identity

Day 94: Samtastico the Avenger’s Gobbledygook and Missing Slipstream Download

| Aspergers Girls

Sometimes I am an intense painter opening the art gallery doors to the crowds; only to observe the patrons scratching their heads in confusion at my masterpiece that I have come to slowly realize resembles an abstract of a close up donkey butt.

Free Wallpaper at fwallpapers.com/view/funny-donkey

Sometimes I am a self-inflated preschooler that longs to share hygiene facts, like the garlic cream I rubbed on my shoulder to try to erase these weird skin growths I’ve acquired since occupying the dark and humid northwest.

Sometimes I am an overloaded sponge of thoughts and images pounding my head in rapid procession into the pinewood computer table.

Sometimes I am a teary-eyed poet dripping my melancholic prose across the space called cyber.

Today I am Crazy Frog rocking out and longing to paint a donkey butt abstract.

Be Happy. Sing with Me, now!

By the end of this prose you will be one of the privileged few people in this universe that understands the title of this post. This understanding will gift you with undeniable powers to peruse through almost any of my other writings with a knowing nod of recognition and sympathy. Welcome to the Sam Zone!

One of my blogging pals, a cool male kindergarten teacher and natural poet, calls my writing Samtastic.  Sometimes. Well, at least twice. Now that I’m thinking about it, I’ve written ninety-four posts and he has only used that word two or three times. What is that percentage?

Regardless of the stats, the word Samtastic is part of the reason I contemplate changing my legal name to Sam. How cool to have the mantra: Samtastic. I’d add a letter O to the end though, to make the word pseudo-Italian. I dare you to say Samtastico without a smile and without moving your hands in gesture. Anyone craving calzones smothered in mozzarella besides me?

Those that have been reading my prose—aka: contemplative poetry, quirky tales, vivacious rambles, verbose lists—have likely heard mention of The Geek Posse. Well, they’ve been collaborating in a Samtastic way to assist me in reaching conclusions about my little life. Go team brain!

The collaboration is akin to having an extended coffee chat with a dear friend, laughing and crying hysterically together, and then sharing that mutual glow of having just solved all the world’s problems in one sitting! Only with the Geek Posse, the participant is just solo-me and select spheres of my brain.

With the help of the posse, I’ve recently realized (probably nine weeks later than my longtime faithful reader: aka George) that in the passing months, I inadvertently ventured into a warped time zone, and magnificently morphed into Asperger’s Woman: Avenger of all Things Aspie!

See my little cape? It’s red and blue starred with purple zigzags and lemon drops.

I’m finally coming out of a tailspin into Aspie Land and realizing my life is much more than Aspergers.

Amazing. I know!

This decreases my abstract donkey-butt longing from boil to simmer.

Sidetrack: Many Literary Advice Books ardently advice would-be authors to not use adverbs too often. But the combined ly letters intrigue me. The books also warn not to ramble, go off tangent, and use made up words. That’s why I burned all my writing manuals and used them as a source of heat when we had the three-day power outage during January’s snowstorm.

Back to the Geek Posse, two days ago, while fasting and listening to mantras, guru me had a wonderful series of images flash through my mind regarding my association with Aspergers. I call this experience of seeing images fly, flap, and belly flop across my mind: downloading. During downloading, I receive information, possibly from galactic powers, angels, or intelligent interactive bacteria. It’s quite a Jungian experience, liken to the collective unconscious slipstream propelling me forward in extremely vivid thought.

This time after downloading the information and reading the words to myself, I heard a very serious female voice, similar to Captain Kathryn Janeway from the Starfleet Starship USS Voyager.

Look What I Found! Totally Unrelated and Totally Awesome!

Sidetrack: How do I know Captain Janeway’s voice? Remember I married a science major, a euphemism for smart geek who likes all things Trek-like. Remember, too, I have Aspergers, so I was rather clueless about what a science major really meant beyond the periodic table. The same cluelessness I had about three boys equaling perpetual dirty area under toilet.

Awesomeness in Geek Format!

Sidetrack: I just looked up Fun Facts about the Periodic Table and there was nothing fun at all. Just a bunch of confusing questions, like: Which is the lightest element with an atomic symbol that is also a US state postal code? Really? That’s fun?

I also found Periodic Table Puns like:

What do you do to flowers? Platinum

What a doctor does to his patients – Cur ium, Hel ium, or Bari um

I’m still trying to decide if this means the doctor is giving a barium enema or burying them. One of my superpowers is the ability to crack myself up, and I guess also composing downloaded prose from beyond and hearing the voice of female space captain. Hmmm? And they let me teach children.

Tomorrow, I’ll read some more of those Periodic Table Fun Facts before I write, so I can be in a serious mood when I introduce the downloaded slipstream. For now, all the serious parts of me Argon. So be good until tomorrow. Because I’ve got my ion you! HeHe (2 isotopes of helium).

Samtastico Quiz. Pass or fail. If you can now understand the title of this post you pass. If not, at least you learned a barium joke!

I wonder if this person is one of my followers. That would make sense.

Day 93: “I Wish I Didn’t Have Aspergers” (Flash Blog)

| Aspergers Girls

Click on box

Because I Know 

You are beautiful

You are absolutely beautiful

Can you not see what a beauty you are?

When people hurt you

They do not see you

They do not know you

They do not realize

You are beyond them

A mystery

The unknown

It scares them

They expect things that cannot be

They do not comprehend

And I am sorry

Some won’t ever completely understand

As much as you try

For you are a bright, bright light

And Precious One

Your beauty blinds them

You are a gift

Every life you touch changed for the better

This is already happening

You are an earth-shaker, a mover, and a maker

Nothing about you is ordinary or boring

You are so fabulously unique

Wrapped in the finest paper and richest ribbons—with your perfect heart at the center

You make my being swell with joy

You are not a mistake

Do not believe anyone who tells you this falsehood

They are wrong

Completely wrong

You are exactly perfect

You are closer to an angel

Than anyone I know

You have these magnificent invisible wings

You can fly to places the rest cannot

You have the vision of a prophet

The mind of a wise man

You have the capacity within

To change our universe

You see the world as it is

Without pretense or imaginings

You see people at their core

You understand more than you can say

And say more than you understand

You are a dichotomy

A puzzle

An amazing spirit set down to show the way

There is not one millimeter about you I would change

Ever

Nothing I would alter, take away, or replace

Nothing I would add or improve upon

You were made as you are

Like the stars in the sky

I have no wish to stop you from shining

I know your journey is very hard

There is no doubt about this

And I am sorry for your pains

You, of all people, deserve happiness

I know that you cry

I know that you question

I know you beg to be different

And that breaks my heart

But that’s okay

Let yourself weep

Because I know you are brave

In hard times

Remember that I am here

Still walking

And I need you

I need you here with me

I need you to be you

Without you I am emptied

Remember me

With my invisible wings

And know, though we have never met

I love you

I know how remarkable you are

And there is nothing you can do to change that

Nothing at all



Many members of the blogging community are joining together in supporting people who have Aspergers through a Flash Blog. The hope is that when a person searches online for “I Wish I Didn’t Have Aspergesr” he or she will be led to our bright light of encouragement.

It’s a Wonderful World because YOU are in it!

Day 87: Season of the Butterfly

| Aspergers Girls

I have a gentle peace inside and am radiating with hope. In looking back over the last year, there have been multiple challenges that opened the door to deep inner reflection and growth. I am thankful for the season of transformation. At this moment, I am awakening again to myself.

In reflection, I realize that I allowed a part of myself to die last summer, an important aspect of me. I suppressed an emerging connection to the spirit (my higher power) out of fear of people’s rejection and judgment. In denying an essential part of myself, I became suffocated in fear and worry. My body ultimately shut down in response to me repressing my inner voice and true essence. Today I emerge a butterfly, having been wrapped in a cocoon of darkness. Though I was nourished, safe, and undergoing a state of transformation, I rejoice in the light of day. I celebrate the season of the caterpillar while I spread my wings and fly.

Last year I wrote approximately 70 pages of spiritual writing over a course of a few months. I established a successful and beneficial spiritual practice, and surrounded myself with healthy relationships and environments. I lost track of this path, took a turn down another avenue, when I analyzed the significance and purpose of my personhood through the assumed perception of others. In response to my fear-based thoughts, I applied self-created expectations, goals, and needs to my journey. Through this process of analysis and fear response, I forgot the road I was traveling on. Actually, I think I forgot I was traveling. I stopped in my tracks, pitched up tent somewhere, and camped out in hopes of gaining love and acceptance, all the while forgetting my own authenticity and life’s calling.

Today, I have packed up camp and am returning to the path. As I walk onward, I am strengthened in spirit and hope and thankful for how spirit has worked through me. I continue onward, knowing I was exactly where I needed to be on my life’s journey, and am always exactly where I need to be.

Below I have shared a spiritual piece I wrote in response to a question in prayer. The words are what I received in response. I’ve also posted one of my favorite poems and am reflecting on the powerful creative fortress within each of us. Thank you for being part of this journey.

 

What of Illness?

By Samantha Craft Spring 2011

It is rather simple. Let us find an example. Take a boxer in the ring with two gloves, one red glove and one white glove in color; he hasn’t a reason for having one red and one white glove, and isn’t confused or interested; he just sees he has one of each. His focus is on the man in front of him about to punch him in the face. If he took time to think about his gloves in that instant he would be knocked out. So he doesn’t.

This is the physical body: the boxer.

The physical body (mind) can sense and see things are not exactly as the world would make the body believe. The body can sense one glove is red and one white, that something is off, but it doesn’t have the time to process this or it will be knocked out. The body is too busy rebuilding cells, carrying oxygen and communicating to vital working systems. The gloves are secondary. Perhaps after the fight—after life—the body will sit down long enough in stillness and wonder about the gloves—but until then, as long as life continues, wondering isn’t a choice.

Continuing with the boxer. He is standing in the ring and sweating, circling, and guessing his opponents next move. He punches out, swings forward and the glove falls off, red or white no matter. What matters is the glove is gone, and the hand is exposed. Now, and only now does the boxer take time to notice the glove, because here he has lost the fight, and the initial challenge is over.

Now sitting in the corner, still breathing, and very much alive, the fighter will have a chance to examine the gloves and wonder why they are different colors. Who did this? Why did they do this? Who can I blame? What happened? Why me?

If you haven’t guessed by now, this is a parable for how sickness affects the physical body.

So let us explain: It is only when you lose what you once considered your primary importance to living that you stop long enough to analyze where the gloves came from in the first place.

In other words, you stop fighting long enough to sit still and question how you got the gloves in the first place, and how in the world they are mismatched. This is the sickly person, the ill taken, the previously formidable turned apparently weak. But in actuality they are no less weak than when they had two gloves, they only think they are because they have become so dependent on the gloves—so dependent on ignoring what is right in front of them in order to win.

So as you appear sick at the moment, remember this is only you stopping long enough to examine your missing glove, and to recognize they were mismatched. You knew before, you surely knew one was red and one was white, but you kept fighting, because that is all you thought you could do. Now surely when your timeout is over, and you return to the ring with two matching gloves, having have solved any mystery you attempted to solve, you will notice your gloves with a higher degree. You might even treat them a bit differently—treat them with respect. This is the best we can explain it.

When you are sick, it is your spirits way of saying we need to stop fighting for a while and notice what is directly in front of us before we get back in the ring. It is our spirit saying we are tired of fighting. It is our body’s way of saying there is something amiss that requires attention—what ever level you are comfortable giving me that attention is completely fine, but please take care of the issue at hand.

Grumpiness over illness is what you call normal—grumpiness about being out of the game for a bit. But gratitude is more appropriate, because all around you people are swinging punches with two mismatched gloves and not even noticing.

Take this time to figure out how your gloves became mismatched. Figure out how to match them again. Figure out if you want to keep fighting, or perhaps leave the ring for a bit, even forever. This is your ultimate choice. We keep mismatching your gloves, you keep ignoring, until one falls off, and then, my precious child, it’s time to sit out some.

The Voice in Love’s Garden

by Samantha Craft 2011

The voice in love’s garden

Though withered, though frail

Triumphant in calling

Flows forth, bold the sail

Ship sprung from deep valley

Of bitter, of cold

Seeks ease from wind’s blowing

Through rivers that hold

To canker not sorely

To parch not again

To rise not the urchin

Less thee drown in thy sin

Come; march in like troopers

Whence faith seeds from bone

Light ever the forest

Where tramp shadowed alone

For nil eyes to fathom

The coursing of chance

The grace twice endowed

With life’s circumstance

Call forth idle trumpets

Thyself and thy truth

Bestowed as blind starships

Sweet daughters of Ruth

Tiptoe, touch the clovers

Tender green of begin

Retreat in placid pastures

The solid fortress within

More of my spiritual writings:

Prophet in my Pocket

The Wounded Healer

A Sliver of My Sacred Hour

Day 74: Fitting In

| Aspergers Girls
No makeup. Hair needs to be brushed. Oh, crap, I haven't even brushed my teeth yet. This is like camping all over again! Thank you Grandma for my clear skin. Thank you Dad for my Italian nose. Thank you hands for pulling back all my wrinkles!
If you click on this photo, you will see a messy study. A sign of genius. I can't even stop rambling about a photo. May the Gods help me! Everyday Aspergers -- Samantha

“Life is a pair of skinny jeans and you are a big fat ass. That’s it. It’s uncomfortable being a human being.” ~ Tom Papa (comedian)

I wanted the title to be: Fitting In. You are Weird and a Big Fat Ass, but I thought people might take it the wrong way.

The more I’m sharing about myself, my quirks, my outlooks, my geek posse, my fears, my memories, my embarrassing moments, even my empathic experiences, I’m realizing I am not an alien after all! In fact, I’m thinking some of you might be aliens.

A dimmer switch for Sir Brain would be nice. Sometimes herbs and exhaustion help to dim the thoughts. Wine helps, and the ingredients in certain brownies that I will never try again. One word: Paranoia. I actually visited all the layers of hell—anyone smiling knows what I mean. I could digress on this subject and make you laugh hysterically. Major chocolate craving coming on…

Anyhows…(I meant to put an S there for effect. But now that I’ve explained this the effect is gone. But I didn’t want anyone to think I couldn’t spell anyhow and pass judgment. Because I live in constant fear of people finding flaws and errors in my ways and passing judgment.)

Anyhow…It’s sure nice to know I’m not alone. Sure nice to know everyone is messed up (I mean that in a good way). Nice to know, too, that most of you have all the same thoughts and weirdness I do, but you have the ability to keep most clammed up and shut away inside. Which, I guess, has its drawbacks, too. At least I’ll never explode because I held too much back. I’m not a slow ticking time bomb (despite what my mother-in-law once wrote about me).

I am like a garden hose set on slow drip—the perfect companion to a thirsty dog or playful child in the heat of the summer days.

Writing this off the top of my head. Let’s see what comes out. Drip, drip, drip…

We are All Weird

We are all weird

We are all trying to fit in

We aren’t happy all the time

We’ll never be happy all the time

That’s an illusion

We worry

We fear

We dream, sometimes big

We wish and wish and wish

We copy and imitate in hopes of being accepted

We try to figure others out

Try even harder to figure our own self out

We cry at sad movies

We laugh at dumb jokes

We light up a room

And can bring about feelings of gloom

We are powerful, magical, mysterious

And filled with a gentle charm

Our esteem is worthy

Even though we may not know

Our life has purpose

Even as we search

We are so remarkably fantastically beautiful

A reflection of beauty

One to the other

I’m so happy to know you

Each and everyone

So happy to stand in your light

Breathe in your energy

Breathe out your kindness

There is no better blessing

Than knowing you are not alone

That there is always a hand, a smile, a knowing wink

I giggle at our quirks

I celebrate our uniqueness

But I dwell and live fullest in our connection

The connection we share in seeing one in the other

Okay. This is a little beyond PG-rated, but as you’re my friend, and all, I just have to say, if you search online videos for “fitting in” there seems to be a lot of bike fitting, horse saddle fitting, golf club fitting, clothing fitting, fake male “private parts” fitting. Oops. I hope I didn’t just steer someone in the wrong direction! Don’t want you to obsess about the fit of your saddle.

Serious and Uplifting. He makes a lot of good videos.

Funny!

Thirty-Five: Lost in the Masquerade

| Aspergers Girls

Okay. Day thirty-five and I’ve finally doused my fire of vanity! Yes, I’ve donned my reading glasses, and zoomed in on the font on my computer screen. Maybe I won’t have a raging headache today. What I goof-head I am. I can actually read the words I’m typing now, without squinting.

This morning, I have a lot of deep, philosophical jargon pinging around in Sir Brain. LV is in her pleated secretarial skirt, pacing about, taking notes, while wearing her studious glasses and practical shoes; (you might want to press my lingo button).

I was holding out for Crazy Frog this morning, but I think he is still away with the fairies, which leaves Little Me pretty much holding down the fort. Which is a bit scary, as this new form of thought has been emerging that I cannot quite pinpoint, but that seems liken to a black-caped, masculine-feminine entity, that hides in the dark behind trees, wears a mask, and carries various weapons of Sir-Brain destruction.

She’s more of a female but with a tomboy attitude. She despises feminine aspects in all forms, but yet finds herself a female. A difficult position to be in, I imagine. Anyhow she’s lurking somewhere within, and doesn’t have a lot of beneficial, high-energy words to offer me or other individuals. I imagine she is hurting somewhere deep, deep inside of her being, but that most people would try to bomb her before giving her the time of day. I can’t blame her for hiding. As I fear her myself, and wish to destroy her. Even as she whispers, “I am your teacher.”

I don’t have a name for her, but I think she’s the aspect of me that is responsible for explosive negative thoughts, that send me stumbling down the hole of self-destruction—the one who tells me I’m stupid for writing a blog, for exposing myself to the dangers of anything and anyone outside myself, and for thinking I have anything of substance to offer anyone. She is the barrier in the road, the stop guard with the automatic weapon that warns me to get out of my vehicle and stop moving, or she’ll shoot. I don’t know what she has to gain from acting the way she does. But there must be some motive.

She was with me most of the day yesterday. To the point I didn’t feel I had my footing in reality anymore. She was satisfied with the amount of time I’d been hiding in the house, refusing the act of even going to the grocery store or of taking a walk with my dog.

She isn’t depression. Depression doesn’t feel like an entity. Depression feels like a mass of fog that settles down upon me and leaves me temporarily disoriented and blinded, momentarily stunted in my ability to move.

No, she, this entity, that I shall name Phantom Eknow (eee-no)—for Entity unKnown—is definitely more than a feeling or fog. She is there somewhere, always waiting and watching, even in my happiest moments. She’s been there since I was a little girl. I remember laughing in my youth, and enjoying my day, while all the while wondering when the pain would resurface, the misery, the fear.

It is an odd sensation, talking about her with anyone. Especially as she is surfacing just as I am writing these words. I almost feel shameful, but not entirely shameful, because I’m holding out thinking someone will understand, and maybe be able to see their dark-caped entity, too.  That makes this seem worthwhile, this confession and sharing of sorts, the knowing that I am reaching out from this small place in which I live and breathing words into another human being in hopes of contact, connection, and shared understanding.

Part of the human isolation happening in the world right now is because of the fear of sharing our whole selves. So much is fear-based, that the very thought of being anyone but who someone else wants an individual to be is paralyzing the masses. So many are looking for a leader, a guide, a way, the answer, without taking the time to go within.

The fact that I almost feel shamed in sharing a darker element of myself is proof enough for me that a real oppression of authenticity exists. There seems to be two polar extremes in our world; all I have to do is tune into a reality show; which I don’t do, to view the extremes. There are always the crazed people doing terribly disturbing acts or the fake people dressed in garbs imitating idols.  It appears, many are immolating their inner being and light out of a fear of not being seen. When in actuality, the representation they are showing other beings is not a clear representation of who they are to begin with.

I wonder how many of us have PHANTOMS that we hide? Phantoms that are all caps, all capital letters, lurching inside, that we go on pretending aren’t there. I wonder if we brought them into the light and listened, what we would learn. Here is my Phantom. Here she is. Here I offer, to you, Phantom: the substance of what some people label my imperfections.

Why is it so many are trapped in this game of showing all their high cards, in hopes of recognition, while burying all their low cards in the dirt? What is it that makes a person trust another when they show their high cards, but makes them want to run away when exposed to the low cards? To me, the trust is found in showing what is hidden, not sharing what has been shared a thousand-times over. If I dig up everything and expose what was once hidden in the darkness, then what is left to fear in me? What is left for others to fear? If I am first and foremost authentic and genuine, and have nothing left hidden, then where can fear hide?

There is nothing to fear in being me, but this fear would like me to think so. The fear would like me to fret the plausible pains of exposing my true self, so that the fear can perpetuate its very own existence.

So many people talk about change. So many point fingers and blame. Yet, so many forget to look within—to take out the Phantom, to take out the power, to sit with the fear-based entity and listen to his or her story.

No wonder, that to me, and many others, the world often appears one giant masquerade ball—with the bug-filled wigs, restrictive corsets, and elaborate masks. For that is what the world is, at times, the majority seemingly set out in a dance of deception, where their true fear remains buried, and the pretend, disguised entity continues to twirl round and round.

I imagine a ball without the masks, where I am spinning with my phantom, twirling and twirling, and with each turn decreasing Phantom in size, until she becomes so small and obsolete that she returns happily into the unknown from whence she came. I imagine an endless room full of people spinning with their Phantom, until we are all left without a partner, and have no choice but to join hands together, and at last truly dance.

* I have to laugh, my original post (dyslexia) said Lost in the Mascaraed—which means lost in the eye makeup. Crazy Frog returns!

This Masquerade – George Benson

Are we really happy here
With this lonely game we play
Looking for words to say?
Searching
But not finding understanding anyway
We’re lost in a mas–masquerade

Both afraid to say
We’re just too far away
From being close together from the start
We tried to talk it over
But the words got in the way
We’re lost inside this lonely game we play

Thoughts of leaving disappear
Ev’ry time I see your eyes
No matter how hard I try
To understand the reasons
That we carry on this way
We’re lost in this masquerade

Both afraid to say
We’re just too far away
From being close together from the start
We tried to talk it over
But the words got in the way
We’re lost inside this lonely game we play

Thoughts of leaving disappear
Ev’ry time I see your eyes
No matter how hard I try
To understand the reasons
That we carry on this way
We’re lost in this masquerade

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8eXCdjdSHE&feature=related