“Mountain Lakes, Olden, Norway” by Willard Metcalf
Another thing we can do in our own rooms is to return to travels we have already taken. This is not a fashionable idea. Most of the time, we are given powerful encouragement to engineer new kinds of travel experiences. The idea of making a big deal of revisiting a journey in memory sounds a little strange – or simply sad. This is an enormous pity. We are hugely careless curators of our own pasts. We push the important scenes that have happened to us at the back of the cupboard of our minds and don’t particularly expect to see them ever again. ~ The Book of Life ~ On Confinement
And this means that time is a mystery, and not even a thing, and no one has ever solved the puzzle of what time is, exactly. And so, if you get lost in time it is like being lost in a desert, except that you can’t see the desert because it is not a thing. … And this is why I like timetables, because they make sure you don’t get lost in time. ~ Mark Haddon (The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time)
For me, this might be why I like (need?) clocks. Getting lost in time for me is more like being lost at sea. (I’ve sailed across the ocean but I’ve never seen a desert.)
I hadn’t thought much about it before I read this book, but I have a clock in every room of my house. Clocks were one of the few moorings I had at school when I was growing up. The bell always rang at the right time. A difficult class could only last until the appointed time. Thinking about all this also brought up a fond memory.
Many years ago, long before I knew anything about autism, and long before there were cell phones, we were visiting Tim’s aunt and subconsciously I was looking, one room after another, for a clock, feeling very anxious. At some point it sunk in that I wasn’t going to find one and before I could check my tongue I blurted out, “you don’t have any clocks!”
Tim’s aunt said she guessed that was true, and a few minutes later she kindly brought me a watch to keep with me for the day. That’s one thing I love about her, she accepts my quirks and does what she can to make me feel welcome and comfortable anyway. ♡
It was almost three years ago when I found out that I was on the autism spectrum and thought that I would blog about it a lot more than I have. That doesn’t mean I haven’t been observing my interactions with the neurotypical world and sorting through memories with new understanding. It’s been a journey of discovery, fascinating but difficult to articulate, probably because of my brain thinking mostly in pictures.
I prefer analog clocks to digital ones. When I see the numbers on a digital clock my brain translates them to the clock pictured in my mind. And it takes a bit of time.
I enjoyed The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, a mystery novel written from the viewpoint of a teenage boy with autism. The author doesn’t have autism so it’s amazing that he can describe the train of thoughts running through the brain of an autistic person. I read the book in one day! It was so easy to picture everything he was talking about.
I dislike feeling unmoored and lost in time, simply because there is no clock around to anchor me. But then I remember, our brains are as mysterious as time, and oftentimes anxiety happens.
Being awake. Resting in the happening of this moment, exactly as it is. Relaxing the need to understand or to make things different than they are. Opening the heart. Just this — right here, right now. ~ Joan Tollifson (Resting in the Happening of this Moment)
On our next visit to the beach we sat in our usual spot to enjoy some supper and noticed that my gull friend wasn’t around. Instead we had two large juvenile great black-backed gulls (above and below) pacing back and forth in front of us, probably hoping for a handout. Eventually they will learn that these two humans never feed gulls! Perhaps they were the offspring of the gull bothering my herring gull during our previous visit?
Anyhow, after we ate we took a little walk. Tim spotted my gull friend first, sitting way out on a section of rocks where we are not allowed to climb. I called out a greeting but he seemed determined to ignore me. He turned his head a couple of times, but didn’t respond. And so parts of a Van Morrison song came to mind…
Other times you just can’t reach me Seems like I’ve got a heart of stone Guess I need my solitude And I have to make it on my own
Well I guess I’m going A.W.O.L. Disconnect my telephone Just like Greta Garbo I want to be alone
Too long to decode all the secrets Have to get some elbow room Most people think that everything Is just what they assume
Well I know I’m going A.W.O.L. Tell everyone I’m not at home Just like Greta Garbo I just want to be alone ~ Van Morrison ♫ (Just Like Greta) ♫
Having a very strong need for “alone” time myself I gave him his space and let him be.
“A secret garden. Made by Barbara Lyn (sic) Chomiak. Seven year old.”
One of the strange things about living in the world is that it is only now and then one is quite sure one is going to live forever and ever and ever. One knows it sometimes when one gets up at the tender solemn dawn-time and goes out and stands alone and throws one’s head far back and looks up and up and watches thepale sky slowly changing and flushing and marvelous unknown things happening until the East almost makes one cry out and one’s heart stands still at the strange unchanging majesty of the rising of the sun — which has been happening every morning for thousands and thousands and thousands of years. One knows it then for a moment or so. And one knows it sometimes when one stands by oneself in a wood at sunset and the mysterious deep gold stillness slanting through and under the branches seems to be saying slowly again and again something one cannot quite hear, however much one tries. Then sometimes the immense quiet of the dark blue at night with millions of stars waiting and watching makes one sure; and sometimes a sound of far-off music makes it true; and sometimes a look in some one’s eyes. ~ Frances Hodgson Burnett (The Secret Garden)
I’m still poking around through my childhood papers and drawings. My mother was the true bookworm in our family. So many images coming back to me now, like my parents in the evening, my mother with her nose in the newspaper and my father watching television.
At bedtime, my mother read to us, even after we were old enough to read for ourselves. One of my favorite books was The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. (Apparently I loved it so much I illustrated my own version of a secret garden.) And often my father would start playing the piano, gentle Bach lullabies sending us off to sleep.
Spring is in the air! Time to pick up the pace and plow through some more boxes. Onward!
11.15.18 ~ Chapel Hill, North Carolina after the hard freeze and four days of rain
Standing on the bare ground, — my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space, — all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eye-ball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson (Nature)
Little grandson Finn has been home for a few days now and we are all very busy! His name is Irish, given to him as a nod to his family’s year in Ireland, where he was conceived.
Finn McCool (Fionn mac Cumhaill) was a legendary Irish giant who fought the Scottish giant Benandonner, who was threatening Ireland. Larisa, Dima and Katherine visited the Giant’s Causeway while they were in Ireland.
A blessing for a brother written by John O’Donohue:
The knowing that binds us Is older than the apostrophe of cell We formed from within the one womb.
All that flowed into us there From the red village of ancestry Sowed spores of continuity That would one day flower Into flickers of resemblance:
An unconscious gesture Could echo an ancestor, And the look of us stir Recognition of belonging That is ours alone;
And our difference finding Its own rhythm of strangeness, Leading us deeper into a self That would always know its own Regardless of difficulty and distance; And through hurt no other could inflict;
Still somehow beside each other Though the night is dark With wind that loves To clean the bones of ruins, Making further room for light.
6.6.18 ~ wild geranium, Connecticut College Arboretum New London, Connecticut
The wood is decked in light green leaf. The swallow twitters in delight. The lonely vine sheds joyous tears Of interwoven dew and light.
Spring weaves a gown of green to clad The mountain height and wide-spread field. O when wilt thou, my native land, In all thy glory stand revealed?
~ Ilia Chavchavadze (Anthology of Georgian Poetry)
wild geranium
“Summer is coming!” the soft breezes whisper; “Summer is coming!” the glad birdies sing. Summer is coming — I hear her quick footsteps; Take your last look at the beautiful Spring. ~ Dora Read Goodale (Summer Is Coming)
6.6.18
6.6.18
To be interested in the changing seasons is a happier state of mind than to be hopelessly in love with spring. ~ George Santayana (Words of Wisdom & Quotable Quotes)
notice the ant in the middle of the flower
new growth on a hemlock
female common whitetail dragonfly
How many Flowers fail in Wood — Or perish from the Hill — Without the privilege to know That they are Beautiful —
How many cast a nameless Pod Opon the nearest Breeze — Unconscious of the Scarlet Freight — It bear to other eyes —
~ Emily Dickinson (The Poems of Emily Dickinson, #534)
6.6.18
sweet little bluets
azalea
inviting path
Honor the space between no longer and not yet. ~ Nancy Levin (Grief Interrupted: A Holistic Guide to Reclaiming Your Joy)
Janet overlooking the lawn where the audience sits to watch outdoor theater in the summer
