Poetry is ballet in words.
Graceful, agile words, yawning and leaping while whispering and shouting all at once.
The ending is the beginning
like water colors
I had no access to any of it
no way to share the beauty
alone
the dance
with no one to answer or interact
I was alone in the intense happiness
but now
I can choose to dance with others
when I want.
Posted in Autism, autistic, communication
Tagged alone, ballet, Communicating, dance, happiness, joy, non-speaking, poetry, speaking, together, Typing, unreliable speaker, Words, writing
Digging through ghostly shards
pummeling the words that shout from within
understanding too much,
the vice grip of constant anxiety
offers the spoken words access that no one can fully know.
I fight to voice what I mean,
but “Mindy” and “Rebecca” crash through
and grab the microphone from my hand
that finds tenuous comfort in the string
I wrap around and around like a carousel.
August, 2014
Posted in anxiety, Autism, unreliable speaker
Tagged autistic, communication, poem, poetry, RPM, spoken language, spoken words, unreliable speaker, unreliable speech, unspoken language
Needing time to learn, understanding concepts and refining techniques are all done on separate timelines. Best to approach each with curiosity and patience, with a large dose of belief in the other person.
Ticking clocks of expectation become toxic. Learning to believe is the homework for all educators. Belief in another’s humanity, respecting different learning styles and compassion for all makes a great teacher and student.
Having a wonderful teacher is life changing.
Posted in autistic, presume competence, RPM
Tagged Autism, believe, Education, Educators, expectations, learning, Patience, teachers, teaching, unreliable speaker
Change is upon us.
Look around. What do you see? Do you see changes in your life?
Backwards movement can be labeled bad, but sometimes it is not. Maybe like human evolution, lasting change must be slow.
Meandering along with inevitable change benefits some, whose go-with-the-flow attitude is like starlings flying in formation, but if only a few break away, everything changes.
Have you ever watched starlings?
Here.
Aren’t they beautiful?
Oh, how I should like to be one of the starlings to lead a new way.
Starlings
This is a story about a teen girl chasing a dream to be a singer, despite being unable to talk…
The first time she heard a voice being used as an instrument, was the day she would mark as euphoric. How hard able bodied people have to work to make their visions come to life, caused her to doubt whether she could dare to desire such a career for herself. Speaking was almost impossible though she was given the tools to sing words by hitting letters on a keyboard. She knew with determination, practice and patience she could, at least, try. A challenge she embraced and will tackle greedily.
Easy and challenge are not friends, but joy and challenge can be.
Find joy in challenges and life changes.
Emma Singing
Posted in Autism, autistic, Teens
Tagged career, challenges, communication, dare to dream, dreams, hard work, joy, Performing, RPM, singing, spoken words, Typing, typing to communicate, unreliable speaker
I have a piece of writing to share.
When your eyes are drawn to a mirror, what do you see?
Is it familiar or unfamiliar?
Do you like what you see?
There may be a struggle with recognition. Stay with it.
Imagine something beautiful.
Make yourself smile and hold it.
Recite a favorite story or joke. This can be done in silence or in speaking.
Repeat your name however you would like to.
Do you like what you see?
The End ~ By Emma Zurcher-Long
Mirror, Mirror, What do you See?
Posted in Autism, Autism Acceptance, autistic, self-advocacy
Tagged autistic, Beauty, communication, concepts of beauty, RPM, self acceptance, unreliable speaker
(A note on Emma’s post. Because this is a fictitious dialogue that Emma wrote, for clarity’s sake, I asked her if it was okay to put the Autistic person’s words and thoughts in italics and the non autistic’s words in quotation marks. She agreed. My part of the conversation is in parentheses.)
For today’s blog post, let’s pretend you are the Autistic one and I should be the non autistic.
“Oh dear! Why are you hurting yourself?”
(I asked Emma whether the Autistic person could use spoken language to speak.)
You can’t speak and I will talk for both of us, it will be more authentic that way. Maybe you talk, but not with the words that best describe what’s in your mind.
“I don’t understand, do you want to go outside? Why are you biting yourself? Does that mean you do?”
You are thinking about expectations and how hitting yourself takes away the pain of not being understood and unable to say the words that will help.
“Here! We will go outside. It’s a beautiful day.”
I don’t want to go outside. I want to read a story.
Pointless bottling emotions of endless frustration cause words to wither in the recesses of the mind. Biting becomes the only way to stay rooted, but causes everyone watching to respond in loud voices of angry fear. Until there is understanding, you are alone in the terrible confusion of other people’s voices that are louder than yours.
Caution is needed whenever we decide we know what is in the mind of another human being.
Ceramic Dish of Hope ~ Made by Emma
Outside looking in on a world with a different reality.
There is room for all.
Benign feelings contradict human thoughts about survival.
We treat others with care and feel the joy that comes with that. We treat others harshly and then pain is felt by both.
Problems arise when people take pleasure in other’s pain. Words cause joy, but also can cause pain.
Better to sing and dance!
This is what Emma wrote this morning in answer to my question, “What do you want to blog about this morning?”
We have been studying gene mutation, evolution, Darwin and how species adapt to their environment. We have also just finished reading Romeo and Juliet. I see the influence of all of these topics as well as Emma’s own unique and exquisitely compassionate take on this world and life.
Emma’s Bowl made in ceramics with cookie cutters and then painted.
Ariane: What should we start our day with? German, a blog post, general writing, fiction, poetry or something else?
Emma: Just start with blog post.
A: What would you like to post about this morning?
Emma: How about the topic: Knowing many things, but having no one believe you are able to understand.
Ariane: This is a great topic! Do you want me to say anything or keep quiet so you can continue?
Emma: I will continue.
For many years this was the title of my life. It was long hours bloated with mindless screams of nonsensical searing memory words that no one understood the significance of. The feeling of pleased joy when another believes, and then astounds the non believers by interacting with their knowing, is like beams of brilliant light shouting through the dreary darkness. Diving heavy waters it cannot be described, but the word coming closest is love, and to all who cannot believe in what they do not understand, try to be silent for years without words meaning what you have been taught. This might help the misunderstood.
Ariane: Wow, Emma, that’s really beautiful. What else?
Emma: You can add commentary now.
Ariane here adding commentary, which is a little like being asked to perform after The Rolling Stones just rocked the house…
I am always struck by Emma’s words. It is the force with which she writes and the compelling word choices she makes that convey a depth of emotion, an intensity and complexity of feelings, as well as insights that make me stop and reread her words over and over. This paragraph took about forty-five minutes for her to write, not because she edited or had to go back and rewrite, but because that is how long it took for her finger to locate the correct key one letter at a time.
“Nonsensical searing memory words…” I so want to know more about this. Does she mean the often repeated sentences that are about the past, the words I once assumed were simply memories thrusting themselves front and center? A kind of Möbius strip of thought, like an infinity symbol wrapping around and around itself? I have learned to reside in the unknowing, the discomfort of being unsure, the scratchy realization that I cannot ever truly know, though I can make guesses and then ask if these are correct. I no longer assume words spoken are meaningless or simply memories or are scripts that are being blurted out compulsively and without thought. I’ve written about these bridges before ‘here‘. Those words and sentences that are full of meaning, but whose meaning is not immediately apparent to me upon first hearing.
“… that no one understood the significance of.” I will ask her about this later. She used the past tense and that makes me hopeful that we are not continuing this kind of awful misunderstanding. “…beams of brilliant light shouting through the dreary darkness.” Who among us does not want that feeling for those we love? Is this not what love is? Connection with another?
“… to all who cannot believe in what they do not understand, try to be silent for years without words meaning what you have been taught. This might help the misunderstood.”
Those who think being silent for an hour or two will give them any real insight into what it is like to not have words readily available, either by writing or speaking, cannot possibly understand. We must shift our thinking beyond the hour or two, beyond the day, beyond a month, but instead try years. Years of opening your mouth to speak, but having words tumble forth that are not what you intended, or saying something you intend only to have it misunderstood, or repeating a memory because it conveys so much that is relevant to the NOW only to be asked to discuss more about that particular memory and not what it signifies, it’s deeper meaning. To say words, to write words only to be told you do not understand metaphor. To reach out in vain to connect with a world that continually turns its back or mouths that smile with faces flooded with fear, or superiority or judgement or intolerance or disgust.
End of commentary.
Ariane: What sort of image should we put with this post?
Emma: How about a photo of the two of us. Daddy can take it.
Ariane: I was thinking we could title this post: “Knowing Many Things” and the Impact of Disbelief From Others. What do you think?
Emma: No.
Ariane: Okay. What would you like the title to be?
Emma: The Impact of Believing in Incapability
February 3, 2015
Posted in Autism, communication, Parenting
Tagged autistic, disbelief, incapable, knowledge, non-speaking, presume competence, presuming competence, silence, speaking, Typing, unreliable speaker, Words
When we began homeschooling I was absolutely terrified. I didn’t see how I could do it. I closed my studio. I set up a space in our home so that I could continue to run my business. I told myself we would take each day as though it were one small baby step at a time. I reminded myself when I began to hyperventilate from panic and fear that I just needed to concentrate on today and not the rest of our lives. When my anxiety felt too difficult to manage I focused on the next moment. I wrote lists, I purchased an old fashioned day calendar to write out subjects we would cover each day. And then I sat down with Emma. I asked her whether she thought homeschooling was a good idea.
Emma typed, “You believe in me and once creating versions of getting the truth, I am able to go far.”
I said, and I’m not exactly proud of my need for reassurance that she understood, but I said it anyway, “You realize it means you will not go back to school, right?”
Emma wrote, “Yes. Taking my awesome nice teacher named mom what cabaret kind of life awaits me, I can only guess.” A little later she wrote, “Know that love teaches more than doubt.”
I asked Emma how she wanted to do all of this.
She typed, “make a schedule mapping out lots of topics both written and spoken.” Then she shocked me by writing, “sometime I want to learn another language, how about german?”
“Wow! Seriously?” I asked.
“Yes.”
So here we are some eight months in and we are still finding our footing. Each day is slightly different. I still rely heavily on that old fashioned calendar where I fill in what we are working on and for how long. Every morning I ask Emma for her input as to what she wants to learn. I still, occasionally, feel I’m not doing enough. I still, though far less frequently, find myself panicking and wondering how we are going to do this. I still, though rarely, wonder if what we are teaching is enough. But through out these last eight months, I have never felt so sure of anything we’ve done as this decision to homeschool.
As many of you know I am no stranger to regret. Homeschooling is not on that list. In fact, the only regret I have about homeschooling is that we didn’t do this sooner.
We have been blessed with a couple of wonderful family members who volunteer their time via Skype and one non-family member who teaches Emma literacy. At the moment Emma is ripping through Act 4 of Romeo and Juliet. Her sessions with K. are a highlight of her week. K. tirelessly and enthusiastically comes to our home with new ideas of how Emma can make notes on text so that she can later cite parts of the play to back up her answers to questions like: “At the end of Act 3, Scene 2, Juliet is of two minds about what has happened. What are some words that demonstrate her split thinking?”
Together K. and Emma are exploring “writing craft” and delving into language, tension, foreshadowing, story arc and character development. We use Khan Academy, Brain Pop, books, lots and lots of books and the internet to research and learn, as well as Rosetta Stone for German. I also am using Duolingo to supplement Rosetta Stone for German, but Emma is not yet able to use it as it relies too much on writing. The beauty of Rosetta Stone is that it relies on pointing to images to match text primarily. In addition, we have a Graduate Student who comes to work on art and Emma is taking ceramics, swimming/diving, gymnastics and piano and guitar lessons.
We have created a little nook devoted to various materials we use for lessons and while it’s usually in a state of complete disarray, there is some semblance of order, even if only to me and Emma. The single most essential item other than the keyboard and stand for the iPad in the photograph below is the Timed Timer. Without it we would be lost. Emma explained to me that when I forget to put on the timer she is filled with rising panic and anxiety. She told me that without a visual timer, “time can stand still, while anxiety pushes all out of its way.” We now own three different sizes of the Timed Timer, though Emma’s preference is the largest one they have, twelve inches, for our home sessions.
A nook of one’s own…
Posted in learning at home, Parenting, teaching
Tagged Autism, autistic, english, German, homeschooling, language, literature, Parenting, Romeo and Juliet, Timed Timer, typing to communicate, unreliable speaker, unschooling
Emma's Hope Book 