have to make a comment on your motorcycle experience. In my younger days I had a bike, Triumph Tiger, and I loved the feeling of freedom when I was on the back of it, the wind on my face and the smell in my nose, flowers and short after cows and manure. The nature was alive and all weather was there from high sunshine to driven rain. When I had a back seat passenger I always told them to put their hands in the pockets of my leather jacket so their body would follow mine and they would not strugle against my movement so I can only say that it was a great idea to tie you to the driver with the pants.
As you can see my first language is not English, but I hope that I have made myself so clear that you understand me even if I can't explain some deeper thoughts in English.
I have learned a lot by reading that story and in the near future I hope to have the time to read the other stories on your sites.

I enjoyed it and thank you from

Poul Erik Schmidt.

        I was reading your web site, and thought I would at least say hi.
I'm a t-6 para of about 3.5 years. It seems like you have some interesting
times with your relationships. I hope the best for you. I think that the
problems you end up having with one's relationships take the biggest toll on
your life making it hard to keep focused on the things you want and need to
do.
        Your pictures on your web site are nice. Your a pretty lady.

Tim Van Hassel
timjvh@aol.com

Hello Constance

I am very excited about recieving your mail, and first of all. Yes. You can use my mail on your feedback page, but I would appreciate if you corrected the spelling mistakes and some of the worst grammatical errors.

I have been reading some of the other stories, and they are just as informative and exciting as the first one. I like to look at personal homepages, but mostly it is about hobbies, hollidays and such things, that's why I find your sites so good. I have never seen such honesty and personal courage. Of course the description of your disability is an issue, but most of all I think it tells the story of a woman living a full life, and I believe your honesty should be an inspiration for all of us so we would be able to take care of each other instead of just thinking of "myself". In your stories I also see that you are trying to say that behind the wheelchair there is just a woman with all the dreams and hopes for life as everybody else. It is not the wheelchair that makes the disability, but the surroundings, the accessability and the thinking of people.

By the way, when I look at your pictures I just see a very beautiful woman, and I can see that you don't let your wheelchair stand in the way for doing a lot of exciting things. There are not many other that will do so many things that you are doing. How are your van after the accident? I hope you have it back and are mobil again.

Thank you again, and take care. I would love to hear from you again because one of the good things about this internet stuff is that it gives people from all over the world a possibility to learn about each other, their culture, tradition, dreams, hopes and daily life.

With love

Poul Erik

Glad to hear from you. Strange, I was thinking about you and not having heard from you, just yesterday. Then this morniing your message. Of course I wouldn't mind. It is yours to do with what you wish. Her name was Jennifer. I called her Jenny or baby girl or Jenny babe. She was a special spirit visiting our world. She had a permanent trachea tube for oxygen delivery. Often she would pull the oxygen tube away and put her finger in the trachea so that she could make noises, her attempts to talk. She made all of the sounds that a baby does when it is learning to talk. Once while she was doing that she found something funny and I heard her laugh. The sound of her laugh. It knocked me out. She laughed a lot, but it was a silent laugh. She danced too, but it was with her hands. With her hands she could dance with grace and beauty and joy.

Hi Constance!
    Post my emails anywhere you like. Why else write anything?
    Have you written your story?
    I've written mine, and continue to write as it unfolds. It took 23 years
for me to grasp what I'm supposed to do: touch lives by encouraging people
with disability -- obvious, or not -- to get on with life. You have come to
your mission sooner in the process.
    We come from very different backgrounds. Your education is intriguing.
Would you look at some things I've written? I think your perspective would
help many grow as communicators.
Best,
Price Kellar

Hi, I started constructing the feedback page:

http://home.nycap.rr.com/constance/feedback.html

I didn't correct your email because there's no need!  "To find perfection in imperfection" in whatever quote I have in my one essay.......you are just plainly you!

Thank you!
Constance

Subject:  Feedback
Date:  Sun, 9 Apr 2000 11:02:55 +0200
From:  "es"
To:  "Constance Laymon" <claymon1@nycap.rr.com>

Dear Constance

Thank you for your kind words, I just love it. Your feedback site is very interesting and there are some nice people talking to you, and it seems that every one has learned a little more about human relations. As one of the feedback says: If there were more people like you, the world would be a better place.

I love your site and you

All the best
Poul Erik

Constance, thought I'd to share these with you. They are about two different but related times in my life. Don

Here is one from the past that might describe many presents.

LIGHT SWITCH

Been down in a
Deep dark tunnel
Blinded
Stupid
Intoxicated

Fighting
Shadows
Sucking sweet nothings
Starving
Stuffed
Screaming
Wailing
Wanting
Wasting
Waiting

The light is blinding
Terrifying
Dark is comforting
Reassuring
On the edge
Of an infinite abyss

The noise is deafening
Wrenching sounds
Of lies
Of the bottom falling out
Screams
Terror
Pain
Ripping sounds
As the present and the future
Are sucked, torn, splintered, disordered
Falling away into that
Loss of possibility
That greedy mouth
That old enemy
 

and another;
 

Getting A Life

When is it too late
When is it too early
When does a life begin
When does it end

Stuck in a track
Cant go back
Looking for the switch
the way to unhitch

Going to venture out
Try the wings
First at a walk
Feet on the ground
Then, maybe, at a run
Catch the wind
Take off into the air

But first break off
The encrustations
The useless assumptions
The narrow predjuices
And open up
The narrow visions
The killing fears
the welled up tears

The future wont be the past
While the time will last
time to cut the anchor
Time to begin anew
Try on another shoe

Constance, here is a little story I wrote.

A man had studied the Mystical Tradition for years and years. He knew he had a long way to go on the path, but he felt superior to those who had never even heard of the Tradition. He had a dream. In the dream he was following the path to enlightenment. He came to a door. He attempted to open the door. It was locked. He attempted to pick the lock. It wouldn't be breached. He attempted to batter the door down. It wouldn't budge. He set fire to it. It wouldn't burn. As he was sitting near the door recovering from the exhaustion of his efforts, a young girl wheeled up. She said hello and reached over and opened the door and went through. The door shut behind her.
The man tried again to open the door. Once again he failed. Then he looked carefully at the lock on the door. Written in very small print on the lock were the words, "this lock secured by feelings of superiority."

I have been going through your site again and it is indeed beautiful. Much of my own life is involved with attempting to understand and deal with the meaning and effects of images. I am a 62 year old man whose life has been impacted by the many facets of cultural and personal images. For the past nine years I have cared for my younger schizophrenic brother. A year ago I also took in and began caring for my 90 year old mother. I have written to you of my little friend Jennifer. For the past twenty years I have worked at a psychiactric clinic. For twenty-two years I was married to an African-American woman. For twelve years I worked as a Probation Officer. So I have had much experience of watching people look at me with my wife and at me with my brother and at me with my mother and at me as an authority and at me  in various guises.
I have gone into a store wearing worn out jeans and my beard unkempt and my hair uncombed, then returned to the same store wearing slacks and with my beard trimmed and my hair combed. The same clerk treated me so completely different that I wondered if I were the same person.
When with my wife in public we were sometimes insulted, often stared at with hostility and disapproval, occasionaly befriended, all by strangers. When we traveled through different countries we were treated and seen quite differently from one country to another. As a Probation Officer some people treated me with deference and respect that had nothing to do with me. At the clinic where I work I am sometimes subject to affection and sometimes to violence, little of it having much to do with me personally.
Now that I am older but not elderly yet, I often am as though I am invisible. Simply not seen, particularly by younger people.
I have had the experience of walking down a street and watching the reactions of passing strangers. In one block I see indifference, approval, dislike, fear, affection, disgust, respect, attraction, revulsion, compassion, tenderness and hostility. All directed toward the same person. The same person! Obviously filtered through the image in the mind of the one looking at me. Who do they see? What do they see? Not me. 

Hi Connie: Is that the way people call you? Any way, I have just discovered your home page and find it fascinating.  Your life is really deep, not because of your accident or because of your disability but because you find a special meaning to all the things that happen around your world and then everything forms part of an immense universe of truths, lies, half truths and half lies, but always finding a purpose in everything that you come in contact with.  You seem to enjoy life but, at the same time are truly and sincerely able to feel the most beautiful feelings for the people that you meet.  You do not attach to anyone but, however, give the essence of your soul to others.  I find you fascinating and I just wanted to let you know that.  Even though I am very far away, in a country called Panama, I feel that you are an
extremely beautiful person, and this incredibly powerful electronic tool called the Internet has permitted me get to know you through your words, your pictures, your feelings, the things you like, the things you despise, your friends, your lovers, but, more than anything, I have been able to understand what a beautiful heart you have.  I want to thank you for sharing all those things with others, probably aimed at your friends.  however, through the work I do with the Panamanian Foundation for Equal Opportunities I do often get in the internet in order to get information, data, and resources for our foundation.  That is how I came to find your page and be fascinated by it, and by you.

Apart from that volunteer work, I also work (manage) a food production company here in Panama City.  It is a fairly nice company with around 900 people working in it.  I get to travel a lot and, of course, specially to the US.  Mainly I go to Miami which is where we have an export company that sends all kinds of supermarket products to our supermarkets and the other branches of our company.  I was married but, as you have found out yourself, relationships sometimes don´t work.  No problem with that, I will just keep looking for the right person.  I am 45 (yes, pretty old), but keep myself active playing squash and doing woodwork as a hobby.  I also like to write and that is why I found your text so inspiring and nice.  I already published a book (in spanish, though, so, when you learn spanish I will send it to you).

Well, Constance, hopefully you get to read my letter, I am enclosing a couple of pictures of me.  I am not too good looking, certainly not as much as you are, but I think that looks aren´t everything.  I hope to reach at least a little bit of your heart and I also hope that you continue shining your light over people as you certainly have done so far.

Javier

Dear Constance,

I had the pleasure of stumbling across your webpage and was absolutely stunned by your talents and by your incredible story. I also loved your pictures and all the little stories connected to them. You are an incredible person and also a very attractive women, Gregg is a lucky man. I just thought I'd write you and let you know how much I enjoyed your website.

Good Luck with your future,

Sincerely,
Darryl

Constance,

What a fascinating and revealing website. I was not looking for disability info (actually was interested
in allomophic variation in relation to behavioral traits) but who could resist the title, or the topic
of tyranny of the material. I ended up looking at all your pictures, mostly to get a good look at you. You
are gorgeous. No this is not a pass or a clumsy attempt at cybersex. Just a description of what I see.

I read a couple of your stories. Ended up liking Solitude the best. It is more direct than the others,
uncluttered and touching in its depiction of the nature of separation that has haunted all of us at one
time our another. I ended up wanting to know more about the woman, who I presume is fictionalized
version of you. In the end I wanted to know more about you. Hence this email.

I was a little disappointed when I realized that the tyranny of the material referred mostly to body image
and the disabled. Not to say that isn't justified, but the term holds potential for a more general meaning. I
noticed for example that your boyfriends were all good looking. I couldn't help but wonder whether some fat guy waddling down the street doesn't feel the same tyranny and whether we all are guilty of promoting this. What chance would he have with you? The attention to the exterior is deeply rooted in us all to the extent that we often do not see below the surface in judging people or events. It might
reasonably be a form of tyranny of biology.

I also could not determine whether the tyranny refers to society's view of you or your own view of your body as damaged. Perhaps you were making the point that society conditions you to think of yourself in that way. Is this view really shared by others? Was your last boyfriend put off by your physical limitations or your body?

Anyway, I enjoyed your site. Write if you like.
Roger Remington

Dear Constance,

Enjoyed your web page, and your rational remarks about "cure not care" (cure AND care!) ....I don't know if you are a fan of conservative columnist (and Pulitzer prize winner) Charles Krauthammer (I am!) but here is a great column he wrote about Christopher Reeve, et.al...like you, he speaks from experience
and deep conviction.  I believe his injury is at the same level as yours is, as a matter of fact.

Enjoy the column, in case the link does not do right (sometimes they don't!), it was originally in the 2/14/00 edition of TIME magazine.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/articles/0,3266,38805,00.html
TIME Magazine:  Restoration, Reality and Christopher Reeve  --PAGE 1--  FEBRUARY 14

Sincerely,

SADIE

PS  In all fairness and reciprocity, my decidedly conservative page :) in contrast to yours (only if you are interested, certainly not trying to proselytize!):
http://hometown.aol.com//sadiefranc/SADIESLINKS2.html

Keep up the good work-I love reading about extraordinary and/or very interesting people's lives! (too many boring farts populating the web, talking about nothing.)

Hi.  I read your story, Solitary Confinement, on the net.  I thought it was very interesting.  I am a disability rights activist myself.  At times, I thought it was a bit too pedagogical but then maybe it is
simply brutally honest.  I am 28, male, and starting the Bar Admission Course in order to become a lawyer in Sept (I must say I disagree with your comments on lawyers; I think crips are encouraged to become social workers, if they are female, or computer nerds, if they are male, but *discouraged* for something like law; the BAC bldg where we write the Bar Exam does not even have an elevator!)  Anyway, thanks for writing the story.

 Ravi

i just discovered paralinks e-zine and read your article.  my daughter became a C6 quad just over a year ago.  she is now 16.  amazingly the quote from John Hockenberry describes very well how andrea has reacted to her SCI.  for me, the trauma of taking my daughter through the health system was more victimizing than the actual accident and injury.  we are now finally beyond that.  i have been gradually gaining strength and control of our new lives, but in a blurred, undirected manner. i found your article gave me a clearer definition in which to view our situation.  i pray andrea will continue with her positive attitude, and i pray i will be able to support her in it.  your article helped.  thanks.

Greetings & Salutations to you, Constance.
I've perused your web site, noting that you welcome communication, and thought to share a few observations. Both of us were spinal cord injured from a fall, at the pivotal age of seventeen, when the brilliant energy of adolescence is tilting outward toward physical and emotional independence. Of course, there is no good time for traumatic experience, especially of the shattering kind that injures, permanently.

On the other hand, it has seemed to me that the disabling injury did occur at an especially cruel time, because it happened exactly at a kind of developmental crossroads, when a sense of actually exerting influence over those wild processes of individuation was just beginning to feel real...  When the invention of self, so to speak, was becoming less a thing of grace or disgrace...visited upon one from some mysterious central headquarters in the vast universe, and more of an autonomous matter. Individual choices of creative thought and concrete action were starting to come together, to bear fruit --in this big, beautiful, shitty place called life. And then, I stumbled and fell.

If you would like to exchange some correspondence, via either snail mail or e-mail, let me know. I see you're a grad student now, and know that probably consumes a great deal of time and energy.  If it's okay, maybe avoid posting my note, thanks. Meanwhile, may all the best of life come your way, in Aces, Constance. I am
Sincerely,
Andrew

i was looking at your page and felt like i knew you already.  you have gone  through so much and have come out in such good shape.  I admired that in you, and i wanted to tell you that.  anyways, im just some guy that stumbled on your page and saw most of it.  i just wanted to share that with you. i wish
you luck and a happy life...

oliver

your website is very interesting and sometimes difficult for a frenchie like me to understand all about your injury
god bless you

Dear Constance,

I was surfng the web today (I can't remember what I was looking for) and ran across your web site. Very interesting. I am not aware of too many people putting their life story out on the web for all to see. It seemed to be an honest take on your life...why else would someone be so hard on themselves.

Anyway I ended up going through just about every page :)

I hope that all is going well for you.

Regards,
Darryl

Dear Connie, this morning, by chance, looking on Internet I found your work. It is interesting as it is sincere, obviously "felt on your skin" andautoironical.
I am the responsible of the press office of the Italian Table Tennis Federation; today I belong to the cathegory of the journalists, but I had several jobs as teacher of physical ed., businessman in the clothing sector, television speaker etc. But my nicest experience was professional player of this sport, which I prefer to call pingpong, in the years 70ies. I travelled all Europe and Asia fighting against the best players of those times and when I won (few times because they were the first in the world ranking, expecially the Chinese, while I was an autodidact "underdog") I had a lot of satisfaction...
In these last years (I was born in '55 in Trieste near the Slovenian border but in the last 14 years I have been living in Roma, with office in the Olympic Stadium) I was asked to organize some sport events for people on wheelchairs (pingpong is very proper for people with your kind of disability) and I understood many things about the special hardness of living by them, about - as you write - "the tyranny of materiality".
If you have somebody able to translate from Italian into English, you can reach www.fitet.org and push on "La rivista" (the review, yellowbackground), of which I am the director, then on the cover of every month. Even if it is a specialistic sport magazine, you will find there a lot of almost "phylosophical" articles.
You are the first non-italian disabled person I contact; I hope we will become friends.
Again many congratulations ---Alessandro Peterlini
p.s.: who is Amy Di Franco?  which kind of help gives you your dog Brandee?  the English used in your long work is too difficult for me, not only Shakespeare's one...if you answer write simply because I am a little disabled in your language!

Dear Connie, being Saturday I could find more time to read another part of your big work. These articles are no more ironic as all photos and comments I saw before, but serious and scientific.
It was interesting the autodefinition, for a disabled, to be "other", not normal, collegating it to an eventual loss of self-existimation.
Truly, for me it's almost impossible to define "who is normal", expecially in the way of reasoning and behaviour.
We all are like grains of sand on this earth, included Bush, Osama, Schwarzenegger, Madonna, Pope Woytila, Hillary Clinton etc etc; we last some years that we spend in a more or less serene, happy, rich, intelligent way and then the end arrives. In my modest opinion some of those people like you, who have big physical problems, live harder, very harder than those who always were healthy, but can, through sufference, gain a higher level of consciousness about the real meaning of life. Somebody, a minorance, arrives to this target, having paid a very expensive ticket.
Rsvp;         yours faithfully          Alessandro Peterlini

Hi.  I just visited your web site...very mondo.  I'd say that I admire your courage and will, but you probably getting tired of hearing about "how strong you are", right?  That's not intended as a slam; I do admire your strength, but only because I have an idea of what you've gone through.  I, too, am in a wheelchair, though my condition is a result of a degenerative bone diesase.  And, I tend to get a little tired of hearing about what a strong person I am.  I try to put forth a positive attitude, and that's what people who visit my web page see.  However comma, they don't see me on the days when I have my private little pity parties...lol.

I found your site by accident; I was looking for ideas for my fifth tattoo; I used Google to search for "vine tattoo", and found your page.  You did a great job...I almost feel as if I know you.  I won't take any more of your time, but thought I'd let you know that I visited your page, since I didn't see a guest book to sign.

Regards,
Tee
http://www.geocities.com/tee_king

Hi Constance

I surfed into your Website - it's great! I am Matt (32/m) from Zurich Switzerland. I am not disabled but totally attracted to quadriplegic women.  I don't know why but I have been this way for as long as I can remember. You are one of the prettiest quadriplegic woman I have ever seen!

I attach a pic of me so you know who's talking to you. Would be nice
to hear from you!

  Take care  Matthi

ms. laymon,
i'm perusing yr website and wanted to respond.  mainly i just read yr essay "the historical / medical /
freakiness of a millenium world view" and liked the structure of it and how you segued (sp?) quotes you
used.  was surprised to find ani difranco in there.  i don't know what i'm saying here, but i guess thanks.

marie brown

Hi, I just found your webpage. You really are shockingly beautiful to behold. I don't know what else to say except that I had to comment on how unbelievably pretty you are.

Thanks for reading this, sorry I'm very shy,

Earl

i loved your site and all the links that i can relate too. i am an advocate of the disabled. in a turn of that i am attracted to sci's quads being my choice. if there was a cure  i would be the first to drive them there. but untill then i will continue to admirer quads. dan in illinios. btw i love your hands

Dear Constance,
      Kinda funny, or quite telling, that my husband, whom I love, uses my condition and mode of transportation,unless i am in leg braces and crutches, to deliniate HIS web site. Yes,you are correct, we are marginalized by society. Our "freinds refer to "Wilton and his crippled wife" or, if they are using verbal shorthand:""wilton and the cripple. The cripple has a name :Honoria.
      No, i am not complaining, rather commenting. I am 37, got the vaunted MS diagnosis five years ago. My husband, Wilton, has been supportive and a comfort as well as becomming a freind.  Wilton knows that I am not "wheelchair Bound"; "confined to a wheelchair" but "use a wheelchair for mobility". Okay i do wear and use diapers and also enjoy a touch of the grape. You are brave to have let that, instructive video, be shown. Perahps, it is just me but i can  see that you are in diapers under your overalls. I am in the same situation.
      I hope that we can become cyber freinds and one day i will type "Dear Dr. Laymon"
      A freind recommend your site and i found it and your other sites on Goggle. How good reading made me feel!
      I do enjoy some movies that show us, warts, and all: "Passion Fish" springs to mind.
      I do hope that i have,properly, broken the ice,not mixing any metaphors, nor splitting any infinitives, so that we may begin a wonderful cyber freindship.
      Honoria

All the best Ronnie

You have no idea who I am. I am a southerner, by geographic definition. I  live in Kentucky, I was born in Germany, West to be exact. 1959. I may be the only German/ Cherokee Indian you have never met.
      I searched the internet one night, not too long ago. I found your website. Its been a savior. I have a very, very dear friend in Pa. Her body is classified as t-12 complete, 3 1/2 years post injury. It has been a very difficult journey, to this point, but I will forever love the soul of the woman, she has the most beautiful heart I have ever felt. Constance, I have only scratched at the surface of your website, your
brutal honesty helps....it helps me understand, something that I can't. I am what my friend pointed out to me, as able bodied, that totally sucked, I didn't know how to handle it.

I just wanted to say hey, and let you know that I appreciate your views, your honesty, and knowing there is hope for the future.

Thanks. Rick

Hi Constance

We are nearing completion of our project, the official opening of the exhibition will take place on Wednesday 11 December. I am sending you a photo of the mural in its final stages and with the lads working on it I am also sending you my postal address if you want to send stuff to me. we are very excited about the idea of linking with you.  With your permission we would like to include your poem in the exhibition brochure and a photograph of you. Please let me know if this is O.K.

All the best Ronnie

Hello ...

  Well I finally had a chance to look at your homepage and website... all of it ... YOU ARE A CUTIE ... sorry ...hope you don't mind ...

read your story and really enjoyed your stuff.you definately have come a long way,and are an inspiration.thank you
cy stephen

I just happened to stumble across your weblog/image diary while searching for random pictures in altavista.. and.. wow.

Matt.

I was looking on the web for Ani Pics and I came across yr site. I have
yet to even scratch the tip of this iceberg you call a website. It is
very intriguing. I will have to read more later when I don't have to get
up in 5 hrs for work. I am glad that someone else is as much of an Ani
fan as I am. Love to chat some more.

Chris Rathbun
 

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