On Being Autistic, Emerald Mines and MLK
Just because I'm autistic doesn't mean I want to keep company with the fascists, move to space and leave the world burning.....
Jan 20, 2025
I don’t feel unity with others, it’s not automatic. It’s a constant rehearsal, a performance, yet no one ever claps at the end.
In the company of humans, I’m hyper aware of my jaw moving up and down in a parody of speech, my head bob bobbin lik a robin like a bobble head. I forget to unscrew my alien head and pop in my people eyes that know not to stare and my smile that knows when to stop. My mouth that knows to ask you a question about yourself instead of reviewing my own performance. Did I pass this time?
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I used to disappear into a crowd. Remember when the 1984 Tigers won the world series? Did I tell you I met Dave Rozema in person? And Ron LeFlore, Kirk Gibson, Lance Parris, even Aurelio Rodriguez? (RIP Aurelio and thanks for helping the kids in SW Detroit) I had it memorized. Every RBI and strike out count. I could talk baseball with all the sports nerds. Ah, if only I had been born in Boston or New York and loved a team that won more games. But I’m loyal to a fault. I fit in with all the other Detroiters taking the bus downtown, jaywalking and causing traffic jams as we flooded the streets. GOOOOOOO Tigers! Take me out to the ball game. I belonged.
And there was that one reggae club, in the 80’s when Nelson Mandela was still in prison in South Africa and we all raised our hands and sang “Freeeeeeee Nelson Mandela!” Not being emerald mine apartheid royalty, I couldn’t free Nelson Mandela, but in spite of a low position in the pecking order of life, us dancers were on the right side of history. A side note, I was also in the club when the CHA CHA slide CAME OUT. and when the Macarena was new. I love those dances where you just have to count the steps and you can kind of blend in. If the light’s dim.
Here’s where I really fit in. I didn’t have to adjust my face at the domestic violence support group in the shelter, we could look in each others eyes as deep as we wanted to, give each other that look, that nod. We see you. Good luck out there. Don’t get killed.
I feel like that today. We’re all in this together. Happy Martin Luther King Day. See you out there.
