My good friend Richard who has for almost two decades looked after my online presence advised me yesterday that it was some one hundred or sixty days or so since there had last been a post here.
Had I been asked the reason for the lack of words, I might have said a lack of motivation, or the disappearance of a muse. Perhaps summer reading might also have contributed.
Struggling when not having work to do, spare time in the summeer was spent watching videos from the Middletown Centre for Autism and reading academic journals on neurodiversity.
There was a repeated sensation of being familiar with the experiences described by those with the neurodiverse conditions arising from their brains working in a way that differs from the typical. Being someone who needs routine, who has to do things in a particular way, who dislikes changes in that which is familiar, I could identify with those who find some situations difficult. I don’t like being in noisy groups of people, I don’t like parties, I have a propensity for saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. I struggle to read people’s faces, to understand how they are feeling. I don’t do emotions, either happiness or sadness.
The passing of the winter solstice seemed an opportune moment to attempt a reset, to try to get words in order.
Arriving back in Somerset after a twelve hour journey from Dublin, the broken clouds allowed a glimpse of the winter sky. A recall of the countless moments in childhood spent staring up into the night sky. There were emotions felt at that time that defied any articulation.
In school, a group of neurodiverse students meets in my classroom one lunchtime a week – our students are decribed by the term ‘twice exceptional’, dealing with the exception of neurodiversity while being in the category of the gifted and the talented, they are students with high levels of intelligence. Facilitating the meetings demands no more than asking that there be only one voice at a time.
With the school engaged in Christmas tests, I had not expected there to be a meeting this week. Eight third year students arrived and asked that the meeting might go ahead. The discussion that ensued offered me profound insights into the challenges and helped me to understand why so much of my youth was spent feeling that I was an outsider.
