The Result of Launch Day

Recently we launched the new film HOLDING IN THE STORM: MY LIFE WITH AUTISM which was inspired by our Bridges-Over-Barriers group of communicators who have to communicate in other ways because we cannot speak reliably with our voices. My 2002 poem "What it's like to be me" forms a theme through this film. We thought that the main purpose and outcomes of film would be in helping non-autistics to get a better idea of what it's like to live with severe Autism. One unexpected result of the movie is that it made me think more about what it's like NOT to have Autism and to be "neurotypical". I am now a bit more interested in fiction and drama than I was before. This is a poem I composed last week about this different point of view.

I wonder about you

AB 9 Apr 2014

I never used to wonder

what it was like to be you.

I always knew I was different;

I always wanted you to learn

what I was like inside.

The part about you having
things I might be curious about
is a new experience for me.

I think my conversations
have been focused
on me as the subject.
I am learning to wonder
 what is going on inside you.
It is a new thing
for me to wonder
about you
who I do not really know.

You are a person in the blur
of the greater world
and if I did not know you,
you had not existed for me.
If I cannot see past my circle
I could not connect
and you were not distinct
or separate from the world.

I now wonder

what makes people tick,

and that the universe is made up

of you and you and you
and a million others like you.
I have so many people
to meet and learn about.
The world is
a large place indeed.