Writer on the Storm

I always viewed myself as a looker-in standing on a bubble that is human society, an entity kept out because unable to break the tension on the surface. Growing up, there were no friends, no mutual bonding with anyone except sporadically with one of my brothers. From the time I began to mature, others viewing me being ultra-aware in the current situation but looking straight ahead, looking to them too self-important to interact with them labeled me as a snob and more. To make it worse, I have extremely broad shoulders and a stiff way of walking which along with the just described demeanor makes many read me as wishing to project a tough-guy image. Stiff, shrinking inwardly, avoiding contact - Yet considered a challenge to others' well-being. Any who would initiate a conversation were met with stammering or silence. They quickly backed away. The times I screwed up the courage to act normal the result was wildly inappropriate - words and behavior-wise. How I got inside the bubble makes for a long and twisted tale.

When I was a kid, age six, I took to hanging near my Mom to listen to her radio programs. Not the soap operas. Just the music. I knew Dude Martin and Eddy Arnold, Hank Snow, Hank Thompson, The Sons of the Pioneers, and more. My favorite was Hank Williams. After a time I began to sing with them and then went solo. She told me, "I wish you were on the radio so I could turn you off." Singing became part of my makeup. A compulsion I have never shaken. Which would be fine, I guess, except for one thing. I can't sing. As my wife told me, "Your voice is not musical. At all." It has never mattered. People get mad when I don't shut up. It's like a crowing rooster. There is one in the neighborhood that crows all day long. I didn't figure out until watching Youtubes about Asperger's that it's what we do. That and repeat words and phrases, relentlessly as parrots. Maybe I should purchase a kazoo. Anyway, I sing still and will never stop.

Compulsive behavior. I always have repeated words and phrases, parrotlike, without end, these days occasionally irritating my wife.

When I went to school, every year became a repetition of the last. I said not a word unless prompted to read or was asked simple questions requiring short answers. I mouthed the words to Good morning teacher and the Pledge of Allegiance without uttering a sound. Once, I forgot myself during a baseball game. I was sitting near the backstop and I said with a normal voice, "He's out." The teacher nearly gave herself whiplash turning to stare at me with astonishment. "Not mute after all?"

My classes occupied one reality and I another. I was reading library books and they were learning subjects. I failed everything in the tenth grade and dropped out of school.

Through my whole life I have had episodes of trying to participate socially, but my mind would go blank and I would stand there looking foolish before the other person(s).

To live from early childhood into middle age essentially alone, even if married with children, is a cause for unending depression and anxiety. Somehow I never felt like quitting. I knew I had value if nobody else did. I had a youthful fantasy of one day becoming famous. It was a notion edged with doubt. "How is that even possible?" my inner voice would ask. It was my goal to be a writer

Now, in my late seventies, I have as strong a will to keep going as ever. I will not go gentle when it comes my time. And yes, I'm a writer.

You must admit it's pretty weird having Asperger's, not knowing how to be a person most of your life, yet being a writer of fiction. I write in very short spurts then revise endlessly, often stymied from not knowing what such a person as the one in my story would reasonably do, since I never knew myself what I ought to do. When finally the story takes shape, since I am not educated well, but have read all of my life, I read the work as I would a book from the bookstore. If it flows the way a book ought to flow I am more than halfway there. Grammarly offers a great deal, but it's not much more reliable than spellcheck in some aspects, so it can be trusted the way we trust a stranger who does not know our mind. Context and intent. Rarely does one of my works seem adequate in my mind but they eventually have to float or not so that I can move on to something new.