HOLLYWOOD, Calif. — Kevin Michael Connolly may have been born without legs, but that hasn’t kept him from living an adventurous life.
In addition to becoming a champion skier and skateboarder, the 24-year-old Montana native is sharing his experiences through a memoir titled Double Take, which recounts the many stares he has received from strangers all over the world.
“It really spawned from this single moment of frustration that I had traveling back in 2006 in Vienna,” Connolly explained of his decision to write a memoir during an interview on Wednesday’s Today Show. “I had just been getting stared at the whole time, as well as the whole language barrier in not being able to speak Austrian and being treated like a beggar. I had people coming up to me and giving me money from time to time.”
“All of that just kind of snowballed into one moment where I snapped a shot from my hip down a backstreet in Vienna. It just spiraled from there and the countries kept stacking up,” he added.
The memoir includes more than 30,000 photographs taken in 17 countries, but Connolly said he wasn’t looking to criticize people for their perplexed looks.
“A lot of it comes from this very human need to affix meaning or narrative to something they don’t understand … I think curiosity and staring and this whole visual dialogue that happens is all pervasive. I’m as guilty and culpable as the next person,” he explained.
Connolly uses a skateboard to get around most of the time. He also gets uncomfortable when people think of him as an inspiration.
“I have it pretty sweet,” he said. “I’ve never really had any sense of loss or emotional issues throughout my life. I just feel a bit unqualified to be an inspiration.”
