Selected excerpts from interviews with the seven women with disabilities depicted in Lingua Physical: Notes From a Body Challenged.  In the exhibit, these quotes were installed as narrative wall text accompanying the pairs of photographic images depicting each individual woman.

"I guess accepting is not the right word because I still have not.  I?m adjusting.  Once I started to adjust to everything my mindset was, I?m just too young.  If I were 80 I?d probably have been looking into assisted suicide.  When I was in rehab, people would come by and ooh and aah.  Oh, you?re so amazing, and at the time I was only breathing - not doing anything.  I didn?t feel like I was doing anything remarkable or that my attitude was that great.  I was just like, I don?t have a choice.  I?m 28 years old.  I?m going to be living a really long life and I don?t have a choice in the matter.  I?ve got to live."

"When you live in a body that?s labeled disabled your womanhood is really not taken very seriously.  You stop being a sexual being instantly, just by virtue of having a piece of hardware under your butt."


"The first time that I had a weekend out of the rehab center, [my husband] came to Minneapolis for the weekend and picked me up and we went to a nearby hotel.  We had not spent a night together or had any sexual contact with each other since my injury.  I was more interested in some physical closeness, just hearing another heartbeat.  He wanted to make love.  He wanted penetration.  And I remember thinking that this indwelling catheter thing is really cramping my style, big time.  Because I had lots of concerns about the physics of it.  I mean was he going to get an erection - was his erection inside me going to dislodge something and pull it out or injure me?  It was scary.  Because I didn?t know what I was going to feel, if anything, or if the sensation was going to feel good and pleasurable.  But I kind of made myself do it and it?s really sad but it felt a lot like rape."


"It didn?t really start to hit me until I went back to school and I was in a public setting.  And I?m in a classroom or in line to get lunch or at the bookstore or something and you start being aware of people just not seeing you.  You know, you go up to a tall counter and the person ahead of you steps away and the customer service person talks to the person behind me because they can see them.  It?s like excuse me, yo, I think I was next in line.  Oh, sorry, didn?t see you.  Yeah, I noticed that.  That?s why I stuck my hand up in your face."

"Being in a chair, breaking my teeth and not feeling myself attractive anymore really made me where I didn?t want anybody to look at me.  I just would keep the blinds down.  Then I got a little better.  I was able to raise the blinds up a little bit.  Then I was able to open the door and sit in the doorway.  Then I was able to go on the porch.  And my big hurdle was when I was able to get my son to ride me around the neighborhood and all the people that knew me before when I was walking got to see me in my chair.  And it was a real milestone.  Because the only reason I?m alive and all right here today is because I began to see myself as a spirit in a body - instead of a body with a spirit."


"When I had sex I cried for a week because I did not feel a thing.  I cried because I couldn?t feel the air blowing on my legs. See, you take that so for granted how it feels to get sweaty, sweaty, sweaty and how your hair stands up on your legs as the wind blows over them and makes those little goose bumps.  I was thinking about that and for a week you could not talk to me.  I was inconsolable.  But I talked it over with my psychiatrist and he told me sex is not just a physical reaction in your body.  Sex is mentally triggered.  So once you get to a point that you understand your body sexually you will begin to have mental orgasms.  And you will be able to feel sex and experience some of the emotional highs of sex.  And it did happen - after a period of years.  Initially it was an awful realization."


"I think any kind of catastrophic thing that happens in your life opens up your awareness.  I see pain in a different kind of way now.  Because as a human being we?re always trying to avoid pain.  We don?t want a heartache, we don?t want to get burnt. We don?t want to get cut.  We don?t want no pain.  But what is it that really takes us to the next level of growth?  It?s the pain that expands your vision in a way that total happiness and bliss doesn?t.  This wheelchair and this whole experience cracked my heart open, just ripped it open and allowed it to air out in a really, really interesting way.  Any strength, any emotional stability, anything you see emanating from me now is real.  It is not bravado.  It?s solid like a rock."

"I always had control of my life even as a single parent and all of that has been taken away.  You know, I?m very dependent on my mom to do almost everything including discipline my kids.  I want her to go back home.  I want my independence.  I want my kids back.  I want my house back.  I want my life back.  I?m like, Michelle, if you use your hand a little bit more you don?t need those fingers.  Every now and then I want a toe back, a finger back - anything back to let me know movement is there.  You know, legs move.  Give me a toe.  Toe, would you move?  The chaplain says you?ve got to get in touch with each body part. You?ve got to become one with your body.  I never was one.  My body was the last thing I?d look at - when I had fingers and all that."


"I love my job.  I loved it before.  I still love it now.  But you have drivers who don?t know any better.  They just see me [through the office window] with a brace on my arm and he?ll be like, who do you hate?  Who did you make mad?  And I did make somebody mad.  You know, he actually broke my neck, literally. ?I guess people thought I was kidding, but I actually asked a young lady to make me a sign to put up in my window.  I?m tired of talking.  It?s been two months now.  I was like, make me a sign that says I am a quadriplegic due to domestic violence.  And put it in my window so that will answer everybody?s questions about what happened.  And I am going to put that sign up come Friday."


"I hate the wheelchair.  I try to go into the break room when no one is there because the stares and glares are getting to me.  I thought I would be able to handle it, but it?s getting old.  They?re not hostile, but they like to look.  When I?m eating, they like to see how, she has no finger functions, so I just want to see how she eats.  I had a piece of chicken one day and I was like, I?d love to tear this chicken up but I look up and see someone staring.  You know I?ll just wait.  I?ll just eat when I get home."

"I don?t clean my son?s or daughter?s room anymore.  Everyday I used to clean their rooms and make sure all their shirts were folded in a certain way.  I don?t know how they?re folded now.  Dirty clothes better be in the hamper because I?m not cleaning anymore.  But one of the things that I do is we always eat dinner together and chitchat about the day?s work.  And I?m more open, I?m much more human with them in the sense that I tell them what?s going on in my mind.  I tell them how I feel which I never did before the accident.  Sometimes they get carried away with their own things.  I want this, I want that, take me here, take me there, I want to buy this, I want to buy that and I say, do you guys ever think about my needs?  You know, I?m a human too.  I have feelings and, you know, how about me?  Do you ever think about that?"


"My father never cries and he was boo-hooing.  This is right after the injury.  And he said, god, he wished that I would have died so that he wouldn?t have to see me struggle.  And I know he meant it in a good way, but it was unbelievable because he?s not thinking about my kids.  And when he said that, I wish you would have just died, I?m thinking, so you don?t have to deal with this shit?  I looked at him like, do you know what you?re saying?  But I didn?t say anything? I didn?t say anything.  But my dad couldn?t handle it so we had to send him home."


"After the car accident happened my identity was completely stripped away.  I?m not a wife anymore.  I?m definitely a mother but how I wanted to be represented was completely gone.  I never thought I would be, if someone were to see me, a woman in a wheelchair with two kids.  It was not the picture I thought I?d ever be in."

"A lot of things I?ve blocked out about the whole divorce process but one thing was said in court that just totally blew me away.  Frank actually got up in front of the judge because he was trying to get custody of Briana and told the judge I was incapable of raising a child because I am disabled.  I remember the judge looking at him and laughing and saying, I cannot believe you just said that.  Later that day he was following me to my car and was trying to talk to me.  And I said Frank, you can take me for every f---ing dime that I have, but you will not get my child so you can stop right now.  And he did.  He took me for every dime I had and I got the kid.  So, something good came out of it."

"I had it in my mind that I wasn?t going to be able to have my child vaginally.  So I went to the doctor and went through my whole little spiel and I?m like, o.k., I?m pregnant, so we?re going to have to schedule a c-section, you?re going to have to induce me.  And I?ll never forget the look on his face because he let me go through my spiel and he says, that?s fine, we can do that, but there?s no reason why you can?t have the baby naturally.  And have a vaginal birth and everything.  And I was like oh, o.k."

"One thing I always liked about my body was the control I could possess over it.  To have power over your body taken away is devastating.  There was nothing I could do.  No new product or diet was going to fix this.  Words like pity, old, deformed, ugly and helpless came to mind.  But I?ve gotten more comfortable in my own body and in myself.  I went from not wanting to be out in public to wanting to always be on the stage.  I get some enjoyment and energy from the attention and the spotlight.  But it?s also very rewarding to get out there and show people that I am a human being.  I can care for myself.  I?m a person.  I think it helps."