A
memoir-in-essays from disability advocate and creator of the Instagram account
@sitting_pretty Rebekah Taussig, processing a lifetime of memories to paint a
beautiful, nuanced portrait of a body that looks and moves differently than
most.
Growing
up as a paralyzed girl during the 90s and early 2000s, Rebekah Taussig only saw
disability depicted as something monstrous (The Hunchback of Notre Dame),
inspirational (Helen Keller), or angelic (Forrest Gump). None of this felt
right; and as she got older, she longed for more stories that allowed
disability to be complex and ordinary, uncomfortable and fine, painful and
fulfilling.
Writing
about the rhythms and textures of what it means to live in a body that doesn’t
fit, Rebekah reflects on everything from the complications of kindness and
charity, living both independently and dependently, experiencing intimacy, and
how the pervasiveness of ableism in our everyday media directly translates to
everyday life.
Disability
affects all of us, directly or indirectly, at one point or another. By
exploring this truth in poignant and lyrical essays, Taussig illustrates the
need for more stories and more voices to understand the diversity of humanity.
Sitting Pretty challenges us as a society to be patient and vigilant, practical
and imaginative, kind and relentless, as we set to work to write an entirely
different story.