Daily: freewrite
Ok, let's see if I can get back to some freewrites for awhile.
YChang's "The Struggle Continues" is gone from the internet, felled by the end of Adobe's flash player. I don't even remember how many years ago I found that, it was definitely before youtube, definitely before videos were a regular thing.
The struggle continues.
This morning I am unknotting my muscles one by one. I am breathing, in for three, hold for three, out for three, hold for three: like that. Lower my right shoulder a quarter-inch. Relax that side of my trapezius. Breathe again.
The sky is milky grey and dripping. Sometimes there's a single metallic drip sound from my chimney. There is a rooster out there calling the food call and a duck calling, maybe flirtily to a drake?
I am unknotting my mind a piece at a time. It's safe here. Without central heating the fridge is my usual source of background noise and it is blessedly quiet right now. I can hear the spaciousness of this main room, of the cathedral ceiling and out into the empty cluttered kitchen. A car drives by on the road. The highway is, for the moment, also silent.
I am letting my mind fall open like a mouse poking its nose out of a hole: twitching, waiting for cats. I am letting my mind fall open like a flower blooming in a jar: petals opening one-by-one to lie against the walls, a small bud eventually rumpling outwards to pack itself into the space.
It's cold here. My arms and thighs are tight with goosebumps. Yesterday I was too hot, too cold, too hot again, lightheaded, my arms had no strength. The latter is normal for me on and off, the former is not.
Breathe in. Breathe out. Put my shoulders back down a fraction of an inch; they'd risen again. Breathe in. There's resistance in my sternum, a prickling pressure that is only suffocating when I read it as physical. Breathe out. Breathe in.
The sky is dripping. I want to go lie between the rows of my tomatoes on the soil. I want to curl my knees up to my chest and feel warmth coming up into me from the ground, stored from the sun, but the ground is not warm right now and the sky is dripping. Once I've hauled a blanket out there to wrap around me it's just not the same.
If I were lying between the tomatoes I could breathe in that unmistakable smell, breathe in, breathe out, discern the slightly different scent of the different varieties. I could breathe and the ground would push up against my shoulders and hips and legs and the side of my head as firmly as a good handshake. Once I worked my shoulders down again I could refocus my eyes and notice the shiny curve of green fruits ripening.
In times of emotional extremity I always put myself into the land. That's where it's safe. It's a visceral, comforting connection and I am lucky to have it. There are days when, without it, I'd feel like I have nothing. As long as it's there I can't feel like I have nothing. I can't be fully abandoned or cast out.
This morning I take up too much space to consider the issue of whether I am human or whether I belong. My mind unfolds into this physical space slowly and completely without room for such questions. My thoughts fit my internal architecture and they run along safe lines until they've built up enough security to wander off the path a little.
Only one plant, the field plant, of my green cherry tomato has ripened fruits. The others, on the deck primarily, are holding there large and green. The plants seem very uniform otherwise and the seeds are all from the same fruit, why would one ripen so far before the others? Is my deck that much colder?
(What is the experience of feeling safe like?)
Gete Oksomin and North Georgia Candy Roaster squash have female flowers on them now with long, slender baby fruits behind. Some of the lofthouse squashes do too, round fruits of course. Burgess buttercup was first to the female fruit party, and I think it has at least one fruit forming. That fruit should be pollinated with everything in the field, I want to make sure to save the seeds. I'm a little bit disappointed that it's first since it's not exotic but it's nice that it's doing so well.
(I handle myself at my worst and that makes me stronger than you, as the meme goes, but I don't want strength. I want softness. I want a place to rest, not a place to fight for space.)
The sweet success cucumbers don't seem to be setting more fruit, but the suyo long cukes are now. One of the joys of variety trialling is remembering the synergy in diversity, is being told over and over that many is better than one. One of the joys of variety trialling is having an accidental, perfectly timed succession crop of cucumbers and going on a sunomono kick. It's not hard for me to maintain diversity in my garden because my excitement, my driving force, drives towards it. So many people delight in diversity. We try to reign it in by saying: finish one project before starting the next, do one thing at a time. It can be a real strength though.
Putting a vanilla bean in my pillow feels like a waste, using something valuable just for my own pleasure. Growing a garden feels like a contribution.
(The question of "am I asking too much?" is replaced, as always, with a shrug. Even before PDA, before the idea of neurodivergence, I'd learned that regardless of who I should be, this is who I *am*. If folks take offense at that, if they disagree with it, I still exist. Other people who are not like me still exist too. Interaction with me isn't forced upon anyone.)
The Ugandan vanilla beans smelled particularly good. Vanilla is one thing I do for my own pleasure: physical pleasure, which is so hard to feel like it's worth putting resources into, rather than intellectual pleasure which has been encouraged in me all my life. It's the one kind of play I was allowed, that I can dive into with no compunctions.
(Maybe he's right, maybe that needed to have been shared to work. Even if not completely, having shared play takes it down a notch, it establishes cameraderie. I play with so few other people and so often with myself. What is the variety trial but an enormous game? And back in the day MUSHing and roleplay were the kind of deadly serious play that baby animals engage in. Pretend to be humans together so later you can be good at it.)
(Not playing with the other kids is one of the biggest flags/diagnostic criteria for autism in boy kids. It often looks different in women apparently. None of the people who talk about this stuff acknowledge that something like a third of autistic folks fit into neither category. I am always outside categories, always invisible, always an imposition on everyone's idea of what _should_ be)
The vanilla beans come in a ziploc bag in a mailer and their scent seeps out. When they're packaged like that, or still in the bag, the scent lies in the air like spiderwebs and brushes my senses when I turn my head or walk through the room. It's enormously grounding. It calls me back here to this space. What would it take to be allowed to love this space?
(Security)
(Is there a way to have security and also to have people? I think so)
(I have it)
Demon jumps onto the sofa and sits next to me, curling his paws over my thigh as if it was a deli counter. He purrs expectantly and I pet him. He's soft and warm and he just sits there, enjoying being petted, and then climbs onto my lap between my torso and the laptop. He keeps purring.
I'm suddenly very tired again, as I have been for the last two days. Demon closes his eyes and rests his head on my arm, still purring.
(My narrative has been that I'm not good at the middle ground. That defines myself onto the fringe. It positions me as an outlier.)
I'm slouching my back into more and more of a C shape against the arm of the sofa. I can feel the tension there and in my shoulders and the front of my forehead. It doesn't release as easily when I notice it this time.
My hands seem too heavy to move on the keys, maybe in part because of the cat on my arms. Maybe in part it's because I'm coming to the space that needs a pause.
It's ok. I'll still be here when I get back.
YChang's "The Struggle Continues" is gone from the internet, felled by the end of Adobe's flash player. I don't even remember how many years ago I found that, it was definitely before youtube, definitely before videos were a regular thing.
The struggle continues.
This morning I am unknotting my muscles one by one. I am breathing, in for three, hold for three, out for three, hold for three: like that. Lower my right shoulder a quarter-inch. Relax that side of my trapezius. Breathe again.
The sky is milky grey and dripping. Sometimes there's a single metallic drip sound from my chimney. There is a rooster out there calling the food call and a duck calling, maybe flirtily to a drake?
I am unknotting my mind a piece at a time. It's safe here. Without central heating the fridge is my usual source of background noise and it is blessedly quiet right now. I can hear the spaciousness of this main room, of the cathedral ceiling and out into the empty cluttered kitchen. A car drives by on the road. The highway is, for the moment, also silent.
I am letting my mind fall open like a mouse poking its nose out of a hole: twitching, waiting for cats. I am letting my mind fall open like a flower blooming in a jar: petals opening one-by-one to lie against the walls, a small bud eventually rumpling outwards to pack itself into the space.
It's cold here. My arms and thighs are tight with goosebumps. Yesterday I was too hot, too cold, too hot again, lightheaded, my arms had no strength. The latter is normal for me on and off, the former is not.
Breathe in. Breathe out. Put my shoulders back down a fraction of an inch; they'd risen again. Breathe in. There's resistance in my sternum, a prickling pressure that is only suffocating when I read it as physical. Breathe out. Breathe in.
The sky is dripping. I want to go lie between the rows of my tomatoes on the soil. I want to curl my knees up to my chest and feel warmth coming up into me from the ground, stored from the sun, but the ground is not warm right now and the sky is dripping. Once I've hauled a blanket out there to wrap around me it's just not the same.
If I were lying between the tomatoes I could breathe in that unmistakable smell, breathe in, breathe out, discern the slightly different scent of the different varieties. I could breathe and the ground would push up against my shoulders and hips and legs and the side of my head as firmly as a good handshake. Once I worked my shoulders down again I could refocus my eyes and notice the shiny curve of green fruits ripening.
In times of emotional extremity I always put myself into the land. That's where it's safe. It's a visceral, comforting connection and I am lucky to have it. There are days when, without it, I'd feel like I have nothing. As long as it's there I can't feel like I have nothing. I can't be fully abandoned or cast out.
This morning I take up too much space to consider the issue of whether I am human or whether I belong. My mind unfolds into this physical space slowly and completely without room for such questions. My thoughts fit my internal architecture and they run along safe lines until they've built up enough security to wander off the path a little.
Only one plant, the field plant, of my green cherry tomato has ripened fruits. The others, on the deck primarily, are holding there large and green. The plants seem very uniform otherwise and the seeds are all from the same fruit, why would one ripen so far before the others? Is my deck that much colder?
(What is the experience of feeling safe like?)
Gete Oksomin and North Georgia Candy Roaster squash have female flowers on them now with long, slender baby fruits behind. Some of the lofthouse squashes do too, round fruits of course. Burgess buttercup was first to the female fruit party, and I think it has at least one fruit forming. That fruit should be pollinated with everything in the field, I want to make sure to save the seeds. I'm a little bit disappointed that it's first since it's not exotic but it's nice that it's doing so well.
(I handle myself at my worst and that makes me stronger than you, as the meme goes, but I don't want strength. I want softness. I want a place to rest, not a place to fight for space.)
The sweet success cucumbers don't seem to be setting more fruit, but the suyo long cukes are now. One of the joys of variety trialling is remembering the synergy in diversity, is being told over and over that many is better than one. One of the joys of variety trialling is having an accidental, perfectly timed succession crop of cucumbers and going on a sunomono kick. It's not hard for me to maintain diversity in my garden because my excitement, my driving force, drives towards it. So many people delight in diversity. We try to reign it in by saying: finish one project before starting the next, do one thing at a time. It can be a real strength though.
Putting a vanilla bean in my pillow feels like a waste, using something valuable just for my own pleasure. Growing a garden feels like a contribution.
(The question of "am I asking too much?" is replaced, as always, with a shrug. Even before PDA, before the idea of neurodivergence, I'd learned that regardless of who I should be, this is who I *am*. If folks take offense at that, if they disagree with it, I still exist. Other people who are not like me still exist too. Interaction with me isn't forced upon anyone.)
The Ugandan vanilla beans smelled particularly good. Vanilla is one thing I do for my own pleasure: physical pleasure, which is so hard to feel like it's worth putting resources into, rather than intellectual pleasure which has been encouraged in me all my life. It's the one kind of play I was allowed, that I can dive into with no compunctions.
(Maybe he's right, maybe that needed to have been shared to work. Even if not completely, having shared play takes it down a notch, it establishes cameraderie. I play with so few other people and so often with myself. What is the variety trial but an enormous game? And back in the day MUSHing and roleplay were the kind of deadly serious play that baby animals engage in. Pretend to be humans together so later you can be good at it.)
(Not playing with the other kids is one of the biggest flags/diagnostic criteria for autism in boy kids. It often looks different in women apparently. None of the people who talk about this stuff acknowledge that something like a third of autistic folks fit into neither category. I am always outside categories, always invisible, always an imposition on everyone's idea of what _should_ be)
The vanilla beans come in a ziploc bag in a mailer and their scent seeps out. When they're packaged like that, or still in the bag, the scent lies in the air like spiderwebs and brushes my senses when I turn my head or walk through the room. It's enormously grounding. It calls me back here to this space. What would it take to be allowed to love this space?
(Security)
(Is there a way to have security and also to have people? I think so)
(I have it)
Demon jumps onto the sofa and sits next to me, curling his paws over my thigh as if it was a deli counter. He purrs expectantly and I pet him. He's soft and warm and he just sits there, enjoying being petted, and then climbs onto my lap between my torso and the laptop. He keeps purring.
I'm suddenly very tired again, as I have been for the last two days. Demon closes his eyes and rests his head on my arm, still purring.
(My narrative has been that I'm not good at the middle ground. That defines myself onto the fringe. It positions me as an outlier.)
I'm slouching my back into more and more of a C shape against the arm of the sofa. I can feel the tension there and in my shoulders and the front of my forehead. It doesn't release as easily when I notice it this time.
My hands seem too heavy to move on the keys, maybe in part because of the cat on my arms. Maybe in part it's because I'm coming to the space that needs a pause.
It's ok. I'll still be here when I get back.