I did a pulmonary test recently at the hospital which involved a ‘game’ of sorts, namely keeping an animated cloud on a screen afloat. It was interesting. You kept the cloud up by breathing at a certain rate. This ‘game’ is similar to “Floppy Birds.” (Which incidentally I suck at!) Anyway, my cloud kept crashing, dive-bombing the animated green ground in what looked to me (without glasses) like a display of red lightning.
Eventually I passed the flag. This weekend I’m going against rheumatologist’s orders. I have to avoid sun exposure and no exercise for me till further notice. Well I’m going strawberry picking anyway. I’ll go in the morning before the sun really hits, wear long sleeves and a hat, and rest often. If I’m sick for days it’s my own fault.
PROPRIOCEPTION
(perception or awareness of the position and movement of the body.)
I lack good proprioception. I was discussing clumsiness in relation to being an Aspergers trait- recently on Twitter. For those who’ve read my book ‘Under the Banana Moon,’ you may know I once accidentally on Thanksgiving, put a knife through the palm of my hand. It came through on the other side near the knuckles. My then four year old son, upon seeing the mess in the kitchen started saying, “It’s just cranberry sauce. It’s just cranberry sauce.” It was blood of course. At the ER, the nurse said suspiciously, “That looks like a defense wound.” NOPE. Just me being clumsy. I consciously think before moving any part of me and this is crucial in preventing ‘clumsy’ accidents. I have no autopilot. I have spatial awareness ‘issues’ too. (One of the reasons I don’t drive.)
SPATIAL AWARENESS
(the ability to be aware of oneself in space. It is an organised knowledge of objects in relation to oneself in that given space. Spatial awareness also involves understanding the relationship of these objects when there is a change of position.
The W.A.I.S. test in my 1999 diagnosis of autism scored low, with my vocabulary and other word-related tests scoring above college level. I have not been to college. Oh, before I forget, my son texted me recently with this picture and the frantic text “I just moved a case of water and look what I saw!”
Never having seen this variety of rodent (we’ve seen a few mice in the house over the years, but not this kind) I was very surprised. Until…..
I got another text informing me that this must have fallen from my shelf of cut-outs that I keep for collage projects! I hadn’t remembered cutting out this paper mouse but there you are! This happens a lot.
I’ll be walking through the house and see a paper skull in the corner or a cut-out phrase by the toilet that must’ve fallen out of my clothes: “Behold!”
You may be thinking, is mistaking the paper mouse for a real one, an example of poor spatial awareness: lacking the ability to detect an object that is not fully 3-D in time and space? No it isn’t. It’s just a trick of the eye.
For me, poor spatial awareness is all around, all the time. Mapping a room when I walk to avoid sharp corners, seeing those ads on the floor at WalMart and tripping over them every time, even though I know they are flat ads. And seeing a moving object and not being able to gauge how far it is (example: the ball hitting me in the face instead of me catching it, at school, ensuring every time I’d be picked last.)
As the anniversary of my late spouse’s death at the age of 42 comes up, I am reminded of my own health (I recently started Phase 1 of South Beach again, the strictest phase and already seeing results), thus the focus here on breathing issues, inflammatory problems, and asperger-related fallabilities. I am also reminded of the importance of truly living. He climbed a steep cliff. This one:
Here’s another look from afar from this link:
While I’ve climbed this many times, I did so as a healthy person. He was a year away from being paralyzed by Lou Gehrigs. If the dog jumped on him, he fell over. As he climbed, I stood at the bottom, wanting to look away and not able to, all the while shouting up to him that he was going to fall to his death, was he crazy? He made it up and back down without falling at all. But (I knew him since I was 14, and he was 16) he was always that way. At picnics, he’d often charge into a fairly deep stream wearing jeans and work boots. “Why?” I’d ask. “I felt like it,” he’d say. Or if we were eating at a pavilion, he’d have to climb to the rafters and sit up there with his sandwich. A roofer, he had no fear of heights. On Halloween he’d hide high up and concealed in my (now chopped down) Maple tree, and the kids never knew he was there.
We learn things from everyone we meet, whether they are free spirits, extroverted, introverted, overly huggy, or even curmudgeons. Part of me hopes my partner will cancel the strawberry field trip and part of me says going is worth the sickness I may endure for days afterward. Wow! As I finish up this blog, the house just shook. The nearby quarry is blasting again. I’ll close with a dog/baby story and a piece of my art.
Babysitting my new 2 month old granddaughter yesterday, she started crying in her seat as babies do. We have a dog named Minnie, our bulldog/beagle mix. She’s a Buggle? Or is she a Beabull? Well, she started stretching her paws under the couch to get something. It was a pink rubber duck I didn’t know was there. She brought it (in her mouth) to the crying baby… ❤️
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On sexuality:
Please LIKE Keri Bower’s FB page for the DESIRE film of which myself and son are a part.
Because I am random and my thoughts flit like butterflies, here’s something I learned: I’ve discovered I am considered a (heterosexual) sapiosexual and demisexual. Who knew?
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I get low. I get pains. I get restless and doubtful and keep trying anyway mostly. It’d be a waste to waste any aspect of growing older because so many don’t get the gift of aging. That said, Here’s a note from a fellow artist/aspergers/dear person (R.) who made my day by sending me this note after purchasing my book:
So… recently I was told I have a “unique voice” that is “hard to mimic” and that I have a voice “like a cartoon character.” Hmmm I guess I’m unique. I don’t care how I’m perceived. Well. I care a little.
When I thought I didn’t belong in the MMXIX show recently, friends popped up with support. The show was last week. I felt that support. It was an honor to represent Art of Autism, as a lot of proceeds will go there.
What Art of Autism does to empower people, who are so much like me, means MOUNTAINS. Just yesterday, a few online friends (one of whom I’ve known since ANI-listserv in the mid-90s pre-diagnosis) said they thought of me in their day-to-day life for one reason or another. I may be fairly reclusive and at times isolated (by choice mostly) but those thoughts mean mountains too.
Note to R. The pedant in me wants to point out the misspelling of a word in your note but I will not! Sorry…
(I have to update the website very soon but it’s fairly up to date)
Raven Ambition's Aspergers BLOG 
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