Tag: disability

65 Years of Joy

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I turned 65 yesterday (September 9, 2025). What a surprise that was for me. And to be happy about it! I never thought either thing would happen. To begin with, when I first started having health problems, my doctors told me I might not live until I was 30. (I’ve now lived to see both of my kids enter their 40s.) But as my degenerative spinal cord condition progressed, and I developed bi-polar disorder, I thought if I did live this long I’d be mad about it.

To have to keep dealing with so many health issues and pain for this long used to seem unbearable. Especially after my left leg got too weak to balance with (my right leg had already lost most of it’s movement) and I had to start using a wheelchair full time – stopped being able to use my walker at all. It was so hard to adjust to the new limits and lack of access. I felt a terrible sense of confinement.

But one day, I began to see all the grace and beauty in my life. I felt like I’d received a reward for growing older. My expectations shifted, my acceptance of pain and limits became more than just an act; it’d somehow become a part of who I am (though I still feel misery and sadness – and sometimes I shout out a blazing “Fuck!” in the middle of the night when pain wakes me or keeps me from sleeping). But more often I feel a sense of calm at the same time. We’ve been through this before, I tell myself. We’ll get by. (I refer to myself as a collective – I contain multitudes).

There are hundreds of easy ways to end this story, this life, but I keep wanting to add a little more, another chapter.

What a remarkable thing love and friendship has been. When I’m around friends and family talking, enjoying music, or sharing a meal, all that’s broken within me is reduced to a very small compartment of my being. I open up my heart to those around me, I listen to their stories of pain and sorrow. We laugh and joke, get sad and indignant, then grab a thread of conversation that leads back to the light, or sit in the sadness for as long as we need.

Everything is chaotic and strange. We fall sometimes, more often as we age, but the safety net between friends never breaks, we are there for each other, so we always land softly, and find our way back to love and laughter. No matter how bleak things look, there will never be a shortage of that kind of health or wealth. It’s a great gift to have lived long enough, and through enough, to know that.

Embrace Imperfection by Joy Murray ,20×24″, mixed media on canvas, 2025

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Thanks for reading my blog. Feel free to share it, if you’d like.

This blog is brought to you by the generosity of people who support me on Patreon , buy my art, and who support me in so many different ways. 

If you’d like to make a one time donation, you can do so at paypal

Cards and prints of some of my art is available on Redbubble.  Also T-shirts and stickers and other odds and ends. When you click an image, in the lower right hand corner you’ll find a link to all the various products that these are printed on. If you have any trouble finding what you’re looking for, let me know. joyzmailbox@gmail.com 

You can subscribe to this blog by email in the link below this post.

If you find a typo, let me know, and I’ll send you a postcard.

Updates on Medicaid and SNAP

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Cuts to the budget, cuts to our hearts and souls

Here’s links to somewhat clear explanations on the Bloated Budget bills effect on Medicaid and Medicare. And another one on SNAP. I am on Medicare Disability but because my income is a low social security payment, Medicaid provides help with my co-pays for neurological treatment and medical supplies, which are very costly. That help may be stopped. I still don’t know what’s going to happen with my SNAP which provides me with food benefits or food stamps, but given the present atmosphere, I expect cuts. It’s all very bewildering and scary.

Again, thanks to everyone who has protested this bill and makes having a degenerative disease easier to bear. I’m so grateful you want your tax money to go to help those of us who are sick and/or poor through no fault of our own. Thank you for wanting, like me, a country that is kind and just for everyone.

Medicaid:

https://www.propel.app/blog/medicaid-cuts-explained-big-beautiful-bill-updates/?fbclid=IwY2xjawLnb7tleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHkjYUrl4CadftQd8wDo-nfeSCoNb_L8i5cOR1TFxZsypyIUZ2lVLMdFRL50U_aem_2i2imR0lABEGUBXAe9xmGw

SNAP:

https://www.propel.app/snap/cuts-to-snap-big-beautiful-bill-food-stamps-changes/?source_caller=ui&shortlink=BBBeng&lid=e7fhh31x4fio&c=BBB%20Announcement%20(English)&pid=Email&deep_link_value=freshebt%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Fblog%2Fcuts-to-snap-big-beautiful-bill-food-stamps-changes&af_xp=email

Not part of the plan by Joy Murray, acrylic on canvas, 5×7“

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Thanks for reading my blog. Feel free to share it, if you’d like.

This blog is brought to you by the generosity of people who support me on Patreon , buy my art, and who support me in so many different ways. 

If you’d like to make a one time donation, you can do so at paypal

Cards and prints of some of my art is available on Redbubble.  Also T-shirts and stickers and other odds and ends. When you click an image, in the lower right hand corner you’ll find a link to all the various products that these are printed on. If you have any trouble finding what you’re looking for, let me know. joyzmailbox@gmail.com 

You can subscribe to this blog by email in the link below this post.

If you find a typo, let me know, and I’ll send you a postcard.

Accessibility and Art

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Here’s a link to a film about a cross-disability collective that’s quite uplifting. Often we, as a nation, and I guess as a world, think accessibility is impossible and too expensive. So it’s delightful for me to see things like this film where we can see accessibility in action. I like that it’s a little slower — not the rush, rush everyone seems to be addicted to but is mostly an illusion. I also like the statement that stairs are accessibility for people who have legs. We just need to expand how we define accessibility. By making things as accessible as possible, we assure able-bodied people don’t age out of access to the places and the events that we get to enjoy when our bodies are younger. The film’s about 20 minutes long. I hope you enjoy it.

https://art21.org/watch/new-york-close-up/i-wanna-be-with-you-everywhere/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=header&utm_campaign=Art21News20250625&fbclid=IwY2xjawLKZ_dleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBicmlkETFRZkpCMGRKeVNSYXFkTXM2AR4hHx1zFyc8t7bj0Ds3hFV6BrOnkaCSKcONAZODstjfi0f5sR0RMC3rcVBqNQ_aem_BCipRAy06KNe1pvoCFS56A

Also, Opulent Mobility is open for submission for the 2025 exhibition. They’ll be accepting submissions til August 31.

From A. Laura Brody: “We once again challenge you to imagine a world where disability, mobility, and access are not merely functional, but opulent. Submit your art for OM 2025 at
https://www.opulentmobility.com/submit-artwork.html
Deadline August 31
And take good care of your hearts in these troubling times.”

The Kiss by Joy Murray, part of Opulent Mobility in 2024

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Thanks for reading my blog. Feel free to share it, if you’d like.

This blog is brought to you by the generosity of people who support me on Patreon , buy my art, and who support me in so many different ways. 

If you’d like to make a one time donation, you can do so at paypal

Cards and prints of some of my art is available on Redbubble.  Also T-shirts and stickers and other odds and ends. When you click an image, in the lower right hand corner you’ll find a link to all the various products that these are printed on. If you have any trouble finding what you’re looking for, let me know. joyzmailbox@gmail.com 

You can subscribe to this blog by email in the link below this post.

If you find a typo, let me know, and I’ll send you a postcard.

The Garden Past and Present

Posted in Art, art and healing, disability, gardeningTagged , , , 11 Comments

Last summer, my elephant ear garden looked like this:

This year, it looks like this:

We had an abnormally cold winter and it killed off many of the bulbs. Elephant Ears make new bulbs every summer, often along the bottom of the old bulbs. I think these are all newly made bulbs that grew from underneath their frozen parents.

I love my elephant ears when they get dramatically big. I like seeing the slender stalks of the first small leaves divide into larger and larger leaves until they are nearly as big as me. I get cocky about them. I see other people’s plants and think, mine are bigger. It’s a bit of delusion that I have anything to do with how big they get. I do my part, of course: making sure they’re watered and have enough room to grow by weeding and tending the ground around them.

Or I used to. Now, I get other people to help me with it. Now that I’m a full time wheelchair user, I can’t get to the weeds, I can’t divide the bulbs, I can’t do all the little fussy things an urban gardener does to get credit for beautiful plants. I appreciate those who’ve helped me weed and keep some order in the small patch by my porch. I’m not totally happy about having to give up the responsibilities I enjoyed, but I’m happy that the garden grows.

I’ve also had struggles cultivating creativity over the past few years. I don’t get as many paintings done. I don’t have the energy to organize shows or to participate in groups. I don’t write as much. I don’t even go to art shows as much – transportation and fatigue issues. Like so many of us, I was changed by the arrival of COVID in our lives. Also the continuing fragmentation of our country and a seeming inability for us to build working bridges to help each other out. In my personal life, I’ve aged enough to have to deal with death more often (also a COVID factor), and my own disability takes its share of my energy. I’ve often felt as if my well was empty and I couldn’t tap into a new source of flow.

But watching these scrappy plants emerge and grow after a hostile winter, has inspired me. Slowly I am writing more, drawing again, painting again. Since I have no deadlines, I can set my own pace. I don’t have to create things at the same rate. And as I look back over all that I’ve done in previous years, I realize that I’m a productive person, even if I never actually create anything tangible ever again.

There is a form of art called “social practice.” It “focuses on engagement through human interaction and social discourse.” If I’m feeling small and insecure, I can always say I do social practice art (though no one will know what I’m talking about). To me, in its simplest form, social practice art is a way of living creatively, sharing ideas with others, contributing to a better, more peaceful and beautiful world. The goal is not necessarily a finished object or project. Living is an art. The creative ways we deal with life’s challenges are an art form.

I may just be trying to give a label to my fallow periods to feel better about them. These periods are a part of the process. Are they an art in themselves? It’s not like I’ve stopped thinking about creativity, or living creatively for even one day while I’ve navigated these past few years. I’ve been helped a lot by others, and had lots of conversations with them about the world at large, and the small world that I occupy.

And now this little garden is growing back. The plants on my porch that I can tend to are thriving. Whenever someone walks by – and looks up from their phone – they see growth and blooms. I don’t actually create it, but I facilitate it.

I once led an art workshop and one of the young participants asked if you could make a good living as an artist. I said it’s difficult. But you can make a good life.

If we survive a brutal winter and grow a little slower afterwards, there’s a lot of beauty in that. Noticing gardens is being creative. Carrying sorrow, but living with delight, that’s a good life.

Joy At the Memphis Brook Museum – living a good life

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Thanks for reading my blog. Feel free to share it, if you’d like.This blog is brought to you by the generosity of people who support me on Patreon , buy my art, and who support me in so many different ways. If you’d like to make a one time donation, you can do so at paypalCards and prints on some of my art is available on Redbubble.  You can subscribe to this blog by email in the link below this post.If you find a typo, let me know, and I’ll send you a postcard.