From My Window
Watch Melissa Simpson in “From My Window.” She climbs a 13,000-foot peak She “climbs” it in a wheelchair because she was born with cerebral palsy. Her wheelchair – it’s a nifty one that lets her pump with her arms across terrain not laid out for wheelchair traffic.
What’s especially nifty about Melissa’s conveyance is the group of people who take turns pushing and pulling and otherwise assisting her. This team includes blind people and other variously challenged souls. No, we’re not talking rock and cliff climbers. The trail up through 13,000 feet is modest by typical mountain climbing standards.
During a talk with Melissa, she explains that she “was like 20 years looking out my window at the mountains and doing nothing but college and home stuff.” She goes on to say that this first of what now has been many climbs “made me feel free of my disabilities” … her “entrapment went away.”
In less than 20 film minutes, you get to appreciate Melissa enroute and being interviewed. What you’ll probably appreciate most is that this “special” person demonstrates her “normal” person accomplishment. Of the thousands of people who conquer high mountain peaks, see Melissa Simpson put her personal stamp on individual experience.
It’s probably not a stretch to see that “From My Window” shows that everybody is “handicapped” in some way, and isn’t it a better world where there’s other people around to help us navigate? Melissa says that she’s become more than a mountain climber. She’s an activist.
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