Today and Yesterday (This is Autism)

Today, Monday November 18th is the “This is Autism” flash blog. From the official website for the This is Autism Flashblog on Monday, Nov. 18, 2013:

Tell us what “This is Autism” means to you. You can write a paragraph or a blog post, contribute a poem or a video, make a comic or a graphic. Use your imagination. Let’s tell the world what autism is in the words and works of autistic people and those who love and support them.

I personally have a hard time writing for flash blogs- the timeline means I inevitably feel like what I can churn out in the time span isn’t polished enough, or put in order enough. Sometimes I just end up spitting something out (like today) and moving on, but more often I sadly watch the time span of the flash drift by while I grope about the time soup for words. While it’s true that some days something clicks and the words come out fitting together like some sort of expert Tetris player is winning a tournament in my head, most of the time spitting out the “articulate” is a long, time and energy consuming process. On the worst days, it’s like putting together a blank jig saw with relatively uniform pieces. It can be done, but it’s time consuming and when a deadline is added the soothing rhythm of the process is lost.

Time soup is probably the best description of how I experience time- I know it’s swirling by, but unless I have anchor points the rate or even the order I’ve past the memory ingredients is a bit fuzzy. In high school, I collected wall calendars. When asked to draw a dream art studio in art class, there was a wall filled with calendars hanging in rows. Having that reminder that there’s meaning to that chaos was helpful. Now, though, I don’t have any wall calendars. I don’t even have a (functioning) wall clock. Though there’s an antique clock on my mantle, I often forget to wind it as it has a function of reminding me of the past, of history, rather than of actually telling me where I am in my own story.

Instead I remember things by attaching them to documentable events, ones that I can either do math for (I graduated HS in 2006, so since x happened in 9th grade and it was spring, it was 2003.) or that I can research (We saw Titanic in the theater the week grandpa Logsdon was buried, but it was after the new year, so he died in 1998 since Titanic came out 19th December 1997.) I can’t always locate my memories within the timeline in a timely fashion, so I look for another memory that I can locate in a hurry. But there are some things, some events, some orders that I can remember that have very little actual use.

While I’m physically capable of numerous things self care wise (though as my physical health alters, that number fluctuates) my difficulties with time mean that I can’t identify if it’s time for y task to happen. I also will look at a room, and be unable to identify what task comes next out of this larger picture of this room needs cleaned. Unlike words, visually ordering jigsaws or physical objects doesn’t translate to real world situations. The process of planning out all the steps and then motor planning those steps enough to put into action just aren’t able to set- a bit like jello that refuses to set before you need to leave. Sometimes it works enough to get something done, but more often I end up with a sad, soupy mess.

But this is why I get help- my sister is being paid to clean my house; someone in an office somewhere schedules my transportation and hotel for an event; a friend walks with me after a hard day so that I don’t forget my purpose, or so that I don’t forget that there’s a purpose to the lit up man on the sign across the street. It is why I can see the networks of people I’m building up around me, crystallizes relationship webs- like frost making them visible in the early morning. It reminds me of the last time my best friend called me to work out a problem of his, the last time I texted him because I couldn’t figure out my emotions and it helped.

I might not know how long ago it was, but I can build off of the memory of brushing someone’s hair, the beautiful meditative process of granting that tiny help in the eye of executive chaos. It reminds me, too, of another friend’s iron revealing imagined patterns as I ironed on office carpets, and of that friend and I sharing a moment full of leaves granting peace as time hurtled forward. Or of writing back and forth with a parent, using the well of my memories to help improve their child’s life. Of exchanging the same words over and over, back and forth in an echolalic loop that bubbles up with meaning that we don’t explicitly voice- relationship. Of sharing a moment where words are meaningless, and in behavior dwells our meaning.

Of community, built together in ways that without connections able to be built alike we wouldn’t have access to. Of community that we own, rather than attempting to purchase access to through the blood and tears of normalization. Of community that doesn’t demand indistinguishability- just acceptance. Of community, that feels the same stings and can sometimes come together in many bits and pieces to make a bigger response than any one behavior alone.

This may be relatively stream of consciousness, and it certainly didn’t go where I thought it would, but it came to a valid point- that the community we form when we accept our autistic selves, when we value the autistic selves of each other, is one of the most powerful forces of autism. It is building, not destruction, defining our autism. And together it makes us powerful.