poem

❣️

by

all the little things you do are done for love.

don’t doubt it. shout about it.

shout about the things you do for love.

(it’s about the little things)

little things are moved toward love.

(If you are moved, move the little things toward love)

love this, sweetie

lovethislovethislovethislovethislove

[💗]

by

When one offers a request for respect
(reasonable)
one seems to hear a demand for compliance
(white)

When one offers an invitation to consider
(black)
one seems to hear a demand to comply
(unreasonable)

One suspects that somewhere between reasonable offerings
(black)
and unreasonable demands
(white)
there’s a place one meets

(not just grey, but infinitely colorful,
including all the greys and colors)

(if there’s a space between)

(one has faith and hope
in the space between)

One has faith in respecting the request for respect, and
one has hope in considering the invitation to consider.

Somewhere between
reasonable and unreasonable,
black and white

–as vulnerable as that space might seem–

there’s hope that one meets faith there.

One might say there’s faith in hope there.
One might hear in hope there’s faith there.

The heart is in the space between.

💙

by

i don’t know
if it’s funny
or sad

that people can read
a poem from a hundred
years ago

and laugh
but when their friend
writes a poem

they worry about
their mental health

(whose mental health
are they worried about?)

even people who
love the blues,
which is often

funny and sad:
that’s the blues
in a nutshell.

who doesn’t feel
funny and sad?
and who doesn’t love

the blues?
that’s what love is

all about. (maybe they
don’t know what love is)

everything changes

by

My hut has a dirt floor, basically,
(as I stopped running
the vacuum
at some point in recent time).

If paper counts as leaves,
the leaves make comforting drifts
astride the pathway
from my hut to the outhouse.

I think my style of housekeeping lately reflects my desire to live simply, in a natural environment.

Spiders and moths are my constant companions,
and I try to stay out of their way,
knowing the good work they do,
in keeping things safe,
and gravitating toward the moon.
I applaud them,
and mostly try to stay
out of their way.

(although, truth be told,
their way is a wonderful,
curious, and magical way,
that I suspect I would do
well to follow)

There are curious smells that drift in from the forest,
and varied and curious pockets of decay,
and growth from within the decay.

(I suspect my gut flora is in really good shape)

For whatever task I find myself engaged in,
the forest offers useful tools and curiosities to interact with,
making the way a wonder of
achievement, and
a joy to behold,
on a moment’s notice.

My ear’s love of novelty is satisfied
by the variety of sound environments,
in a plethora of timbres and tones and textures,
that exist within these spaces,
right here at my fingertips.

(It’s kind of amazing)

There are pools here and there where I see my reflection,
well enough, from various angles.
Not perfectly clear, but
clear enough. I recognize
my appearance,
just enough.

My sleeping bag smells like me,
(as it should be),
and I bathe occasionally in a waterfall,
where the rocks beneath my feet are a bit slippery.
I’m engaged in clearing a space around
my sleeping bag, so the dust
doesn’t get in.

(It’s going well enough)

The voices of my ancestors are very close,
and I can tune in to them at any moment,
at my whimsy.
They’ve always been there, and I’m
thankful for their many
myriad reminders.

(close, but not too close)

I’m finding myself increasingly accepting
of mother earth, in her endless and curious and
sometimes baffling and overwhelming variety and craft.

I’m finding myself accepting, increasingly,
of father sky’s demands for attention,
his ever predictable and demanding attempts at overwhelming my attention,
with his hasty attempts at craft.

(good enough attempts at craft,
blunt though they are)

I’m finding myself loving the infinite variety,
and increasingly overwhelming subtlety of my children’s directed attention, and attentional arcs, and disengagement from attentional arcs.

(craft is in their design)

In the shapes and colors and sounds and smells and textures around me,
I am reminded of my friends and relations.

(and it occurs to me)

I love visiting my friends in their zen temple environments,
but I seem to be made to live in a more natural environment.

At least for now.

Thanks for bearing witness with me.

Thanks for listening. Thanks for being flexible. Thanks for being changeable with me.

Everything changes.

🍬

by

An autistic person is a person that is like a unique confection,

When placed on the tongue, it elicits a strong response to some flavor that you might be averse to,

But as that initial response dissipates, underneath there is a curious combination of flavors that you hadn’t considered before, and you’re not so sure how you feel about,

And if you continue to feel about it, all the flavors dissolve into the honey of the center. The deepest delicatest honiest of honey.

The place where we all want to be met.

An autistic person is a person that is like a unique confection: challenging at first, but worth the effort.

More than worth the effort.

note to parents:

by

there are lots of things to recognize in the busy world, and as we age, it’s natural that we’ll recognize more things. It’s just the way of things. Not everyone remembers this.

But if you grew up with grandparents, who nurtured you the way grandparents do, by making space for you to just be who you are, by being less busy, because they recognize themselves in you, you’ll recognize that if your children don’t grow up with grandparents, maybe it’s a good idea to nurture them a little more like grandparents do, by making space for them to be just who they are, and a little less like parents do, busy making sure that every detail’s taken care of, and managing their schedules, schedules that manage to reign in all their impulses, their beautiful human impulses to respond to their world in strange and beautiful ways.

Grandparents recognize strange and beautiful things and ways, simply because they’ve had time to recognize things and ways, and recognize themselves in things and ways, and make space for them. They’ve resolved something that allows them to see beauty in the strangest ways and strangeness in the most beautiful things.

They recognize themselves in you (remember, they were parents too).

If your child is growing up without grandparents, give someone permission to be their grandparents. Maybe the person you’ll recognize and give permission to is you. Permission granted.

💌

by

If you get a funny email, that was sent at 12:35am, from someone you recently had a conversation with, and nurtured with your smile, it’s likely they’re autistic, and for the few moments of your conversation, they believed that you were the best of friends, because you listened to their words, and words are how they feel, and you made that person feel special, for a moment, and in gratitude, they’re trying to nurture you, in the ways that autistic languagers do. They probably believe it’s what they’re supposed to do. Be gentle with them. Maybe humor them a little. They haven’t always been met with the kind of nurturing you made space for. If you are able to slow down enough, you might be able to hear, through the way the rhythms and rhymes flow out, how they are feeling, if you’re open to feeling how other people feel. If you aren’t able to slow down enough, it’s good to slow down. Enough. Thanks for listening.