feeding him lunch

for 17 years now i have been working with disabled people in berkeley.
i have been around for so long in this field that i have filled almost every role there is
from working with the city to get funding, being on the board of directors, to the terrifying
time spent in the hospital with a broken neck and laying in bed in nonstop pain thinking i will be disabled the rest of my life for saving some one else.
the way i see people is totally enriched by my job. i love it. its blood shit and piss and degrading.
its asking for money. its saving someones life and not getting any thanks. its also being with
people while they die or just go bye bye in spirit. as well as getting overwhelmed with gratitude for
itching a nose or plugging in a lamp.
today it was all about class issues;
j.d. is recent to being disabled. he has power issues around this and i know that he wants me to
be invisible while i feed him his sandwich. he is talking to two girls on campus and they are
mustering up awkward small talk about their teachers and dissing on fellow students.
totally ignoring my presence. i don't mind and i wipe his mouth. give him a drink and
pull out the other half of his bologna sandwich, not untill they are arguing about a dumb
half unit class that they need to fufill some credit.
i spoke my first words of the hour. " i took a half unit of ballroom dancing."
in that sentence i
1. made myself exsist
2. let them know that i too was a student at this university before them
3. made light of the whole serious dilema by suggesting the non academic "ballroom dancing"

they laughed, they started to look at me -something real happened in the supperficial awkward
meeting they were in.

however it is breaking the power that j.d. had in keeping me as his tool.
in a progressive town like berkeley this is thought of as "bad"
but in the context of a disabled person getting his needs met i am just getting paid to attend.

to me its a significant metaphor; physically i have all the power. socially i am just a tool.
just like larger groups of repressed people who are being used. its not so obvious right away.
it was easy for those girls to treat me like that, like i wasn't there. untill i opened my mouth
but that inadvertantly took j.d.s power.