Author Archives: Peter Sanford Kahrmann

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About Peter Sanford Kahrmann

Writer, disability rights advocate, civil rights advocate.

Without A Book

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I love to read and I am, without question, a bibliophile. 

The first time I heard I was a bibliophile (a collector of books) it sounded like something that required a hefty dose of antibiotics (do they make pro-biotics? ).  Anyway, a world without books would be like a world without sunlight. Nearly as bad is the time between books. If you find an author you love you can gobble up their books one after another. I am, for example, overjoyed to hear Howard Frank Mosher has a new book out, “Walking to Gatlinburg” . I love his writing.

I am pages away from finishing “Elmer Gantry” by Sinclair Lewis, my sixth Lewis book in a row, so I’m up for a change.

Being without a book is to feel a bit rudderless in the world. There is an almost familial comfort to know you have a book to return to as you go through the rest of life. A place to retreat, meet friends, places, experiences to be had that, while you are in the process of having them, belong solely to you.

Anyway, I’d like to talk more but I need to finish Gantry, then find another book to welcome me.

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Write the Words

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You write the words in front of you, just as they are. If truth be your guide and courage your light, it is your only choice. You write the words in front of you and hope they reach the page before the influence of media, hunger, agendas, wounds of history, stain them. Sometimes you will not know if this has happened for some time. Sometimes you will never know.

You write the words in front of you, the ones that stand before your heart and soul, the ones you know wear your realities. Set them down, straight, true, clear. There are times their at-first meaning will lift like a mist and their core meaning will appear. I am back to fearless (I think). Reality, the experience of it, the exposing of it in all its ineffable shapes, tones, rhythms, sounds, movements, mores, tricks, blemishes, heartbeats, lives and deaths, relationships, lands and cultures, are the aim of your pen.

You write the words. Write, retreat, write again. You cannot – though like me, you likely will, at least at times – worry over what others will think. Have your worry, but give it no say. Write the words, write them anyway.

Live.

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Notes From an Advocate: Into the Light

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The best way to get rid of the dehumanization of people with disabilities is to expose it as clearly and graphically as possible.

I have told more than one in the field of human rights, I will tell the truth for you, I will not lie for you. There are a few who made the mistake of thinking this was lip service on my part. Not.

As the Kahrmann Consumer Advocacy Coalition grows its membership and hones its purpose, I can tell you that my input will include a consistent push to bring those who deny people their equal rights into the glare of the public eye.

If you deny people their equal rights, you deny them their freedom.

Our current focus is on the survivors of brain injury living in the community who are receiving services in New York from providers across the state. Many of the providers are class acts and do not deserve to have their reputations stained by those providers who are anything but class acts.

Among other things, this latter group of providers engage in what can accurately be called, community-based warehousing. They should be and will be exposed. Although the survivors are living in the community, their lives and what is welcome or not welcome in their lives is controlled by the providers.

One thing I know is this; providers who prevent the coalition from telling the survivors in their programs about the coalition will be exposed.  The question is how best to do this.

Not only does the behavior of the poisonous deny people their civil rights, it denies people their freedom. There is no excuse; certainly not even greed, no doubt the driving force behind much of this.

And so my thought, my mission, is to bring the bigotry into the light.  Fungus never does well when exposed to sunshine.

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The Orphans Among Us

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When as children we are left nowhere

Let our hearts be

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When as children we are left in absence

Let our hearts be

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When as children we are left no family

Let our hearts be

.

When as children we are left all alone

Let our hearts be

.

Spare our hearts… it is the least you can do

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Thank you,  Audrey Tautou

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Sobriety First

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It took getting arrested in 2001 for me to turn my life around. To be more accurate, it took getting arrested and watching my “world” disintegrate to lead me into the rooms of a 12-step program and turn my life around. While the arrest itself was horrible and the case was thrown out of court 19 days later and the motivation behind the charges was likely designed to shut my advocate mouth up, none of it would have happened had I not been drinking, and so, I am responsible.

Just a day or so after the case had been thrown out of court I was talking to a NYC Firefighter who had 25 years of sobriety under his belt. “They set me up,” I whined. “They had this fox nurse buddy up to me and we went out drinking a few times and next thing I know, I’m getting accused of all this shit. It’s bullshit.”  I was actually telling the truth, but only because they truth happened to work for me, or so I was foolish enough to think.

He looked at me, nodded, smiled, and said, “Okay. Let’s say I believe you. But whether they set you up or not is not the point. There’s always people like that in the world. I have one question for you and one question only. It’s a yes or no answer. Was there anything about Peter Kahrmann that contributed to the environment that allowed it to happen? Yes or no.”

“Yes,” I said.

“Good. That’s what you need to focus on. Not all the bullshit that’s around you, but you, take responsibility for you. Get sober.”

I will be sober eight years this July 12.  I wouldn’t trade my sobriety in for anything else.

Believe me, if I wasn’t sober, I never would have written this.

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