Back from Starry Coast

[mrissa]

So last week I spent a week in a beach house in Charleston doing the Starry Coast writers’ workshop with ten strangers. No longer strangers after a week together! I had very little idea what to expect, other than the immediate practicalities, but I went in with a great deal of hope, a bunch of chocolate to share, and a theory that I could deal

Comments

[swan_tower]

Oh, that sounds fantastic. And thank you for writing so vividly about the experience; it helps to have that window, to understand what good accommodation looks like.

[mrissa]

Some parts of this particular accommodation are really hard to predict. For example, one of the people I love most in the world is physically incapable of watching their personal space in terms of not bumping into people if they are sharing a kitchen. I have talked to them about it. Others have talked to them about it on my behalf. They are trying very hard and very earnestly. It is something they honestly cannot notice themself doing--if you are both getting lunch in the kitchen and you are reaching up for a water glass in the cupboards, they will bump your shoulder just marginally as they move past to get into the fridge. They will not mean to. They will be trying not to with all their conscious mind. But they are physically unable to keep the edges of their physical person that much in mind

[teadog1425]

Apologies for intruding on the conversation, but I was really struck by what you describe above, as it mirrors something I have found with horses

[mrissa]

The problem is that it is a lot to ask of a person who is not living with one. If it was a housemate, a spouse or other life partner, quite possibly this level of rewiring would be a reasonable thing to ask. But for a loved one who lives somewhere else and is not experiencing it as a problem in their life but as an aspect of your disability...you see the issue?

I don't experience the comment as intrusive at all. It's very interesting. I'm just not sure that it works as a solution in this specific case.

[teadog1425]

Yes, I completely agree - I was not at all sure that it worked as a potential solution for this - the parallels just really struck me strongly

[mrissa]

I am so glad no one around me finds it hilarious when I fall. I think I would have a hard time feeling warmly towards them if they did.

I am not always great at asking for help and trusting others to give it appropriately, either, so this was indeed really good.

I think one of the things that can contribute to more bumping is upbringing. If you were raised in very small living quarters or with quite a few people, the idea that you would have a bubble of space around you that you would only break deliberately to express affection is one that can be extremely foreign. Whether it's ten children in a farmhouse or four in a city apartment, if there just isn't room, one of the adjustments some people make is to habituate to other people in their personal space very quickly. (Others go the other direction and the bubble around each family member/housemate is inviolable.) And even when they're not in that situation any more, it has defined itself as normal in some very subconscious ways that are difficult to undo. I don't know for

[ethelmay]

This sounds frighteningly familiar. My spatial sense definitely varies with my emotional state. You know those jokes about women who can't parallel park when they have their periods? That's me. (I can, actually. But I have to think my way through it very carefully, and talk myself out of feeling guilty that I am like this, and, and, well, sometimes it's easier to park somewhere else.)