Perspective from a wheelchair

My broken foot put me in a wheelchair for one morning on Saturday.  For just a few hours, I looked at the world from a different level.  I am quite amazed that the world looks so different when you are just one and half foot shorter.  

First of all, my view is blocked most of the time.  I cannot see beyond the person directly in front of me.  Normally, even if I were not taller than the person in front of me, I could still see a lot, from the big gaps between their heads.  Now I am staring at people’s mid-sections, which are much broader, effectively blocking out the whole world.   

I found myself staring at people’s mid-sections: their bellies, lower back, and bottoms - involuntarily.  I have no choice because these are the parts of their bodies at my eye level.  I am much more aware of the size (usually quite big) of these body parts.  I am also much more aware of the bags that people carry, and the way they carry them - big, small, expensive looking (or not), on right or left shoulder, across their backs, in their hands, on their arms, etc.  

It is hard to see their faces.  Normally I wold be much more aware of who they are, and how they look, because I would be looking at their faces.  Now I have to make an effort to look up to see their faces. And it can be quite tiring to look up - the closer they are to me, the more tiring it is.  

It is, of course, much harder to move around.  Even when I can push my own wheelchair, it is so much harder, it takes much longer to move even a short distance, you cannot go up or down a curb, you cannot easily pass something walking slowly in front of you, …

It is hard not to feel a little intimated. and perhaps even a little inferior, when you are shorter, cannot see people’s faces, when your view is always blocked, …  The world looks so much gloomier from the wheelchair.