An Interview with Mary Keating

Mary Keating is a poet, disability rights advocate, attorney, and Yale Law School graduate. She became a paraplegic in 1973 after a car accident at age fifteen and has spent over fifty years challenging assumptions about disability. She runs her own law firm and is the poetry editor for ScribesMICRO. A three-time Pushcart Prize nominee, her work has appeared in Rattle, Wordgathering, and SFWP. Her memoir in verse, Recalibrating Gravity, is funny, fierce, and authentic as it explores life as a disabled person. It is praised for its clarity and emotional honesty. Mary is also a scuba diver, open mic regular, and Top Attorney of North America. She served as chair of the Connecticut State Rehabilitation Council and vice president of the Rowayton Library. She is married and lives in Connecticut, where she continues to write, speak, and advocate for full inclusion of the over one billion disabled people worldwide. Visit www.marykeatingpoet.com to learn more about Mary and her writing.

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Who/what made you want to write? Was there a particular person, or particular writers/works/art forms that influenced you?

In 1973, when I was fifteen, I got into a Mustang convertible and never walked again. The teenage driver drove us at maximum speed into two oak trees. He died. I never walked again. Faster than a blink, I was transported to an alternate reality. One where I wasn’t ‘me’ to the outside world. I was a trope.

I tried to find authentic books or stories about my new life. They didn’t exist. Disabled people were either tragic or inspirational, but not real people. Except this one book my parents got me, called You Can Do It From A Wheelchair, which featured a middle-aged woman right out of the fifties on the cover. She was in a wheelchair mopping. Mopping! What an ambition to strive for. I used to joke with my boyfriend about writing a book called You Can Do It In A Wheelchair and really shatter stereotypes. I think that’s when the idea to write my life story germinated. It’d take me fifty years to compile it. And I never dreamt back then I’d write it in poetry! But that makes perfect sense—if you think about it. The immediacy of poetry breaks the barriers that stereotypes create.

My family devoured books. My mother had her five kids reciting poems before we could read. And not easy poems, but ones like Strictly Germ Proof! My father wrote odes to family and friends for special occasions. I started getting my poems published in college, where I was an English/religion major. I even won a poetry contest. Then I went to law school.

Until seven years ago, I had written poems here and there, but nothing serious. I felt drawn back to poetry. It was healing for me. I could express all the conflicting emotions of living with a disability, being treated like a second-class citizen on one level, and a successful lawyer on another. I took classes, joined poetry groups, and performed at open mics.

People loved my poetry, told me how much it resonated with them. I began submitting my work and eventually got several poems published. Three were nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Hospital’s Care, about health care’s ineptitude, was the first poem I tried to get published. I sent it in to New Mobility magazine, not realizing they didn’t even publish poetry. They published my poem! I was so touched by the comments I received. So many people wrote, ‘that exact thing happened to me.’

One day, a writing buddy suggested I enter the When Words Count contest. No poet had ever won, and she thought I had a good shot at winning. Problem was, I didn’t have a book written. So, I took all my poems and organized them into a rough draft of what my book is today. Then I filled in the blanks by writing more poems. I ended up winning the contest and getting my book published.

My poetry book is a compilation of my life experiences. But it goes beyond that. It’s a testimony that life can be well-lived even in the messiest parts if we find grace and humor in every moment. In short, you can do life in a wheelchair, just don’t forget to laugh.

What other professions have you worked in? What’s something about you that your readers wouldn’t know?

I have a diverse work history. My first job out of Manhattanville College was as an internal bank auditor for the Bank of New York. That might seem odd for someone with my background, but to be a really good auditor, you have to imagine ways people could rip off the bank. Perfect job for a potential writer.

I left the bank after a year to pursue becoming a lawyer. I wanted to see what that life was like and went to work at one of the largest law firms in Connecticut, Cummings and Lockwood. I was hired as their employee benefits supervisor. I learned all about insurance and health care reimbursement while being immersed in an active law practice. Despite many lawyers advising me to choose another career, I knew it was a good fit and applied to law school. I was there for two years when I was accepted at Yale Law School. While in law school, I spent one summer living in DC and working as a law clerk for the US Justice Department. I got the VIP treatment as they let me park my adapted van in one of the few spots in the courtyard! Though I often took the subway, as it was so wheelchair accessible.

After law school, I worked as an IBM attorney in their marketing division for three years. It was a fantastic job and company, but I really wanted to help people. I left to start Tibbetts and Keating with a guy I met at Cummings and Lockwood. We had joked about starting our own law firm as we played chess in the lunch room there. The joke became a reality. Though it wasn’t a joke, it was the beginning of a rewarding career. After twenty-four years, I wanted a change and started my own law firm, Mary Keating Esq, LLC, where I am today.

As a lawyer, I’ve helped clients and their families through the joy of buying a home, the devastation of a divorce, and the sorrow of settling an estate. Seeing people at their best and worst taught me a lot about humanity. It’s been a meaningful, challenging, and fulfilling profession. But writing is my passion.

I’ve been a disability advocate since my accident. Five years post-accident, I wrote a story showing how inaccessible downtown was, and it was published. To my surprise, the Handicapped Society wrote a rebuttal. I almost fell out of my chair. How could they be against curb cuts and accessible parking?

Angry but undaunted, I contacted the Human Rights Commission. That led to me touring downtown with the mayor while he tried to get around downtown in a wheelchair. It was impossible for us due to lack of curb cuts and ramps that were the right grade. I think once the mayor realized his own office was inaccessible, he became passionate about access. Our town installed accessible parking and curb cuts a few months later—years before the law mandated them.

That experience showed me how powerful storytelling is and gave me a crash course in politics. It also gave me the skills to help make more places accessible, including everywhere I went to work and Yale University. I need accessibility to fully participate in society. I’m not disabled by my disability but by lack of access. I’m thrilled each time I break a barrier and help open the world for the billion disabled people in it.

Tell us the story of your book’s title. Was it easy to find, or did it take forever?

When I was first paralyzed, I couldn’t sit up without support. I’d wobble. My physical therapist said that my center of gravity changed. I’d have to find a new one. That thought stuck with me because recalibrating gravity is a metaphor for how to fully live life in all its messiness.

It took years to choose the right title for my memoir. I thought of: Poetry in Motion, Hell on Wheels, Pushing Limits, and even Recalibrating My Center of Gravity. I’d sit with each new title for weeks and see how I felt about it. I was close with the last title mentioned. Like any poet, I cut out the excess words and knew. None other captured my book’s essence so perfectly or poetically as Recalibrating Gravity.

My book is far more than a disability memoir–just as my life is far more than being a paraplegic. The poems are about navigating life while learning to keep balanced, no matter what happens, to stay centered. That’s a learned skill honed by adversity. All of us are recalibrating life’s gravity daily. I hope my book becomes a tool to help its readers recalibrate their lives to find joy even in sorrow, and that they share my poems with others to help them as well.

What part of publishing your book made it feel real for the first time?

When I opened the Amazon package with the first copy of my book, I felt like I’d given birth after two years of labor. My sister recorded me, and you can watch it on YouTube:

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A film speaks a million words!

My book launch party was the first time people lined up to get a signed copy of my book. It felt simultaneously exhilarating and surreal. But when I saw my book on the bookshelves of Barrett Bookstore in Darien, CT, I knew I was indeed a published author.

If your book had a soundtrack, what are some songs that would be on it?

Not in any particular order:

1. To Dream the Impossible Dream

2. Defying Gravity (The breaking free parts)

3. With or Without You

4. The Long and Winding Road

5. Wildflowers

6. Blue

7. You’ve Got a Friend

8. Birthday (The Beatles)

What’s one thing you hope sticks with readers after they finish your book?

I hope readers, while reading my poems, find ways to recalibrate the gravity of any hardship or difficult time they are going through. My book isn’t just about disability. It’s about living and embracing life in all its messiness. I hope they realize love is really what this life is all about, as my sonnet The Ultimate Investment espouses. That soulmates really do exist, and we shouldn’t settle for someone less. I didn’t and have been married to mine for twenty-five years. That we can change the world for the better if we put our heart into our efforts.

People forget how powerful each one of us is. We are made of stardust. We also must be kind to each other. For we all really are one.

I also hope my readers join me in making this world more accessible for those of us with disabilities. Start asking for their events to be accessible. Educate others not to park on the lines or hatched-out space next to an accessible parking spot (my pet peeve). People who use wheelchair vans and mobility devices need every inch of those spaces to get in and out. How wonderful it would be if everyone who read this book became an advocate for disability rights. That would truly be a dream come true.

What was the most rewarding/meaningful part of publishing your book?

The rewards from publishing my book keep coming in surprising ways.

A month after my book was published, someone who friended me on Facebook wrote me and told me my memoir might have just saved a life. Her daughter’s friend was dating a guy who often drove drunk and insisted she get into the car with him. My FB friend read her a poem in my book about my accident. After her daughter’s friend heard my poem, she finally stopped putting her life in danger and broke up with her boyfriend. I think my poem spoke to her in such a way that she felt the gravity of her choices.

Certain people in our lives, especially those we love, can pressure us into doing what we know in our hearts isn’t good for us. How powerful is poetry to connect with our core being and give us the fortitude to stand up for ourselves? I wondered about baring myself and my life to complete strangers. Knowing I helped that teenager shows me it was the right thing to do.

My best friend in middle school lived across the street from me. She moved away at the end of seventh grade. We kept in touch, but she got married, and I lost track of her. I’d try finding her on social media to no avail. A month or so after my book was published, she posted something on my timeline. It’s such joy to finally be able to reconnect and talk with her again.

In fact, my book is reconnecting me with classmates from all the schools I went to. An old boyfriend from seventh grade called me. It was so fun to see where his life took him. There’s nothing quite like the people you grew up with and share the same roots. Time apart disappears with the first hello.

I’ve spoken at several book events as a result of publishing my memoir and also joined more writing groups and organizations. It’s really opened up my world.

So, the meaningful part of publishing my book is the connections and reconnections I’m making, and the tangible proof it is helping lives. How magical is that?!

What creative projects are you currently working on?

I have a few chapbooks in the works. One is a collection of poems about the preciousness of life as seen from our mortality. Almost dying a few times, especially when I was just fifteen, has given me an acute awareness of how we should never squander our time. It’s the one thing we can’t get back and can’t replace. Live every day as if it were your last and connect with your loved ones as if you may never see them again. Because one day they will be gone and you will be too. Relationships and time are far more valuable than possessions. Have you ever seen a moving van at a graveyard?

My other chapbook is more whimsical and less heavy – life is all about balance, right? It’s a collection of twisted fairytales laced with humor, and reimagining the ancient gods in modern times. I was an English and religion double major and studied the underlying archetypes and myths that shape our collective unconsciousness. It’s fun to take that knowledge and bring it to life in verse.

I also have a screenplay mapped out which I need to write the dialogue for. It’s about a high school varsity diver who becomes paralyzed in a freak accident and is forced to reexamine her values. I can see the film in my head. I just need to make it come to life on the page. And maybe we’ll all watch it on screen one day. We need more movies that portray authentic disability stories.

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