Barry Corbet, who survived a 1968 helicopter crash with a T12/L1 spinal cord injury, edited New Mobility magazine from 1991 to 2000. A widely published author and filmmaker, Corbet made a trio of films — Changes, Outside and Survivors — and wrote the book Options: Spinal Cord Injury and the Future. 2023 saw the release of Full Circle, a documentary that adapted material from Options and linked Corbet’s journey with that of Trevor Kennison, the first sit-skier to launch into Corbet’s Couloir, the ski run named for Corbet in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Now Full Circle audiences are searching Corbet’s name and discovering New Mobility.

When Corbet died in 2004, we didn’t realize how difficult it would be to keep his archive of wonderful, lyrical writing accessible in the ever-changing world of digital media. We intend to rectify this casualty of progress and have started restoring his original essays and articles from print on our website — a platform that we hope will endure. Meanwhile, here are five signature pieces that display Corbet’s unmistakable synergy of intelligence, humility and voice. Enjoy.

Our Imperfect Paradise

“When we surrender our beliefs about how life ought to be, we can learn to love it as it is,” offers Corbet in this excerpt from a speech he gave at Craig Hospital 33 years post-SCI. We know there will be change and loss, financial strain and exploding legbags, but with all that, “life is still complete and terrifying and drop-dead gorgeous, and I have just as big a piece of it as anyone else.”

An All-American Fourth of July

Gratitude meets grit in this salute to disability culture on the roof of a rehab center, as veteran and fledgling survivors of cataclysm mark Independence Day together. The old guard shows what is possible. The newbies take it all in. “With all their bad luck hanging out — fresh surgical scars, shaved heads, skinny legs, pressure hose, legbags — they’re here to celebrate the unthinkable.”

The National Parks Before and After …

For an elite mountain climber like Corbet, the inability to explore true wilderness after his spinal cord injury was crushing. He felt like a tourist, for God’s sake. In a fit of radical acceptance, he tried on the voyeur’s role and found it wanting — but in the process he discovered that in a kayak he could transport himself back to sacred places. A second love affair with the wild soon followed — until he faced more loss, more acceptance, and finally peace with what nature gives us in every incarnation.

Embedded: A no-holds barred report from inside a nursing home

Nursing homes are every active wheelchair user’s worst nightmare, so why did Corbet sign up for the thing he’d spent 35 years avoiding? Circumstances conspired when he needed extensive help after shoulder surgery, so he made the most of it, embedding himself as a journalist among the trying-to-get-out and the waiting-to-die. A deeply compassionate look at institutional assaults to dignity, freedom and grace, his story honors the residents’ humanity and leaves no doubt as to why we fight to live in our own homes.

Physician-Assisted Death: Are We Asking the Right Questions?

Twenty-plus years after publication, there is still no better parsing of the issues surrounding physician-assisted death written from a disability perspective. In some ways times have changed: Several additional states now offer a path to PAD; one of the organizations in this piece has dissolved, and another has changed its name and mission; and some of the outspoken advocates interviewed here have died. But the larger questions remain the same — and they should give our community pause. Corbet examines the issue from three perspectives: PAD as personal preference, PAD as a disability issue and PAD as public policy.