Tag: accessibility

I glanced at my wheelchair stowed away in the trunk and took a deep breath as my friend Setu pulled her SUV out of the driveway. We exchanged wide-eyed grins, still in disbelief that this trip was actually happening. We were headed to Atlanta for a highly anticipated, whirlwind girls’ weekend. It was going to be my first trip in fifteen years without my parents. It all started when my brother and sister-in-law somehow nabbed, for my 38th birthday, the most coveted item of this decade: floor seats to Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour in Atlanta. And it turned into an empowering, disability-friendly girls’ trip made seamless by Atlanta’s accessibility and springtime vibes.

"When I was nine, I was diagnosed with facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy, a disorder that causes progressive muscle weakness. I’ve probably uploaded a few hundred pictures of inaccessible sidewalks to Atlanta’s 311 app. The city is typically good about responding. Still, we need to be more proactive than reactive."