story

Day 129: How to Love

| Aspergers Girls
Me and my nano

How to Love

There wasn’t any reason to hide, at least not at first.  But I crawled inside my tiny closet anyhow, me and my red plastic piggybank.  Inside the squared-space that was layered in frilly dresses and the smell of cedar sticks, I would hold tight to my piggy and pretend.

At first I could imagine Father was back; and not just once or twice, but all the time.  In my thoughts he’d hold me tight, bounce me up and down on his knee; and  then he’d stand up, grab hold of my hands, and twirl me so fast I’d fly up off my feet.  And we’d laugh, giggle so hard the tears would pearl at the corner of our matching oval eyes, his with the amber light, mine with the deep ebony.

Inside the dark of the cramped space, I’d travel back to my silver-haired nana’s adobe-style house, the one with the red-clay roof tiles and the white stucco face, that sat on a steep hill on Washington Street, a one mile hike up from the barking sea lions basking on the rocks at Fisherman’s Warf in Monterey.  I’d breathe in and remember a time before, a time before I understood how homes, and heads, and hearts could break.

There in my memories, my petite nana scooped me up effortlessly and dotted me in tangerine-orange kisses, while my smiling Aunt Rose Marie squished and rearranged my cheeks.  And stout Nano, after leaning over and flashing his bald spot, winked and pulled on my earlobe, offering out a kindly, “We love you, Little Sam.”

Father was there, too, moving in his own cautious way, inching forward and offering everyone his one-arm embrace.  I’d tried to make him different in pretending, make him hug me tight and kiss my cheeks, but the truth always had a way of winning out.

I’d see us all napkin-bibbed at our seafood feast, so that it seemed with the salty air we were all fisherman sailing the ocean waves.  As we cracked open crab legs and peeled tiger-shrimp, Nano stitched together grand fisherman tales in an Italian accent as thick and refreshing as homespun ice-cream. Afterwards, with bellies filled, we all helped with the dishes, me with my very own floral dishtowel, and my wide smile still swathed in pizza sauce.

Nano took his leave soon, snuck out to the back porch with a big platter of scraps.  Two minutes later, when Nano reentered the house with a lick-cleaned plate, looking more satisfied than he let on, he muttered, “Damn cats.  I hate cats,” and then held onto his belly, gave me a wink, and chuckled.

Sometime after seven, when all the plates were stacked neatly back in cupboards, the plastic tablecloth wiped clean, and the eight-track tape of Italian music drifting through the room, we gathered round the table for a game of penny poker.  Holding the cards proved somewhat cumbersome, but somehow I managed to win every single hand, and in doing so compiled a stack of pennies:  ten-high and ten-long.

“One hundred pennies; look how great you did,” Aunt Rose Marie would laugh.

I smiled with eyes of pride, and then reached down and yanked at my stockings. It was possible, I found out, to stack the pennies the height of my mug of hot chocolate before they tumbled down.  Nana leaned over and braced herself against the edge of the table, saying softly to my father, “You need to bring her more often.  We miss her.  And we miss you.”  Then she looked over at me.  “We have a surprise.”

My dark-haired aunt came forward carrying a plastic piggybank loaded with coins.  Though it was only a smidgen bigger than the palm of my little hand, I was amazed.  For the next several minutes everyone watched, as I cradled the plastic piggy.

“Now you save that.  It’s not to open.  Put it in a special spot.”  Nana turned from me, pulled down her silver-framed glasses, and eyed her son.  “You’ll bring her again soon, won’t you?”

Father nodded and stood up to retrieve my small wool coat from the back of my chair. “Yes,  I’ll bring her soon,” he answered, as I slid into my coat, holding my piggy tighter.

Mother would arrive long after supper, all done up—the fair Audrey Hepburn—her curves hugged by a linen suit of strawberry-milkshake. “Hello, Beautiful,” she would say, fussing over my blue-silk hair ribbons.  I would gaze up at Mother, then, with my deep brown eyes and tug on my braid.  I savored the word beautiful much like I did Nana’s hard taffy candies which left my tongue all purple and sweet.

 

Nana and Nano

Day 112: Collapsed Star

| Aspergers Girls

Collapsed Star

It was an ordinary night for a child who had grown accustomed to the unordinary.  My dog Justice trembled under the bed, while Led Zeppelin vibrated through the wall.  Inside the sheets, all wrapped up in Mother’s essence of bath oil and sandalwood, I tossed and turned.  Then I laid listless and awake—a lump of boredom. I could smell the funny smoke again and hear bottles clinking.

I pleaded with God, “Please make the people go away.”

All at once, a melodic voice called out, “Hello, Little Girl.”

But I knew the voice wasn’t God.

I was certain my God didn’t have a Jamaican accent and dreadlocks.  “We didn’t know you were in here, Pretty Lady.  I’m sorry if we woke you,” the stranger apologized, as he approached Mother’s bed.

I leaned over casually on my arm, wanting to seem mature and interesting enough to earn his attention. “You didn’t wake me,” I responded, with a fake yawn, tapping my little chin with my tiny fingers a few times.  I was accustomed to seeing strangers in the house, but not at my bedside.  Still, I wasn’t nervous in the slightest degree. I’d liked meeting Mother’s friends. They were all interesting in that odd way…

 

The rest of this story can be found in the book Everyday Aspergers

 

Based on true events © Everyday Aspergers, 2012. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. https://aspergersgirls.wordpress.com

Day 109: Bear and the Green Fruit

| Aspergers Girls

Bear and the Green Fruit (A story of friendship)

There once was a big brown bear that lived in a lush green forest. This was a lovely place of songbird, of fresh streams of salmon, and strong trees hosting hives of dripping yummy honey. There was so much beauty about. But the bear spent his days worried.  He worried about the streams, and the trees, and even the yummy honey. He worried about the best passage way in which to enter the stream, the best of the trees to scratch, and the best technique in which to acquire the honey. He worried the stream would run dry, the trees would die, and the honey would disappear. He worried so much that soon he couldn’t even hear the streams, see the trees, or even taste the honey. This made him worry more, until in bear’s eyes everything vanished and in place of beauty only barren land remained.

With everything seemingly gone, the bear grew sadder. His roars shook the foundation. His paws beat at his fury chest. And his big sad eyes, they searched everywhere.

In his sadness, one tree was birthed. It grew tall and strong in the middle of the barren land—a tree with a strange green fruit.

The bear touched the tree in curiosity, patting the bark and peering up at the abundance of fruit. What interesting fruit he thought. He shrugged and moaned, and reached up to pull off a fruit. But his strength was so strong that the fruit instantly burst, sending out green goop in every direction. He watched as the inner seed of the fruit rolled away, and could swear he heard the seed weeping. Again he tried to take the fruit. This time he pulled the fruit with light hand, and the fruit remained whole, but as soon as he sliced the fruit open the seed spilled out, rolled away, and he could swear he heard the seed weeping. Next, he pulled another fruit and stomped on it to release the green inside. The green remained splattered at foot, but bear swore as seed rolled away, he heard seed weeping. At last, with patience, the bear opened fruit gently and lapped up the inside, tasting the sweetness. He was pleased. Except bear was certain that the seed of the fruit rolled away weeping.

Finally the bear took another fruit down, and before doing anything he asked: “Why do you weep so little friend? Were you not made to be eaten and be relished?”

The little green fruit answered: “Yes. It is true. I was made to be eaten and to be relished. But you have forgotten the soul of me. You take what is needed. You fret over how to have your needs met. But you forget that I am more than the sweetness. Inside of me is a seed that much like you is in search of home. Yet, I am continually opened, enjoyed, and then left to roll away unnoticed.”

Bear thought. He thought very hard. He tugged on the fur of his chin and then his deep brown eyes lit up. This time bear opened the fruit slowly, with gentle claw, and before he did anything else he lifted the seed out of the fruit and buried seed in fertile ground. This time the seed giggled and began to grow.

“Oh, thank you, kind Bear,” seed whispered at his side.

With that the bear was at last able to enjoy the fruit. A smile crossed his face. And with smile the sun returned, the forest reappeared, the streams came back, and the honey dripped down. And the one tall fruit tree vanished.

Bear was very thankful. As the bear smiled, he remembered his friend the seed. And with that small thought, a small green fruit sapling appeared at bear’s side.

“Hello, friend,” bear whispered, smiling with honey on his paws.

“Hello, friend,” sapling whispered back.

“You are growing!” Bear sang.

“Oh, yes. I am growing,” sapling said with a smile.

Bear roared in glee admiring all of the beauty around him.

Bear licked his paw and smiled. “Oh, dear friend,” bear said. “Thank you for teaching me happiness is far beyond the solving.”

Sapling whispered in return, “Thank you dear Bear for knowing my longing to be placed in fertile ground. So many have fed upon my sweetness and never had the heart to hear my weeping and know my longing. Because you have known sadness, you saw my truth and I grew. And now because I know happiness, I shall see your truth, and you shall grow.”

With those happy words, the honey dripped from the sky, and bear and sapling sang with the songbirds and danced together in the clear running stream.

© Everyday Aspergers, 2012. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. https://aspergersgirls.wordpress.com

Day 103: The Sound of Nothing

| Aspergers Girls

Compared to my other posts, this is very mature. Part of my journey to wholeness and self-love has involved documenting events of my past. The short stories are a form of art work to me. They feel like art, as they are scribed through strong emotion and creative flow. However, the words are no longer a part of me. The little girl’s experiences are forever lost on the pages I typed.

This is not meant to be sad, but shared as a possible peer into another part of me—the melancholic artist, perhaps. Or a mature woman sharing her truth, so others know they are not alone. I have many pages of similar events, but shall not post on this blog because of the maturity-level. Someday the missing chapters, I suppose, may appear in book form as a collection of many of the thoughts in this blog.

The Sound of Nothing

My new sitter was Jessica Jensen.  I called her Jess.

She was much the complete opposite of the obtuse and sedentary babysitter Mrs. Stockman.  Jess was a long-limbed, freckled-faced high school freshman with thick reddish-blond hair and a ruddy face infested with whiteheads.

Initially, I wanted to make Jess my best friend, but Jess had different plans.  She wasn’t mean or anything.  She was actually quite tolerant.  However, she was short of being my friend.  During our time together, Jess feigned interest in me, in the form of an over curious stare or raised eyebrow, but within a few minutes she was focused on something else, like her fingernails or the person on the other end of the telephone.  Nothing I said or did truly seemed to impress Jess.  She thought I was smart and funny, and told me so.  But her real interest was in her boyfriends and teenage mischief, all of which I was much too young to understand.

Jess was a roamer, and in a way I was her little naïve sidekick.  I’m sure it crossed Jess’s mind several times to leave me behind somewhere, but to her credit she always kept me in close proximity.  She didn’t know what she was doing most of the time.  She was just some teenager from a broken, druggie home, who didn’t know better, a girl who had far too much freedom.  We attended movies, where Jess covered my eyes so I wouldn’t see the full screen of naked breasts, and then afterward we’d hitchhike about town, bouncing from one kid’s house to another.  Jess was in search of something, maybe an escape or a rush, something to make her forget about where she’d come from and what she’d seen.

I stood by Jess, no matter where she took me, because, like her, I had no choice.  Choices are for bigger kids, once they realize they are worth something, once they know their value, once they can look at themselves and smile, liking what they see.  Jess and I, we just hadn’t gotten there yet.

I followed Jess into a world that seemed a distant land from the home I once knew with my stepfather Drake.  It was a place of no good and ugliness, a world with molding mattresses stretched out under the overgrowth of a beat up magnolia tree, where the backyard fence was bent and broken in all different places, where the house with the peeling yellow paint and exposed boards stank even from the outside, maybe even from the next house over—a raw smell, a dangerous smell that I imagine dogs would whimper and slink away from.

And there, I’d find her oldest brother, or better yet, he’d find me—a long-haired, high school dropout named Rick: a teenager roughened by an absent father and a strung out mother, scraped up all over on the inside like a bristle brush to stainless steel. An aimless boy who roamed a place where beer bottles lined the back porch and stray wild cats, some pregnant, some close to death, slithered in and out of open basement spaces like hairy serpents.

Inside Jess’ house were threadbare couches, half-busted televisions and food, but not the type of food anyone would want to eat, just leftover spoiled junk, crushed potato chips and cookie remnants, and bowls of sugary cereals molding in spoiled milk.  It was the type of house that needed to be quarantined, sealed off with yellow tape and bulldozed down, or burnt into smoldering ash.  No good was in the house.  No good at all.

Rick liked to play doctor, a confusing game wherein he touched me in places a little girl should never be touched.  And Jess, he’d do the same to her, that’s what I suspected, though I never said so.  I just kept my mouth shut, let him do what he needed, and left, went out and found Jess, like nothing had happened.  He never laid himself on me, nothing as crude as that, and he was just a child himself.  He didn’t know any better; just like Jess, he didn’t know any better.

I didn’t feel nothing.  No pleasure, no guilt, no disgust, felt like I would after playing a game of Twister or the Game of Life.  That’s what it was, just another game of life.

One time, in the early spring, I clutched Jess’ hand in her backyard while watching the slimy-brown juices of chewing tobacco seep out the side of Rick’s cocked mouth. “Get the hell out of here!” Rick yelled, fixing his cold-hazel eyes on scowling Jess.

Jess stood her ground.

“Didn’t you hear me?” Rick continued, kicking up pebbles with his muddy old boots and letting loose a wall of dust. “Get the hell out of here!”

“You are an idiot,” Jess said. “It’s my backyard, too.”

“Screw you!”

Jess clenched her teeth.  I stepped back and started counting the multitudes of dandelions.  At the same time, Rick removed a chipped brick from an outdoor wall.

Jess screamed, “You’re going to get arrested!”

“Mind your own business,” Rick said with a heated gaze, adding more spit to the puddle in the dirt.  “Just get out of my sight.  Go back to humping your fat loser of a boyfriend!”  With that said, he pulled out a dented tin box which had been stuffed in the space behind where the old brick had been.  He then opened the box and pulled out a pile of compressed twenties.  He fanned out the money, stopping to toss a smirk Jess’s way, and then shoved the box and brick back in place.

Jess squeezed my hand, and shouted again, “If Mother finds out, she’ll kick you out on your ass again!”

Answering back with a stiff middle finger, Rick headed out the busted back gate. “Whore!” he hollered from over the broken fence. “Stinking Whore!”

Jess turned round to find me.  I gazed up at her and I thought for a moment she might grab some money for herself.  Images of Budd’s ice cream cones and bean burritos danced in my head.  But Jess didn’t take any money.  She didn’t even go near the brick.  Instead she led me inside her house to the grime-covered kitchen.

“Come on,” Jess said.  “Let’s get out of here.”  She grabbed a hotdog off of a plate and took a bite, then proceeded to chew with her mouth open.  My mother taught me to always close my mouth while eating.  I watched as Jess’ food slid about, until the hotdog moved to the side of her blushing cheek.  “Now, what did you see?  You didn’t see anything did you?”  She swallowed and took another mouthful.  A frantic look crossed her face.  She paused between her words to chew. “Because… if you saw… or     heard… anything… anything at all… it’s not… true.”

“I didn’t see anything,” I said, wide-eyed and innocent.  I started counting with my fingers.  I figured there was at least a few hundred dollars in the box.

Jess swallowed again. “Good.  Good.  Let’s go then.  Come on.”

As Jess walked a few strides ahead of me, I could hear her disjointed whispers.  A block away, she stopped and turned to me.  “Never mind,” she said.  “You’re too young to understand.  It’s too late, just too late to do anything now.”

Further up the sidewalk, Jess stopped dead in her tracks.  Her lacy halter flapped up in the wind.  I reached over and attempted to pull her top down.  She didn’t notice, and the wind blew the halter right back up again.  Her sheer pink bra was showing.  I studied the thin material.  Jess faced sideways and cupped her hand to her ear. “Listen.  Do you hear a police car?  Do you hear that?”

I gazed into the crystal-blue of her wild eyes and considered what Jess had said.  I didn’t hear anything.  We waited without moving, stood still—didn’t move an inch, just like those pill bugs do when they’re playing dead.  For a few seconds I believed Jess might well be a bionic babysitter endowed with supernatural hearing.  I waited patiently for the sound of the police siren or the sight of a patrol car.  I waited and waited, but in the end there was nothing.

© Everyday Aspergers, 2012. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. https://aspergersgirls.wordpress.com

Samantha Craft

Day 98: The Day I Lost My Butt

| Aspergers Girls

This is a true story.

My husband took this photo and the other. He is gifted that way.

I was with a crowd of people the day I lost my butt. I searched everywhere for my butt. In desperate need of a butt, I clasped my two hands over a stranger’s butt, imitated pulling off her butt, and then I tried to fit her butt onto my butt. But her butt wouldn’t stay on me. When the stranger asked, “How does my butt fit?” I responded, “Too small.” And with a frown, I sighed, shrugged my shoulders, hung my head low, and gave her back her butt.

As I walked in embarrassment without at butt, I covered the place my butt had been with my hands. Sometimes I slid across the floor to hide my missing butt or I squatted down and walked low to the ground. When I sat, I placed my hands beneath me on the chair to protect the skin where my butt had been. Other times I sat on my knees.

Off and on for an hour, I searched for my butt. One time I asked the crowd, “Have you seen my butt?”

I looked under my chair for my butt. I looked in corners and underneath people’s legs for my butt. Later, in desperation, I found a microphone, and again asked, “Has anyone seen my butt?”

No one had seen my butt.

After we left the crowd, and returned home, for weeks my three sons, and sometimes my husband, would peer from around the corner, at random intervals, and ask, “Where’s your butt?”  One day my family gathered together on the couch to view the recording of the day I lost my butt.

It didn’t matter where I went in our home. I could be sitting on the toilet, climbing the stairs, or cooking dinner, and someone in our house would ask, “Where’s your butt?”

I will always remember the day I lost my butt.

My butt is back now. My butt actually never disappeared. I only thought my butt had vanished. In reality I’d been hypnotized on stage to believe my butt was stolen.

I believe at times we all think we’ve lost our butts, or at least we believe we’ve lost a portion of ourselves. Many of us think an essential part of us is missing or lacking. We believe we aren’t worthy, aren’t enough, aren’t special, and aren’t lovable; when in actuality we came into the world fully equipped with everything we need. Our butts are firmly attached.

Nothing is missing and nothing has been taken away. We are worthy, we are enough, we are special, we are lovable, but we forget. When we think we are lacking that is like our mind tricking us into think we have no butt. When we think we are lacking, we walk the world like our butts are missing. We hang our heads low, we hide, we search, we ask, we fear and worry.

We trick ourselves. We hypnotize ourselves into thinking we are lacking when everything is right there where it is supposed to be. All we have to do is to reach down and grab our gifts. They are right there waiting.

So the next time you find yourself lacking, remember the story of the lady who lost her butt. Think of her standing on stage, speaking into a microphone and asking, “Has anyone seen my butt?” That is exactly what you are doing when you are searching for your worthiness.

Don’t ever think you’ve lost your butt.

Your worthiness is firmly attached to you.

Now get out there and shake your booty!


The answer for yesterday’s post was number 9. Number 9 was the fiction.

Number 9 was a little bit true. The object was a tampon that flew across the cafeteria and hit someone in the head, but I ducked, covered, and ran before anyone knew I was the culprit. No one picked it up and handed it to me.

Don’t feel bad, my husband guessed the wrong one.

For those that guessed number  7, you were close. I could have worded that fact more clearly. I did review 100 men, but I reviewed the recordings they left, then I called a couple dozen back. So, if you guessed that number, you get a free pass.

Everything else was true. Including Patty Hearst and the swimsuit model. Thanks for participating. I had a great time reading your lists.