NO OBSTACLES...

NO OBSTACLES…
SEEING POSSIBILITIES NOT DISABILITIES

I have decided that – as long as I can commit myself to regular daily posts on my blog – Mondays will be ‘Monday Muse’ day to kick-start the working week in an upbeat fashion. In the light of this, my first muse comes straight from the pages of a Sunday supplement that came with one of yesterday’s papers. I enjoyed reading the feature on Natasha Wood, a thirty six year old writer-performer from Nottingham whose drive and determination has taken her as far as Los Angeles on the road to stardom and success despite her ongoing battle with spinal muscular atrophy, a incurable genetic muscle-wasting disease. Natasha’s story also made me realise just how much we need to hear inspiring stories of people who refuse to give up and turn negatives into positives and disabilities into possibilities.

Natasha has been bound to a wheelchair all her life, undergone painful operations as a teenager to straighten her back and has been called names by some kids at school. Yet her strength of spirit and independence shines through the mere assertion that she ‘gave as good as [she] got’, a school bully got his just deserts when he punched her once and broke his fist on the body brace Natasha used to wear from her groin up to her chest to keep her back straight. ‘From then on no one bothered me,’ she says laughing.

After leaving school with five O-levels, Natasha auditioned Graeae in London, a disabled-led theatre company and got a part in a play called Why. On her return to Nottingham, she studied drama A level. It was around this time she met and fell in love with Duncan Wood, her former husband; they had an amicable divorce in 2004 after fourteen years of what she calls ‘the happiest marriage’. The same year saw Natasha promoted to the position of production manager with the BBC. Her divorce followed months later with her brother’s – also a spinal muscular atrophy sufferer – death, led Natasha to re-assess her life and apply for a nine-month position as a production manager for the BBC in New York. Since her move in 2005 to a luxury apartment in Manhattan, Natasha Wood has not taken a break from her journey to success in her chosen field.

Her 90-minute one-woman show Rolling with Laughter, which is based on her life, is booked out for months ahead in Los Angeles. She is due to appear in London and the Edinburgh Fringe this summer. She has also been offered several acting opportunities including a pilot for a sitcom she will be starring in.

From her teenage years to her journey Stateside, Natasha Wood has demonstrated strength of body and spirit in the face of adversity. As she is quoted in the feature, she seems to be a strong, resilient, independent woman who is at peace with herself and her life. By any standard, she has led a much more colourful and rewarding life in the whole of thirty six years than some can manage in a lifetime. Isn’t she inspiration enough for many us able-bodies folk out there who are crushed in the face of a single blow?

Now, people who know me also know I am no Miss Polyanna. In fact, I am quite at ease with my pessimism. Nine times out of ten, bar the occasional light-hearted, caution-to-the-wind exception, my glass is ‘half empty’ or even when I can see it ‘half- full’ I spend so much time focussing on the half-empty part that I forget to count my blessings.

For people like me, there are so many lessons to learn form Natasha Wood’s story, from the stories of many others like her, who refuse to give up. As they say, ‘when the going gets tough, the tough gets going.’ For people like Natasha, the going hasn’t just got tough overnight; it has always been tough. The secret of keeping on keeping on is a positive outlook on life, the strength of character to refuse to admit defeat, the adaptability of mind that sees opportunities, not handicaps – or rather opportunities in handicaps, possibilities in disabling, debilitating circumstances, the will to take negatives and turn them into positives.

This is my tribute to such people, my Monday muses…

50 Ways to Tell You're Turkish

Since I have mused at length about death in my last post, I thought I'd post something a little more light-hearted today. Enjoy!

50 Ways to Tell You’re Turkish

1. You can sing at least one Sezen Aksu song, in tune, from beginning to end, backwards and sideway, and inside and out.



2. You go to football games armed with a range of weaponry ranging from kitchen knives to katanas.
3. You treat any form of international sports event as a matter of life or death.
4. You drink your tea from an hourglass-shaped glass… Without milk.



5. You scorn Nescafe in favour of a tiny cup of coffee with huge granules at the bottom.
6. And you flip the cup over on the saucer when you’re done, let it cool down and read your fortune from the cup.
7. You consider Eurovision as some form of patriotic excursion. And you’re proud that you no longer end up with ‘no point’.
8. You end a boozy night out having a soup made of cow intestines.
9. And no night out is a night out without booze. Preferably good ole raki.



10. And no night out starts before 11 o’clock.
11. You find yourself debating the possibility of a massive earthquake which will supposedly hit Istanbul in the next thirty years.
12. The news show on your TV features half an hour footage on carnage on motorways. Dead bodies covered with newspapers. Cue sad music in the background.
13. The entertainment shows on your TV last at least three hours.
14. Sunflower seeds are the snack of choice for a night in watching TV.
15. Every other program on your TV seems to feature a dozen of long-legged women dancing around in skimpy outfits.
16. You would get groped by some ‘maganda’ the moment you step out on the street in a skimpy outfit.
17. You’ve been on the minibus – a form of public transport consisting of a psychotic driver whose got delusions of being on a Formula 1 track, his assistant that hangs out the side door, shouting out the destination (‘Aksaray, Aksaray!) and a dozen passengers huddled together like sardines in a tin.



18. You know at least one person who thinks yoghurt is the magical cure for every disease.
19. And another person who thinks going around barefoot is the cause of all major ailments.
20. You pull your earlobe, make a kissing sound with your lips and touch wood to ward off evil.
21. Any ill that might come your way is a sign of the much-feared ‘evil eye’.



22. You have at least once carried sugar cubes, blessed with prayers at a mosque, as a lucky charm to an exam.
23. You’ve spent a good deal of your life taking off your shoes as you walk into a house and putting on a pair of slippers.
24. And you’ve been to houses where they keep slippers of all shapes, sizes and colours for guests.
25. You’ve been chased around the house, at least once, by your mom brandishing that fatal weapon: her slipper.
26. Your family would probably disown you if you became a vegetarian. No meat? What nonsense?
27. You get charged four times more than Russian tourists to holiday in the same Turkish resort.
28. You require a visa to travel to half the world’s countries.
29. You get offended by food labels in other countries labelling your own food ‘Greek feta’, ‘Greek yoghurt’ or ‘Greek humus’…
30. You dislike the Greeks because they are competition but you like them because they’re ‘our neighbour’.
31. You are inclined to dance to any tune, including the banging and clunking of kitchen crockery.
32. People pretty much take it for granted that you can belly-dance simply because you’re Turkish and ‘it's your traditional dance, right?’
33. You live in a country where two guys going out for a meal is not considered ‘gay’.
34. And where people actually pay to go to clubs where the entertainer’s biggest selling point is his sexual orientation or recent sex change.
35. When you don your latest Nike trainers or your Gucci bag, it is highly likely that someone will ask you whether they are real or fake.
36. You probably know the hairiest man in the world, or better yet, are related to him.
37. ‘Spawn of donkey’ or ‘bear’ are words that are considered to be pretty offensive insults in your native language.
38. You wouldn’t be able to talk if your hands were amputated.
39. You greet friends with a kiss on each cheek and a hug. Even if you are both male, yes.
40. You greet your elders by kissing their hand.
41. You call people who are older than you ‘aunt’, ‘uncle’ or ‘brother’ even if you are not related by blood.
42. You are not offended when the guy behind the market stall or the street vendor greets you as ‘auntie’.
43. You are not reaching for your camera to quickly snap a shot when you see a street vendor shouting out ‘Vegetable seller is here, ladies!’
44. Nor do you reach out to call the police when you see a kid walking on the motorway selling handkerchiefs or bottled water or ‘simit’ or music tapes for your car.



45. In fact you slow down, wind down, buy a ‘simit’ and a tape; nibble on your ‘simit’ in the heavy traffic whilst listening to your tape.



46. Any slow song has the power to make you cry.
47. Any slow song after a broken heart and one too many drinks has the power to push you to depression and suicidal thoughts.
48. Not only do you have water surrounding your corner of the world on three sides, you tend to enjoy sitting at the water’s edge contemplating your life when you’re depressed.
49. You spend half your lifetime complaining about your country and your people, and the other half proudly announcing to the world you are Turkish and you are proud of it.
50. You read this list and go, ‘Yeah, I do that!’