Hi from California!
Youngest and I are in San Diego visiting my beloved sister.
As you can see, we decided to take advantage of the plethora of plastic surgeons and hair salons to have some work done:
My sister looks great:
Youngest will surely look all So Cal after another week here:
More when I get home …
Writing in the desert, an adobe study
I think that Death Comes for the Archbishop is my end-of-August read because the lovely painting on the cover of my copy is filled with blues and yellows and oranges, the colors of late summer/early autumn. Also, there is something about returning to teaching that calls up what little Bishop Latour I have in me. And of course, woodsmoke. If you have never read this book, don’t let the title dissuade you. Only the last, very-short chunk deals with his death. Most of the book is very lively and uplifting.
…the Bishop sat at his desk writing letters … Father Latour had chosen for his study a room at one end of the wing. It was a long room of agreeable shape. The thick clay walls had been finished on the inside by the deft palms of Indian women, and had the irregular and intimate quality of things made entirely by the human hand. There was a reassuring solidity and depth about those walls, rounded at door-sills and window-sills, rounded in wide wings about the corner fire-place. The interior had been newly whitewashed, and the flicker of the fire threw a rosy glow over the wavy surfaces, never quite flat, never a dead white, for the ruddy colour of the clay underneath gave a warm tone to the lime wash. The ceiling was made of heavy cedar beams, overlaid by aspen saplings, all of one size, lying close together like the ribs in corduroy an clad in their ruddy skins. The earth floor was covered with thick Indian blankets; two blankets, every old, and beautiful in design and colour, were hung on the walls like tapestries.
On either side of the fire-place, plastered recesses were let into the wall. In one, narrow and arched, stood the Bishop’s crucifix. The other was square, with a carved door, like a grill, and within it lay a few rare and beautiful books. The rest of the Bishop’s libray was on open shelves at one end of the room.
The desk at which the Bishop sat writing was an importation, a walnut “secretary” of American make. The silver candlesticks he had brought from France long ago. They were given to him by a beloved aunt when he was ordained.
The young Bishop’s pen flew over the paper, leaving a trail of fine, finished French script behind in violet ink.
“My new study, dear brother, as I write, is full of the delicious fragrance of the pinon logs burning in my fireplace. (We use this kind of cedar-wood altogether for fuel, and it is highly aromatic, yet delicate. At our meanest tasks we have a perpetual odor of incense about us.)”
The Bishop laid down his pen and lit two candles with a splinter from the fire, then stood dusting his fingers by the deep-set window, looking out at the pale blue darkening sky. The evening-star hung above the amber afterglow, so soft, so brilliant that she seemed to bathe in her own silver light. Ave Maria Stella, the song which one of his friends at the Seminary used to intone so beautifully; humming it softly he returned to his desk and was just dipping his pen in the ink when the door opened…
Grandmother’s Song – Aspergian “Rudeness”
As a follow-up to the Monty Python post, here is the long-promised Steve Martin post, similarly more funny if you know the allusions. So here is the best I could find for “Grandmother’s Song.”
The other night Andy and I got into a discussion about social “lying,” and I keep reprocessing it, trying to explain it to myself so I can explain it to him. Andy is repulsed by the idea that anyone would say “Call me if you need someone to talk to” and not really mean it. I, on the other hand, do things like that all the time. And on one side of my mind, I do mean it. I mean, “In a perfect world, where I had limitless time and energy, you are most definitely a person who deserves the ear of a thoughtful and caring listener and I would be willing to be that listener in a perfect world.” The other side of my words says, “You and I both know that this is not a perfect world, and you know that what I said means that you are a person worthy of my attention but that I don’t really mean that you should call because you know I am only a casual acquaintance and you should call someone nearer and dearer.”
Hearing myself actually verbalize this mental negotiation for Andy, I can understand why all this seems illogical and complicated, that it would be much easier and more logical if we all said what we meant, as Andy suggests: “I am sorry for your troubles. You need to talk to someone for support, but I am not the one. I don’t know you well enough. Here’s a quarter, call someone who cares.” In his mind this is the preferable route. The unguents that oil the social machinery appear as so much chicanery to him. And I do understand that.
I am pretty sure comedian Steve Martin’s “grandmother” must have had Asperger’s or lived with someone with it. Her song of advice for behavior, which Martin sings accompanied by his banjo, is meant to be absurdist, but it reads as startling close to what I see as the Asperger Code of Conduct.
It starts off as what most NTs and Aspies alike would identify as common social mores:
Be courteous, kind and forgiving,
Be gentle and peaceful each day,
Be warm and human and grateful,
And have a good thing to say.
I think most Aspies would be able to identify and label these behaviors cognitively and attempt to mimic them, knowing it is what society has agreed to try and do. They also by nature live out the first three lines of the next verse:
Be thoughtful and trustful and childlike,
Be witty and happy and wise,
Be honest and love all your neighbors,
Aspies are “thoughtful” – very – though their thoughts may take a unique form. And their obsessive special interest may indeed be “considerately” applied to serving their loved ones: gourmet meals, a clean pool, a meticulously planned trip. Taking everything literally, they are “trustful” to the point of gullibility, “childlike” for sure, and witty, and wise, honest to a fault, and “loving” of all their neighbors, though often in the form of absolute truthfulness, whether it beneficially “hurts” the neighbor or not.
At a recent informational farm seminar, Andy was explaining how he organizes his time to get out into the fields early and cut the hay when it’s at its peak nutritional value.
Another farmer responded with, “Yeah, well some of us actually have to milk our cows first.” (Andy, of course, had hired someone to milk our cows as soon as we could afford hired labor because he realized that this was the simplest task on the farm that he could delegate, leaving himself more time for managing the money-making aspects of the business, such as early first-cutting hay.)
Without sending his thoughts through any filter first, either emotional or social, Andy turned right to this farmer and said, “Whose fault is that?”
Of course the farmer was offended, though several other excellent farm managers in the audience suppressed laughs. Andy said to me later, “He needed to hear that. I was doing him a favor. Everyone else is too polite to say anything.”
I confess to extreme embarrassment if I am with Andy in situations like this. I find myself smiling apologetically at the offended one, commiserating later in a whisper, “Don’t take it personally. He does that to me all the time.” I know this is disloyal, but my innate instinct to preserve the social fabric usually outweighs my individual loyalty to my husband’s discourtesy. After all, what if we need a favor from this guy at some point?
Then there is the last line of this verse: “Be obsequious, purple, and clairvoyant.” Martin meant this to be absurdist, but in my experience, an Aspie looks at the niceties of social interaction and finds they clash with his own intense desire to be truthful and logical. Is this how we NTs look? That our flattery and kind words are insincere and obsequious? And besides, when we gush positively over something that is obviously distasteful, I am sure our prose does looks pretty purple.
What about our skill at being “polite”? Wouldn’t that mean reading someone’s mind and knowing what they want? As one Aspergian lamented, what is funny to one person is insulting to the next. In the mind-blindness of the Asperger brain, the NT ability to know the difference, knowing who is likely to laugh at the joke and who is likely to be insulted, must seem like clairvoyance that is beyond attainment.
I have heard Andy say that if he has trouble sorting out someone’s emotional intentions or receptivity, he just drops them as a potential friend because it’s too much work and worry for him to be second guessing.
There is also the extremely sensitive “bullshit meter” that seems part and parcel of the Asperger brain. Any sign of falsehood and the Aspie is ready to blow its cover. Aspergian memoirist John Elder Robison tells a hysterical story of attending a faculty party of one of his parents. As the attendees tout their own sons’ acceptances at Harvard and Yale, Robison decides to test their pompous boundaries. He gathers a crowd by telling a fantastic tale of his “job” as a Sanitation Engineer, i.e. garbage man, finding dead babies in dumpsters and beating off feral children. His justification for this was “Some of [my parents’] friends were okay, but others seemed to me arrogant and conceited, and it was starting to make me angry.”
From the NT perspective, of course, looking through our vastly complex and sophisticated social filters, the Aspie and his social “honesty” have their own appearance:
Be pompous, obese, and eat cactus,
Be dull, and boring, and omnipresent,
Criticize things you don’t know about,
Be oblong and have your knees removed.
I can attest to the sometime pomposity of the Aspergian. Aspies do know things and remember things, so Andy can with ease pull facts out of his photographic memories and correct any error in another’s statements.
I’ll say, “I think the Fed is going to cut rates again to encourage spending.”
“Actually,” Andy will respond, “cutting the prime will make Federal funds more attractive to commercial lenders, who will pass on those savings to their borrowers. This might encourage more people to buy durables, for which they likely need to borrow, but won’t really directly encourage consumer spending at the perishable or service sector level.”
I glare. This, for Andy, is being honest and loving his neighbor, or rather his wife. I was suffering under a mistaken impression and it was his duty to correct me. He was being helpful. Actually, I know how the Prime Lending Rate works, too. I was just glossing over the technicalities to make a generalization and pass on some news. You know, small talk?
As for eating cactus, Katrin Bentley in her book Alone Together, compares her Aspergian husband to a cactus: “a beautiful, strong, resilient cactus.” Prickly. Protected. Able to withstand harsh climates. Steadfast. But not so easy to swallow, or live with.
“Be dull and boring and omnipresent.” One of the common Tazberger traits is going on at great length, ad infinitum ad nauseum, about special interests or really about anything, missing every facial cue in the book that the listener would like for the Aspie to stop. I have always noticed that when Andy gets a burr under his saddle, he will work that thing from every possible angle, saying basically the same sentence in twelve different ways.
Exempli gratia: “There’s no secret about what’s going on. The calves’ buckets are not getting cleaned. Bacteria grow in milk. If you don’t sanitize those daily, the calves will get sick. There’s no silver bullet. No vet is going to come out here and identify some mystery cause for all the scours. They will ask how often we’re cleaning the buckets and tell us that’s the problem. We’ve been through this before. Things are fine and then you get busy and things slip and sanitation deteriorates and the calves pick up a gut infection.”
By this point I am giving non-verbal cues that I’ve got the message. Point taken. Shut up now. I have tried the smooched-to-the-side lips. I have tried the lowered eyebrows coupled with the grimly set mouth. I have tried the sigh. I have tried the wide open exasperated eyes and still he goes on.
“What needs to happen every day like clockwork is those buckets need to get sanitized. You need to do it. Eldest needs to do it. It’s nothing extraordinary. It’s just the most ordinary of Standard Operating Procedures. Keep the equipment clean. We don’t need special medicines or vaccines or powders. Just cleanliness. Pure and simple.”
I have given up on facial gestures and moved on to gross motor body language. I turn away. I start roughly and loudly doing something else. I try vocalized stage sighs and still he goes on and on. How many different ways can he say the same thing? Does he never stop talking? OK. Enough said.
Last verse, sung in my mind by the exasperated NT spouse who’s about ready to go sleep in the haymow:
Be tasteless, rude, and offensive,
Live in a swamp and be three dimensional,
Put a live chicken in your underwear,
Go into a closet and suck eggs.
I could not help but laugh as I reconsidered this one as an Asperger’s description. Does it fit Andy? Perhaps not the tasteless part. Actually from his upbringing Andy is a bit on the silver-spoon tasteful side, but “rude and offensive”? You better believe it. Before I had ever heard of Asperger’s, I used to say to myself, “I don’t know which is worse, that Andy is so rude or that he doesn’t even know he’s being rude.”
According to Tony Attwood, “Another characteristic associated with Asperger’s syndrome is that the person does not know when he or she would be expected to tell a ‘white lie,’ making a comment to someone that is true but likely to cause offence … Children and adults with Asperger’s Syndrome appear to have a greater allegiance to honesty and the truth than to the thoughts and feelings of others.”
Or there is the other route to rudeness which is the intense need to reach completion and be efficient. The Aspergian sees no need to waste time on social niceties when there is a task to be done, trampling over the small talk and pleasantries the rest of us use to sweeten the air and grease the day’s emotional machinery.
In terms of living in a swamp, Andy does in fact smack of Yoda in his swamp on Dagobah on occasion. Luke Skywalker, a novice at moving objects with the Force, is ordered by Yoda to lift his X-wing out of the water in which it is submerged.
Luke says, “I’ll give it a try.”
“Try not!” Yoda responds. “Do, or do not. There is no try.”
When Luke gives up after a feeble attempt, Yoda steps in to show him how it’s done.
Extending his little three-pronged hoof, Yoda uses the Force alone to raise the ship out of the water and set it gently on the shore, calling on the fourth-dimension energy that surrounds the “crude matter” of visible three-dimensional objects. I believe that in Andy’s case this ability to make things happen is pure willpower. When Andy decides what it is he will do, nothing stands in his way. There is never a thought of “try,” only do.
I confess to being a try-er. I will set my course, make a plan, and then I will try to make it happen. If making it happen means trampling on someone’s feelings or disappointing one of the kids or ignoring a social nicety, I just won’t do it, choosing “failure” over offensiveness. I would rather be liked than respected.
Andy on the other hand, feels obligated to do, not just try. He has said this of the hay harvest, moving cows, finishing a project. He will ram it through and devil take the hindmost. He explains, rightly so, that this is what breeds success, this is what makes the farm survive, this is what allows us to have gotten where we’ve gotten.
Maybe this is more of a male-female difference than an Asperger-NT difference. However, my dad was most definitely of my ilk, adored by his colleagues and loved by all his neighbors but not always able to pull off his family’s dreams on a grand scale. And I have noticed that I most deliberately married a man who was not this way. I am always attracted to men that can “get ‘r’ done.” Of course it would be nice if the doers could also be polite along the way!
And then there is “Put a live chicken in your underwear.” I chuckle over this one because it sounds like a pretty close approximation of Andy’s sometime persona we have taken to calling Mr. Pepper Pants. In exasperation one day I said, “What the hell is wrong with you? It’s like someone put pepper in your pants! It’s like living in a fire station during a constant five-alarm blaze!” Or, in a description of Andy by of one of our former farmhands, “Everything’s such a God-damn emergency!”
I know this is the trait that causes the most bewilderment among the uninitiated who walk in on a Tazberger day when too many things are going wrong and Andy truly looks like a live chicken has been put in his underwear. I now understand this better and can commiserate. Having dealt with an anxiety disorder of my own, I know what it feels like to have a stress response to what seems to others to be common daily occurrences. I can be Mrs. Pepper Pants myself on occasion.
Sensory overload and not enough time to process new information, diversion from the carefully created plan, I have seen Andy put his two hands on the sides of his head to make the bombardment stop, and he stomps off at a frantic pace to try and get away from it or get to a spot where he can process and adjust.
I confess that “Go into a closet and suck eggs” has been my thought if not my words to Andy on more than one occasion. When the combination of his rudeness and his running rough-shod and his pomposity and his repetitiveness and his criticisms and his agitation have driven me to the brink of psychosis, I am usually the one who ends up in a corner of the haymow (rather than the closet, which we reserve for passionate trysts) sitting with the silly goose and her nest of rotten eggs, fuming like a little freight train.
It is next to impossible for me to truly empathize with the inability to grasp social rules. It would be like not knowing how to breathe or swallow. But the more I read books by those with autism and Asperger’s, the more evidence I have that it is possible to truly not grasp them. Temple Grandin and Sean Barron have written a wonderful book called The Unwritten Rules of Social Relationships in which they delineate, in very clear and logical terms, the rules the NTs seem to know inherently that are sometimes boggling and illogical to those on the spectrum. Their ten rules include such seeming no-brainers as “Honesty is Different than Diplomacy” and “Being Polite is Appropriate in Any Situation.”
Addressing social skills is one of those Asperger areas that is going to require some work on our part. I have always shied away from stepping on Andy’s foot under the table when he is interrupting or insulting someone, fearing that he would either overtly startle or else say out loud “Why are you stomping on my foot?” Instead I have taken the tack of silently bearing the social inappropriateness and just being extra kind to its victim.
On the other hand, I suppose from living with Andy for so long, I have become very aware of illogical social codes. I will cut through the endless socializing at teacher work sessions to get us back to the task at hand. I will call the bus garage and ream out the Nazi-esque bus driver who drove right by my kid. I will tell the obnoxious telemarketer whom I have asked to stop calling that if he calls again I will take legal action. I have also edged farther from the code of ill-advised doormat-hood and closer to a place where I can say the difficult but uncomfortable things that need to be said, risking others’ dislike for the sake of truth or effectiveness.
There must be a way to walk the fine line between honesty and rudeness. Psychologist Paul Ekman, interviewed on NPR’s Radio Lab (in a decidedly non-Asperger’s-related story), claims that people don’t “have to” lie; they do it out of laziness or timidity. After his daughter’s birth, he charged himself with the goal of living his life without lying. Invited to a second dinner party by a couple who had bored him and served bad food at the first, he finally said to them that in his middle age and with a busy schedule, he had decided to not pursue any new friendships so that he could instead maintain strong relationships with old friends. Sure this takes time and effort, Ekman says, but he feels like a Buddhist master when he pulls it off.
Talk about the Force! I have noticed that the Dalai Lama looks a little like Yoda, and that he has that same humility and playfulness and power. That kind of moral stance must be the happy medium between unctuous social graces and boorish discourtesy. Yoda doesn’t pull punches and neither does the Dalai Lama. Truth as the ideal is a laudable ideal, but so is compassion.
The Kabbalist Tree of Life pairs the qualities of Gevurah and Hesed (Judgment and Mercy) and joins them through the attribute of Understanding (Daat) as the bridge between intellect and emotion. From my understanding, the Asperger brain might not physically have this neural connection. It might be physically impossible for the intellect to talk to the realm of the emotion. I guess I need to be this connection for Andy, working my way through his intellect to explain the codes of emotion that guide us in the NT sphere. But Andy in turn can help me to summon my intellect when my emotional message system has taken over and is calling all the shots.
There is Darth Vader power, and then there is Yoda power: the dark side versus the light side of the Force. Similarly, there is brutal honesty-slash-steamrollering and there is compassionate truth and encouragement. The trick is to merge the opposites.
At his death, Master Yoda says to Luke, “You must confront Vader.” Of course Luke does this, and at the end of the last movie (the original last movie), Vader has been redeemed and stands glowing with Yoda and Obi Wan as the Eewoks frolic in the background.
Imagine the moral strength it takes to pull that off. It takes Jedi powers: Judgment, Mercy, Understanding, Willpower, and Compassion. Can we do it? It might require some training time with Yoda. I guess what we need to do is go live in his swamp and be four-dimensional. May the Force be with us.
Literary Shot in the Arm
Hey, writers! (and readers!)
If you are needing a shot in the arm to get you writing again or writing more or writing better (or reading again or reading more or reading better), the videos from the 2009 Colgate Writer’s Conference are now available on the CWC website and on Youtube.
This is Jennifer Brice, whose latest memoir is Unlearning to Fly.
This is Brian Hall, extraordinarily nice person, gifted writer, and my workshop leader.
This is J. Robert Lennon. I about peed my pants laughing during this talk.
This is the poet Peter Balakian.
This is Easter Island author Jennifer Vanderbes, my instructor two years ago.
This is Patrick O’Keeffe, about whom I posted in July.
These writers all also did readings from their work, also available on the CWC website. Ah, happy memories!
What an Eccentric Performance:The Aspergian Parent
Someone (a certain housewife) mentioned that the children of an Aspergian she knows can deflect a scolding by asking said Aspie about his special interest. My children have figured out how to do this, too. So I decided to share this particular essay. It is much funnier if you have seen “Monty Python and the Holy Grail.” In case you haven’t, the scene I describe is Youtubed below. If it is hot where you are this week, the first part of this post should make you thankful it’s not winter.
It is 10 AM on a Saturday morning in mid-January. I have already been to the barn and fed the calves. Middle and Youngest have recently rolled out of bed. Eldest is still asleep. The three of us are crashed in various reclining poses on the livingroom furniture watching the last half hour of the movie during which we all fell asleep the night before. The accumulated fatigue and information saturation of a long week at school has left us all brain-dead. We are waiting to recharge before attempting to greet the weekend in a house buried under snow in negative 10 weather.
The back door to the mudroom slams. We all exchange glances. Stomp, stomp, stomp, the door into the kitchen slams. We all struggle upright and rub our eyes, start to rise.
“Boys!? Who left all this food on the counter?!”
“Sorry, I did,” I say struggling to my feet and into the kitchen.
Stomp, stomp, stomp, into the office.
“Middle! Get in here now and get these CDs off my desk!”
Middle struggles into the office and starts piling CDs. “OK! OK!
Stomp, stomp, stomp, into the livingroom.
“Youngest! Clean up these videotapes! I can’t even walk through here!”
“OK, Dad! Jeez!” Youngest rolls off the couch and starts putting videos into sleeves.
“Where’s Eldest!?!? Is he still asleep?!? Jesus, it’s 10:00!! I’ve been up since 4!”
How could we not know this, since we are told this fact every day?
Stomp, stomp, stomp, up the stairs.
“Eldest! Get up! It’s 10 AM. I need help in the barn!!”
“Arrrr!”
Stomp, stomp, stomp, into our bedroom.
“Are there clean clothes anywhere?!?! Mo?!?! Are there any clean clothes? I am out of underwear. I’ve been outside in this blizzard for six hours and I’m soaking wet and freezing!!!”
I have crept up the stairs and into our room. “No, sorry. I was just about to put some in the wash.”
“I need your help in the barn. I need everyone’s help. There’s a bad ice storm coming. We need to get the tractor hooked to the generator.”
Stomp, stomp, stomp, down the stairs.
“Youngest! Stop messing with those videos and get some warm clothes on. You guys need to feed the heifers and then I need your help in the barn covering up some gaps in the wall before the ice hits.”
Stomp, stomp, stomp, into the office.
“Middle! Stop playing with those CDs and put on your snow clothes. Meet me in the barn. I have something you need to do. Mo!!!! Get Eldest up. He can feed the third-row cows.”
The door to the mudroom slams. Stomp, stomp, stomp, the door to the outside slams. Silence.
By this point all four of us are in the kitchen rubbing our eyes and looking at each other in resigned exasperation.
Parenting, Asperger style: What an eccentric performance.
During a family scene like this, I always think of Tim the Enchanter from “Monty Python and the Holy Grail.” When “Arthur and Bedevere and Sir Robin set out on their search to find the enchanter of whom the old man had spoken in scene twenty-four,” they round a Scottish mountain and see an explosion on a distant peak. Nearing the spot, they see a strange man standing atop a crag. He points toward another crest and another and another and another and another, each time apparently launching a fire bomb from his finger that explodes in a huge ball of fire. He finally blasts himself down into the presence of King Arthur and the knights and fires another two small blasts nearby for good measure.
What is absurd about this is that these explosions seem to serve no purpose but to demonstrate Tim the Enchanter’s powers. In the midst of their greetings, Tim suddenly uses his staff as a flamethrower to singe the immediate area and then launches a rocket from it, setting a nearby tree afire, at which the knights offer polite applause.
Thinking of this, I almost start to laugh when Andy comes striding in and starts pointing out troublesome issues in the house. Point – Pkkkkkooooo. Point – Pkkkkkooooo. Boom. Boom. Boom. I sometimes think of this as the result his tendency to “look at the world through shit-colored glasses.” He walks in, worried and anxious about the coming storm, and all he can see are the problems waiting to happen inside: the milk on the counter going bad, his desk covered with CDs that cover his seven lists, the videos about to get broken, the 15-year-old who sleeps until noon. He doesn’t see us or our exhaustion or need for emotional contact, just a big series of problems that need to get solved before anyone should be able to relax.
At best such a scene can be interpreted as unintentional anger resulting from autistic anxiety. At worst it can seem like Andy taking out his frustration on whoever’s nearest. Comedian Damon Wayan tells of his own childhood growing up with nine siblings in a three-bedroom apartment. His father would come home from a day working at the grocery store and the children would all run: “You didn’t want daddy mad ‘cause daddy was like, venting. He would come home looking to spank after a hard day’s work. ‘All right, who was bad ‘cause I need to unwind.’” Wayan tells this tale laughing and with a voice full of love, admitting that with so many children, order had to be maintained to keep the chaos at bay. He credits the enforced sibling harmony for the sense of humor he and four of his siblings were later able to develop into successful comedic careers.
I am similarly able to credit growing up in an alcoholic household for my ability to read others’ emotions, handle rapid change without a hiccup, and completely ignore people’s moods when I have determined they were not caused by me. I hope that growing up with an Aspergian will have positive effects on our boys. I think that Andy’s own growing up with a likely Aspergian father led, for better or for worse, to his perfectionism. Tony Attwood says that “The lack of affection and encouragement, and high expectations can result in the child becoming an adult who is a high achiever, as an attempt to eventually experience the parental adulation that was missing throughout childhood.” I have heard this both from Andy’s father about his own childhood and Andy about his. I had the same quest except mine was an attempt to let the McCarthy girls’ achievements cover up the problems at home. (My sister’s name and my own are side by side on Lockport High School’s valedictorian plaque, each of us first in a class of 400+).
Another striking similarity between Andy and Tim the Enchanter is how leading statements simply don’t work. On a typical summer’s day, when a given morning’s farm problems are finally resolved and we are fully awake, we might start hinting around about our “recreational” plans.
“So, there’s a movie the boys want to see at the Colonia.”
“Mmmmhmmm.” Andy looks at me questioningly.
“Um, it starts at 1?”
“OK ….?”
“And uh, the boys have been wanting to see it …?”
“Yeah?” He still hasn’t figured it out.
“So, I was thinking of taking them down there.”
Now he’s got it.
“Please don’t do that. I have hay down and Tim’s not here and I just can’t deal with any extra problems or issues. I don’t have time to come down there and haul you back up the hill if something happens. Please don’t even let the boys know you are thinking about it.”
Again I bite my lips. It also takes Tim the Aspergian Enchanter 20 lines in the script to finally realize King Arthur is asking for information about the grail, and this only when King Arthur is crystal clear about requesting it. And then Tim launches into a fearful description of the creature that guards the cave wherein the information about the grail’s final resting place is located, “a creature so foul, so cruel that no man yet has fought with it and lived! Bones of full fifty men lie strewn about its lair. So, brave knights, if you do doubt your courage or your strength, come no further, for death awaits you all with nasty, big, pointy teeth,” at which point he raises his hand like a mouth full of fangs and bizarrely imitates said nasty beastie.
King Arthur turns to his knights and says, “What an eccentric performance.”
This is the look we give each other back in the kitchen after Andy has stomped out, a combination of puzzlement, exasperation, and resignation. We cannot explain his strange performance, but we know we had better join in the horror or there will be hell to pay.
Tony Attwood delineates issues that families with parental Asperger’s Syndrome face, including confusion understanding “the needs and behaviour of typical children and adolescents,” the need of the family to “accommodate the imposition of inflexible routines and expectations in behavior, the intolerance of noise, mess, and any intrusion in the parent’s solitary activities, perceived ‘invasion’ of the home by the children’s friends, and a black and white analysis of people.” In extreme cases there can be abuse. I find these warnings a bit heavy-handed in our case. This last has certainly never happened in our family, aside from the unintended emotional abuse that results from the children misinterpreting Andy’s behavior as lack of affection or tiring of the criticism, public embarrassment, fear of his mood or feeling like a nuisance.
The phrase that stopped me in my tracks the first day I searched “Asperger’s” on the internet was “… the paradox of an apparently kind and gentle man behaving with cold cruelty, and then being distressed and surprised by the result.” Too many times this happens when Andy’s anxiety is expressed as unintended anger at the boys, besides which it leaves me as “the mediator, negotiator, referee, rule-maker, wiper up of tears, confidante – in other words, all things to all people.”
It has been really helpful to have the “diagnosis” and explain it to the kids. Before our discovery, I had already learned as Andy’s wife to let these kinds of behaviors roll off me and not take them personally, but the kids, I know, have often been unable to understand Andy’s actions toward them.
Now after he has stormed from the room, Youngest will sigh, give me a knowing look, and say, “Asperger’s?”
I’ll smile at him with pride and nod.
This all has given me a chance to explain adult behaviors to the kids. Having grown up in an alcoholic household myself, I remember being mystified and crushed by the behaviors of the adults around me. Finally knowing about alcoholism and learning about Adult Children of Alcoholics traits and issues was enormously helpful. Too many children spend their childhoods blaming themselves for their parents’ behavior: divorce, abuse, exploitation, neglect. I have followed the policy of extreme honesty with the kids, knowing that what children imagine a situation to be is usually much worse than reality. I wish someone had had the wherewithal to clue me in at a younger age that my particular crowd of adults had issues and personalities that were completely separate from my ability to influence them. I once heard that Oscar the Grouch was created as a character on Sesame Street to teach children that some people are just grouchy by personality and can still be cherished and not changed.
So within the past year I have been able to say “Dad is just very worried. He really doesn’t mean to sound mean. He’s really anxious and worried about a million details and he loves you guys. It’s just that the Asperger’s makes him sound upset. He is upset, but not at you.”
“It sounds like he’s upset at me,” says Youngest.
“Why does he have to overreact to everything?” asks Eldest.
Unfortunately, about one time in ten the overreaction is justified. The dire prediction is accurate and only Andy’s massive preparation and marshalling of the troops prevents disaster. In the Asperger’s world, these odds are good enough. To prevent any potential disaster is worth the extreme actions necessary.
Similarly, Tim the Enchanter is actually right about the scary “beast.” Arriving at the Cave of Caerbannog, the knights mock Tim’s calamitous warnings when they see that the horrible cruel vicious beast is a little white bunny rabbit that at worst might nibble their bums. At King Arthur’s command, Bors plunges ahead without fear to kill the bunny, when the fuzzy little thing zooms through the air and latches onto his neck: his headless trunk falls to the ground squirting blood.
Tim the Enchanter rubs it right in: “I warned you, but did you listen to me? Oh, no, you knew it all, didn’t you? Oh, it’s just a harmless little bunny, isn’t it? Well, it’s always the same. I always tell them—“ etc.
Aspergians are the kings of “I told you so,” I think because they are so accustomed to being treated as if their actions are unusual or unmerited of extreme that when they are right they need to jump up and assert their correctness. Andy must feel relieved and “normal” when his dire actions prove merited.
Meanwhile, the boys have adopted their own creative techniques for dealing with Andy’s Tasmanian parenting style. Middle (who sincerely thought that NT stood for Non-Taz) says that a few years ago he figured out that if Andy is scanning the surroundings looking for problems and his eyes are heading Middle’s way, he can distract Andy by asking about something he is interested in. For example, he was sitting in the midst of a huge Lego mess the other morning when Andy came in. Middle told him that the Legos he had just received in the mail had been hand-fashioned on a CNC (computer numerical control) machine.
Andy paused, and then said, “I used to work on a CNC machine.”
Middle actually caught this entire scene on his digital video camera, a five-minute monologue on CNC machines and how they work which he played and replayed all day to his own great amusement. Middle said his alternate technique is to start talking about something he knows does NOT interest Andy, who will listen for ten seconds and then just wander away.
Youngest has lately developed a wonderfully disarming and effective way of defusing a Tasmanian attack. The other night Middle had gone to a dance at the YMCA and we went down to pick him up at 8 PM. Unfortunately, the dance had actually ended at 7:30 and Middle had finally given up waiting at 7:55 and walked off with a friend. We did not know where he was, who he was with, if he would plan to return to the Y, which direction to go. I immediately jumped out and did a quick walk to the local pizza places where he might have walked for a slice but returned unsuccessful.
I could see Andy was moving quickly toward the red zone: Middle had done a stupid thing, Andy needed to get to bed, There was no way to find him, etc. etc. I was preparing for Andy to completely blow in the middle of downtown Norwich. I knew Andy’s reaction was based on fear, but I had also given up trying to defuse him in the midst of one of these. I was intent on just finding Middle and removing the stimulus.
Andy continued on, fending off the bad joo joo: “When Middle gets home he’s going straight to bed and no X-Box! Why would he just leave? What a stupid thing to do!” at which point the ten-year-old sage in the back seat piped up with an adult sigh of self-knowledge, “As if we don’t all do stupid things sometimes.”
Andy halted, paused, and then laughed. Youngest turned to me and gave me a wink.
Of course the one with the least ability to adjust to Andy’s moods is Eldest, who fights back in his own Aspergian way with logic and determination.
Eldest will shout, “Why do you have to go on and on? I know I need to do my chores. You don’t have to tell me fifteen times. I always do my chores! Have I ever not done my chores? Have I?”
He simply won’t let it drop, pushing the point of any hyperbole on Andy’s part because the lack of accuracy drives him mad. It still astonishes me how an Aspie can be so alert to everyone else’s exaggerations and so oblivious to his own. Sigh. This is not unusual. Tony Attwood says, “The enforced proximity of two inflexible and dominating characters with Asperger’s syndrome can lead to animosity and arguments.”
Except, however, if I send the two Aspies off to tackle a mechanical issue: pop up the camper, build the Ikea shelves. One day Andy was heading out solo to test the trolling boat’s check engine light which had gone on during his previous outing. I suggested that he take Eldest along. Besides the fact that I was pissed as all get out that Andy was off to spend two hours alone leaving me with the three boys, I also saw a potential bonding experience.
“Why don’t you take Eldest?” I said.
“He won’t want to go with me.”
“Tell him you need his mechanical expertise.”
This seemed to do the trick with Eldest: Approbation. Appreciation. Acknowledgement of skill. Predictable dialogue based on problem-solving. Andy was able to be with just one son in a situation where the two of them shared an interest and both got to feel good about solving the mechanical problem. Besides which, once the boat was deemed fully functional, Andy let Eldest cruise up and down the lake and they both stimmed out on the sparkle of sun on the water.
Meanwhile, I took Middle and Youngest to the Bluegrass Festival, an event with so much stimulation and so many unpredictable social situations that it would have driven Andy into neurological engine failure.
It was a good day. Everyone stayed calm. Everyone had fun. We had scheduled the day with Asperger’s in mind and it worked.
And so, Mo and Middle and Youngest came back from their quest to see the bluegrass festival of which their schools had apprised them in late Spring. At the farm, they met Dad and Eldest, and there was much rejoicing.
And no eccentric performance.
Trolling for Chinook on Lake Ontario
Here is a movie of the trip Andy, Elliot, and I took on Lake Ontario. This is Andy at his very happiest – fishing.
done(Elliot gets the credit for the ending footage of waves.)
The song is “Wave Over Wave” by Great Big Sea, a band that I love from Newfoundland. All the guys in the band are Irish, Canadian, English majors, and play hockey. Could you ask for more? The guy on the left is Alan Doyle (sigh) who will be in the new Robin Hood movie to be released next year. He is at his most charming in this video of Great Big Sea and the Chieftains singing Lukey’s Boat. My second choice would be Sean McCann, playing bodhran: so stinkin’ cute.
But of course neither one is as charming as my hubbie!
I’m Excited About This Movie
In the past two weeks the New York Times has featured at least two different articles about the just-released film “Adam” starring Hugh Dancy, billed as an Aspie-NT love story. I gave it the old “askance glance” at first, having been irritated by certain other media portrayals of Aspergians.
I got hooked on Boston Legal through Netflix because I knew that in later seasons they introduced an Aspergian lawyer. I was not impressed when Jerry Espenson finally appeared. Perhaps he also has Tourette’s, but any Aspergian who has become a lawyer would have learned over the years to control odd hand and voice behaviors.
Same with Dr. Virginia Dixon, the heart specialist on Grey’s Anatomy. Any Aspie who could get through med school and land that job would have figured out how to accept a hug and not completely freak out. Asperger’s is not Kanner’s (I hope I did not just completely display my ignorance about Kanner’s since I don’t live with it.)
I DO live with Asperger’s, though, and neither of these characters seems anything like the Aspies I know and love.
However, the trailer for Adam seems a little truer, and (blushing boastfully) I gotta say my own personal Aspergian husband does have all the charm and good looks of Hugh Dancy.
So I have high hopes for “Adam.” It was an independent film, bought by Fox Searchlight for distribution nationwide, so that speaks well of its intent: not mass market. It won the Alfred P. Sloan Award at Sundance for its portrayal of science and scientists. And I liked Hugh Dancy in “The Jane Austen Book Club” as well as what I heard about his research for developing this character.
“Adam” has already opened in New York City. I will luckily get to see it in San Diego later this month. And it will finally arrive here Under the Rock of the more rural areas of the country on August 28.
If you see it, please comment!
