writing

452: Scarlet White

| Aspergers Girls

The agony is torture, pure fire to the soul—the way such solitude is split into ravenous venom, devouring me as leash to the chain, choking the breath of life.

I am that I am. And then I am not. Lost again in some unfathomable labyrinth of thought.

Where and why eludes and leaves a trail of dust dried blood. Help, I scream from somewhere else. Inaudible and out of direction. No path left. No place to go. But inward, where I already dive deeper in the vine of self.

Is it not this place again? The familiar place of no sunrise and no sunset. Where the cold dribbles down the walls of caves, and placates the answers with sweet soft denial. Is it not this somewhere found in the furrowed causeway of my mind’s nimble foresight? My meanderings all leading back to here. Some forgotten spot of eternity missed.

I am a vagrant, a vagabond, a ghost traveler to my own shadow. Unable to distinguish between in and out, what is penetrating and what is piercing, what is poking to release its plundering poison and what is slicing to divide where I begin.

I am invaded by darkness, the soul long forgotten in the night, the enemy out to demolish the light. I am what is not in the way I move without motion and touch without rhythm, stagnant in an air of dismal lies. Here I stand in the place I was, only the place no longer is. Here I stand in the place I was, only I no longer exist.

Wobbling is my fortitude. Swaying, ignited by the dreams unwound, the sword plunged further into the stream of mystery spat open. Coughing up the remnants of who had been. Torn down into oblivion, obliterated and left as carrion to the greedy hunger of naught.

They find me, these naysayers, and call out to the lost sheep I am, with doings undone in their torturous view. I am but what they wish, set asunder below them, and made to bleed about as the rabbit sunken in the snare of despair. My white coat diminished by the scarlet fever set upon me.

Who am I but this child undone, left in the valley of rivers, and blown into the sea of forgiveness? Chiseled and chiseled, as if stone were the heart of me. Made to blend in with misery, to melt in the doorway of pain. Charred to the bone with the starch black of misery.

And here, still, he comes. With his arrow strung across the shoulder of time. His answer seized in the windstorm. Here, still, he is. This gentle grace of knowing naught and knowing all in the splinter of thyme. He enters me as clear day. The light upon my forehead new. The pressing spot of hope spun open into the rebirthing. Come, my lady, he declares, pronouncing me the victorious one, the homecoming of his awaiting. Come, my lady, he mends, his words the golden thread of healing.

And I follow, as blind lady lost in his rapture, spread open by the seams to his glorious name. Come, I do, and trace out my destiny in his waters, dancing in the stream of desert turned dream. At last in the home of home. No longer chased down by the dark ones seeking to erase what has been brought to them as buried treasure uncharted. No longer stalked by the nightingale’s ghostly brother, who pecks out a song of bitter vengeance.

In only this way I am free. In only this way. When the darkness sets upon my soul and the bleeding ceases to flow without follow, and the voice comes, from the seeping of my chaliced tears. Only then I am home. Only then, in the making of self whole.

438: Brushed Thoughts

| Aspergers Girls

pin it my friend

This is a photo of a photo recently taken. It is the first one in years that I feel like captures me.
This is a photo of a photo recently taken. It is the first one in years that I feel captures me.

I have these type of thoughts all day long, even in my dream-state. They just come. Whisper to me. I see them as a visual concept I cannot describe. It’s not an image, but it is tangible and malleable, like invisible clay, the shadow left behind after the clay is gone. I can play with it and feel the vibration shifting and meandering and pulsating through me. When the words come, they paint themselves onto the blankness where the shadow plays. I watch as they unfold, and then work together to rearrange the words into the same frequency that I feel. I feel the pulse behind each letter, and the life force behind the formation of each segmented part. The rhythm, the punctuation, the formation and pattern of each word and sentence, all carry a vibration. I can feel if the structure I choose resonates with the initial visual concept and sensation. This is a sense I do not understand completely, a line connecting into something that is soothing, very real, and very much filled with light. I go here, with a pure heart and mind, open to whatever pours through. It isn’t easy and it isn’t hard; it just is. And I try my best to take no ego there. Instead I feel as a child-heart, over-flowed with joy in discovering a present left prepared and ready for opening. A gift to be savored and shared. And then I wait, for the others to see the unwrapped present, to hold it and honor its existence. In this place, with the words alive, I can breathe, for I have done my part, for a purpose beyond self.

I spent the last couple days, just clearing my mind and writing what came out. It generally takes me a few minutes to piece together my heart-mind intention. I made these into many posters that you can find on my like-page listed in the left-hand column.

Brushed Thoughts

* Let’s meet in the middle of the discombobulated space of energy where my truth does not match your truth, and sit there, hand in hand, embracing one another, teacher to teacher, soul to soul.

* A person’s intention is reflected in an energetic vibration. When words are created from a foundation of ego-desires, the receiver will feel a discrepancy in energy between what is spoken and what is felt. This response is not judgment. It is heart-mind discernment—the spirit discerning the truth beyond the words.

* The new conformity is to dislodge parts of self that are ‘negative.’ We are bombarded with: focus on the positive, speak of good, share only if it’s constructive. An obvious error arises through analysis of the restricted perimeters; for who is this one to decide the definition of negative, bad, and destructive? Whose doctrine, dogma, or philosophy is the dictator? And what of the infinite variables between right and wrong? Your suffering is my suffering. Your silence only perpetuates our condition. I want to know all of you, not the preconditioned ghost of you.

* Sometimes when you say, “I love you,” I feel a space of emptiness; not because I fear losing your adoration but because I know I can never demonstrate through actions or words how beautiful you are to me.

pinit conditional

* Anyone who attempts to fix, bend, or break you, is merely attempting to slip his reality into yours, in effort to make sense of his illusion of self. You aren’t responsible for what anyone thinks about you, only about what you think about others. When we learn to love everyone in completion, the truth is evident, our brothers and sisters solicit pain whilst in need of love.

* I love my authentic vulnerability, my inability to be anything less or more than I am, the constant way I come back to the core essence of self, in having Asperger’s I have been gifted the intuitiveness to know self, to embrace self, and to accept self. In so doing, I can love you unconditionally. There is no greater ability.

* I do not understand the motivation behind game-playing, manipulation, trickery, ill-will, and cruelty. I wasn’t born with the genes. And I am better for it.

pin soul to soul

411: Money in the Meter

| Aspergers Girls

On my way to see the doctor this afternoon, I left a message on a complete stranger’s voicemail. Someone I have never seen before. Never have known, and likely will never encounter.

I held on to that stranger while I sat alone at the doctor’s office.

Aspergers was on my medical chart, listed under conditions.

I have this tongue thing, like a gag-reflex tongue I suppose, and a long tongue at that, and my tongue NEVER cooperates, especially with dental x-rays and the like. It truly has a mind of its own. No kidding. As it happened, the doctor lost his patience with me. He tried all ways to get a culture of the white patch at the back of my throat with this long Q-tip thing. But my tongue kept blocking the pokey stick like it was sparring. I was embarrassed, to say the least.

The doctor threw the stick away, and huffed. Quietly and professionally, but the frustration was obvious. Me, being my nervous giggly self, offered: “Are there any tricks? Something you can teach me to help?”

I think he was fed up with the tips he’d already offered throughout the procedure. He kind of snapped, “Tricks? No, I don’t have any tricks.” I felt all of twelve.

My demeanor makes me come across as a stupid-head sometimes: the posture, the anxious laughter, the inflection of my voice. And I fumble with words as my voice squeaks in all of its youngness. You’d think I had the IQ of a horsefly. My un-brushed hair and sloppy attire of the day, likely didn’t help to set the mood of ‘got-it-together-woman.’ I was wishing at this point I’d dressed up for the doctor, at least had my hair up and not all straggly in my face.

Still seeming a bit perturbed, the doc summed up I likely didn’t have strep anyhow. The chances were very unlikely: no fever, no swollen glands, etc. But I knew I was feeling super lousy; I knew when I’d flushed bright red earlier in the day, I’d had a fever, and I knew I couldn’t risk getting sicker. I had an important trip planned and my husband was out of town. I had to know. The anxiety grew.

He left the room without telling me anything except to explain it was basically a sore throat and to gargle. I opened the door and asked a nurse if I could go. I don’t think the doctor appreciated that. He seemed bothered when he explained the procedure of when I could exit.

At this point my resources of zen-being and lovey-dovey-ness, were all but empty. I had a lot on my plate and felt like crap. I don’t remember the particulars, but somehow the subject came up again of tricks. And the doctor said, very bluntly: “I know tricks for kids. I teach kids tricks. I don’t teach adults tricks. Adults should know.”

Man, that wasn’t nice. I swallowed and felt my little heart race. I retorted, “I have to disagree. I have autism and my son has autism. And sometimes adults need tricks too, because our bodies work differently.” He kind of gave me a glance, and that kind of made me feel worse.

He then said, in a demeaning tone, “Have you ever heard of the phrase: Where there’s a will there’s a way?”

He asked if I wanted to try again.

I said, “Yes,” already doubting myself, coaching myself with the silent you can do it, and feeling terribly inadequate. As the doctor prepared another culture, I offered kindly, “The reason I want to rule this out and take care of it right away is because I have to drive in a few days a long distance.”

The doctor approached with the long thing. This time after several more minutes of ‘ahhhhs’ and ‘look up at the corner’ and ‘no stick your tongue back in your mouth’ and much more, the doctor sighed saying he’d likely gotten something, hopefully.

Again the sense of not enough.

Somewhere in the time line after something or another, that I can’t recall now, I lost my equilibrium. I don’t know if it was one final shrug or sigh on his part, or my urge to speak my mind. But I kind of unraveled in a calm but definitely I’ve had enough of this way.

Exhausted, I asked: “Do you not know what Aspergers means and how it affects people?”

He responded, “No.”

I said, “I write for a psychology journal; would you like me to leave a copy at the desk, so you can learn?”

He kind of looked either perplexed or bothered or preoccupied—I couldn’t tell. He said something that indicated agreement.

I said, “You know you were kind of rude to me. You didn’t treat me well.”

His back was still mostly to me, as he stared down the culture. I was thinking this guy was definitely undiagnosed Aspie. I explained, “You sounded like you were belittling me.” I was on a roll then, like when you finally get the ketchup in the bottle unstuck, after that final hiccupping glob, and the rest of the red comes pouring out swiftly.

I continued, “When you talked about not having to teach adults tricks. And you asked me if I knew what Where there’s a will, there’s a way meant. You sounded like you were mocking. And who doesn’t know what that means? You insulted my intelligence. Did you have a bad day or something? I mean the way you were…oh I don’t know what you were. You just weren’t nice.”

I felt a bit like I was in ‘Gone with the Wind,’ in an important scene. Only I was in old blue jeans and wearing socks with my sandals.

He mumbled, “Well, I’ve never had an adult who could not do a culture.”

I said, with a rising voice, “Well do you think I was doing it on purpose?”

He probably wasn’t too keen on being in a room with me at this point. Poor man. I should have given him my husband’s number, so they could commiserate.

The doctor left.

I had some time to wiggle and squirm and text a friend of my experience.

When the doc returned, indeed it was strep throat. He handed me some stick and started to explain about the red line. I said, “It looks like a pregnancy stick.” Now he was nice. He was smiling. He was more relaxed. He was finally sitting and looking at me. He seemed like a different person. He actually seemed genuine and concerned. I could have sat with this person for hours. He was much changed. I sat there hunched with a blank stare contemplating the reasons for his demeanor.

I was thinking: 1) He realizes I wasn’t a moron because I told him I write for a magazine 2) He is feeling kind of wrong for assuming I wasn’t sick 3) He is realizing he was a boob 4) He has no idea what else to do but to give in 5) He thinks I am nuts 5) He is so happy I am about to leave.

As I was leaving I said, about my strep throat confirmation, “Yes, I thought so. I usually can tell stuff about myself and my health.” I imagined I would have talked more and more, if he wasn’t ushering me out the door. I was fine then. He was like my new found friend. I’d forgotten all about the rest—the stuff before he smiled. He’d been kind and that’s all I’d needed.

I reflected back to the stranger, to the voicemail message I’d left:

“I was out of sorts when you left the note because I’d just returned from the airport. I was dropping off my husband there; and now I am headed to the doctor’s because I think I have strep throat. Your random act of kindness kept me from feasibly having that ‘last straw.’ My mother-in-law died this morning. I thought you should know you made a difference.”

When I was parked downtown earlier, she had left a business card on my van’s windshield. I hadn’t seen the note until an hour later, as I was getting into the car for the drive to the urgent care center. She’d handwritten on the back of the card: I wanted to let you know, I saved you from an $18 parking ticket.

She’d put money in the meter.

391: The Affliction

| Aspergers Girls

The Affliction

At this moment I try not to attach to any one ideology or belief, thinking I live in illusion, and that, even the thought of illusion and knowing a semblance of truth, be further illusion, if illusion be. The complexities rendered through the delving of mind are both baffling and intriguing, pulling me in like the piece of an engine longing for lubrication, its sole purpose found in the concept of functionality. There is no other need, but to be anointed in the telling, so I can proceed forward in a time of no procession; this is indeed troublesome, and not, as no burden be found in a place of no time bent into illusion; thusly, it is so that even the emotions that purge from within and without are naught, but the imaginings of ghosts long ago past.

In saying this I prelude my own entrance, a necessity within no necessity; but nonetheless established as a fleeting truism for the traveler beset with weariness. In knowing my truth is not truth, I am thusly freed from the agony of discrimination of self; the endless dissection that occurs, rightfully and dutifully so, when one sets about to cling to illusion of form. In so being I am formless, and this argument, if claimed to be a quarrel, quibble say but light it be, exists phantom too, than whom does whittle with words, with such speech gathered from the where and when? And this, my friend, displays the propensity to be traveler lost within traveler. Precise to say, to recognize the dream is to be the dreamer, and in so being the one at slumber all is weaved into further name-saying causation. Instead of scribing truth, I merely dictate what is thought to be truth within my circumvented reality; therefor, unless I was to gather the truth of agelessness and the potentiality of the All and lather this upon the minds of the singular, I do nothing justice; say my own tethered thoughts still set out to sea, bobbling in the waves of uncertainty.

I speak this not to set the stage for trust or to further prove a point of no point, as there is no point worth proving when no point exists; nor is this trust I speak of, need be, for in form I appear not trustworthy no matter what I mumble, as I am in guise as this ruthless one set upon high or worse the victorious one celebrated. In the eyes of man, I can be none but judged; and there the dilemma is set; for how to curve an aspect of enlightenment without throwing the ball at the very victim who perceives himself to be. In this way I am nothing; neither scapegoat nor scriber of the ways, neither angel nor devil worse, or even the pen that hankers from the very end of limb; I am none and I am All, and what one sees is neither here nor there in this place of nonexistence.

How weary I grow in even telling such a tale of no tale and how my hands weep from the desperation within, further proof the illusion grows; to hide and never recede, to come forward but never enter, to move without ability to see, this is the truth; yet, how does one born of the singular I move in a world born of We, when each, as separate made, choses their own captivity? Tis foolish man’s game, one supposes, to even breech the subject of immortality when everywhere the banners fly blood; come hither, to this space of mine, she preaches, and at once scorned with the rest; perhaps this is the truest form of freedom, to be as the bird of song and not flee from the stones that follow; to sing at the top of the peak and not fear the fall of the morrow; for my song is unleashed upon the highest, and meek not I be; for no river nor valley has captured me; and all is unsung that never was.

How can I be such butterfly with unclipped wings, when all about I dance in the dirt and soils? How can I be the babe nearly birthed, when the canal of opening seems so variably charted and boarded still? Am I not a queen emerged without her captain, on a ship without sail, in a land of no sea? How I navigate in a ghastly wind of nowhere and land again and again upon the very stone I once passed. What is this me, who dangles her memories like sapphires and counts them as rubies expired? Who merrily sings as the serpent unwound, un-skinned, and turned magnificent; who am I but this trellis before me, the ins and outs of where the others leap and bound; am I both prisoner and freedom maker, trapped in the makings of my doings, unraveling one and then another to find myself time and time again; some traveler trapped in a dream of no morrows and no beginnings; waiting for time to peel back as mere shadow set upon thee.

Is this my cause? To rest as mermaid on the surface of earth while weeping tears of the oceans before me? Am I to be starfish drug out and enamored for her legs alone; plucked one by one from the depths of nowhere only to be brought up to the rim of naught; circle dancer I seem, trapped in this funny limbo; awakened and spirited, yet alone in my quest of no quest; for how can it be that in being me I am the key; yet I be not? And how can it be, in being you, you are the me, and you be not? How can this brain of no brain wrap around infinity and spring up anything renewed in renewal, when at my very depths are the limitless breaths of knowing; where shall I begin when there be no start; and how shall I end when timely death has all but vanished, leaving but his cape, the dark shadow of remembering banished.

Laugh, I dare not, as the gleeful me is no cause for celebration; and what to celebrate in such a dismal state as this; and weep, I cannot, as what is for the crying worth, when all about is the toys of puppeteer lost and scattered, abandoned with the coming of the unraveled wavering truth; to be given such a task of no sacrifice, but to feel the shells of sacrifice, as if each had been splattered and fired upon some soul of thee; to be given the world in a cup and to glance down and behold eternity calmed, yet know not what to drink but the vision beyond; how can I be such vision and such mortal, wrapped in this infinite coat of knowing, spread open, the flaps as distorted wings discolored in doubt. How can I be this butterfly broken, when surely the simple embrace does cast illusion silent and heart-strings grow, carrying the essence of me freely without the need of form?

Butterfly or ghost? What be I; magnificent or tangled, what am I? Can you not rescue me now before I surely split in two; the idol of want, the taste of judgment, the enticement of lies, eagerly eating away at the flesh I once was; as I stir in my chrysalis of unrest, evaporated by the ever peace of naught, haunted by the unearthly voices of angels, my living blanket of tranquility the one that trumpets doubt forward. Where am I inside this invisible film, my being wrapped and then wrapped again, suffocated in incubation, brought out to the fire of transformation, and made to nibble at her own skin; when suffering is promised not, when answers never were, when everywhere is hungry ghost whose appetite has vanished through; who is this dreamer and of what does she dream, if not of the place beyond dreams that I am to break through; but how, is her only question; how in the light of your ultimate glory can I testify this truth through the pages of illusion-maker; how can I prove what is not to be proven; how can I dance to the invisible music of invisible air and weave something of nothing; and so it seems, I must rest eternally, until eternity surrenders; and I, let out of this suit of circumstance am thusly braided into ceaseless sky, awoken not wingless but weaved into completion, the very heart of light freed.

390: The Making

| Aspergers Girls

Pierce me with your sunshine; lay me upon the broken windowpane, so like the wind of nevermore I may bend through a timeless eternity, the ribbons ripped out my soul and laid down upon your guilded throne. Twist me into your very making, my ache your ache, my rumble your rumble, my determination sewn less with need than want of servitude.

Give onto me nothing unbearable less I be made bearable; and in this way give to me what is mine for the making; the seamstress of the night turned sunlight by thy key; I am forevermore at thy service, as the spring turpentine to the welder’s hands; cleanse me with your essence, so the very timing I proceed is blessed with the anointment of your coming.

I ask not to be recognized but to be given as the sacrifice you need; none less made panged than awakened; none less made broken than mended; in this way I am completed, in the thinking of naught but your asking; I am given more than asking’s appetite, taken from the illusion of pain into the gift of flight; my very substance turned to the gold of movement; all stagnation ceased as the phantom ghost it be; my effort surmised as effortless; my giving granted as undertaken by none.

In the least possible way, make me seen, so that I may not hide behind your gown, but feed of the eternalness of your glory; for your storm is my storm, your movement my step; the eye that leads neither blinded or scorned, but rather lifted as grandest seeker seeking nothing but naught; I am this or I am that; no difference matters to the me that thinks she breathes; no difference matters to the wings that carry me; no burden feels as light as thee; no road so unmoved and free; as the strongest rivers pouring through, though I be untouched, unmoved, un-enchanted by the very force of force, it is as if gravity ceases and the doubts erase, never here, never in existence.

No such beauty is found in the gentlest of faces; no such grace as thee. For in this chamber of no chamber, inside the existence of no existence, I am scattered across your calling as the desert flower to the grain, mixed in with earthly risers, nurtured through the feed, but set apart as springing grace in her majesty’s embrace; use me as you wish, as I know I am made for such worthiness; my deed undone in your granting, time let out as the hem of the dress when the coming of seamstress is left open.

I am the door; I am the window; I am the very pane where I lay in waiting, counting the stars twice over in my gratitude; for endless is no more; and future does not arise in the ever standing stillness of your abiding love. Yes, I have known love; at last the dove’s dream be mine; not for the taking, not for the making, but for the simplicity of beholding, the making of what I carry my very self; the essence poured within me, glue sticking to my edges, the vessel I be.

In this I am complete at last; all answers made swift; unworldly things lifted and set upon my bureau’s mirror, so I might step back and examine the guarantees of eternity; a reflection within a reflection; my brother, my sister, each an etching for the making; each whisper only my own voice; each shadow only my own creation; for I have been blinded by the light; and in this all ceases to manifest beyond the glory of His coming; for in you, in your endless sea, set free and flowing in tumultuous love towards me, I am swept, I am taken, I am made.

I thank you for the making with my very own soul; I dress you in the patterns of my heart; I sweep my only kindness into your seams; I partake in your dance; I feed off of no other than the mistress of my betrothed and lightened one; for your beauty is unmistakable, unmasked in each and every thing; whether granted breath or might, rather weak or unseen; each becomes alive in the coming of this music; I hear, I see, I move, and in this way I am at last awake; my slumber merely a dream; my answers never found; for naught they be but chances resting on the fireside hearth, never meant for kindling or fuel, only tokens of the illusion spun open through trust.

I believe. I believe in you. And thusly I believe in the ever growing gratitude of self beyond self; this high maker that lands someplace between the two that view; the one taking in the other, as cherished gift; the recognition forging the road to golden light; we only need undo the ribbon dotted red upon our brow, the drapery of delightful disguise, the leading point that made the dark in hopes and knowing of removal; for this is gift; this dark, this misery, this confusion; for in its lifting we be made this word freedom; we be made this careful union; we be this One.

It is in our powerful release we are made. The birth of life in the removal of the blinded curse; the start of eternity at our fingertips; remove me steadily; remove me again and again from your face; take me in my tattered form, my blindfold, my rag, my dark cloth and scour me across the floorboards of your mind. Stampede across my image, dissect me, lather me in spindly needles, torment me with your secret words, pierce me with demise, damage me with trajectory and misery; and then see I still stand in the glory; see I am still here, untouched, unnerved, unmoved.

For in my seeing, there is none that in illusion can take what is forevermore; none that can make me believe you are not the glorious one; none that can make me turn from the light of light, from your very face, dear brethren; for you are the light, the way, the path; you, as you stand beside me in your bewilderment, cursing my very breath; you are whom I love; whom I dare not stake; whom I pin myself upon, and claim as magnificent one.