This morning, I was stumped. I had no idea what to write about. I asked a friend, who suggested I write about autism and creativity. I had a couple of moments of introspection and thought, along these lines.
I don’t know what my autistic creativity is.
Then the thought.As I said, I don
Yes, you do. You’ve been autistic your whole life, so every creative thought you’ve had or done has been your autistic creativity.
Well, damn, mike drop for the inner voice again..
I have a number of regular passengers who are autistic, and their creativity, around their special interests, is amazing.
The teenager focussed on game design.
The teenager focussed on music production.
The young woman writing parodies of songs with a theme of Australia and conservation.
But me, and my creativity? Remember, I’m (now) 52 years old, and discovered my autism late last year. And all my life, I have never thought of myself as creative. Yet, I write, I cook, I have gardened, and I crochet, among other things. While I was unknowingly autistic.
My writing? All my life. I won my first writing competition at the local eisteddfod, when I was 7. It was a story about a lizard who had lost his tail.
My cooking? All my life, from my first three-course meal when I was 8, to so many lunch and dinner parties, to now, in my meal prepping, where I am combatting of regression after autistic burnout. This meal prepping is creating tasty, budget friendly meals for my breakfasts and lunches. I’m looking at recipes and taking inspiration from them, creating meals tailored to me, my allergies and my budget.
Breakfasts such as frittata, omelette wraps, LSA bread with almond spread and sliced bananas, oat bakes with berries and chocolate, apple and cinnamon fritters, a baked rice pudding. Lunches such as chicken and loaded coleslaw, lentil and sweet potato salad, green salad with meatballs, green salad with crocodile, a dhal-like “hail mary”, pumpkin and salmon pasta bake. All for less than $4 per serve, using what I have in my pantry and freezer, like the crocodile meat. That got an overnight marinade in yoghurt mixed with my hot spice mix, with the heat coming from mustard and ginger, and a slow, low roast. My nightshade allergy rules out potatoes, tomatoes, chilli, and capsicum (peppers).
My gardening? Lost to depression and what I now know to be autistic burnout from a few years ago. But, oh, the gardens. Vegetables and flowers, all mixed in with companion planting. Heritage yellow tomatoes and luscious San Marzano (roma) tomatoes, not trellised but lying, lazy, on a bed of oregano, with chives, allyssum and marigolds in and around, given afternoon shade by a towering blue plumbago.
Sweet potatoes grown in a big bin, with the first monster weighing in at 1.2kgs. Pineapples, grown from a crown, such a beautiful, strappy, architectural plant during its slow growth.
Lettuces and rocket (arugula), salad greens, coriander (cilantro), beans, peas and sweet peas, aloe vera, and herbs – parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme… and lavender, curry plant, marjoram, lemon verbena, lemon balm, and so much more. I collected thyme, sage and mint varieties. Have you ever tasted a lemon thyme,a pineapple sage or an apple mint? And my beloved, and sorely missed, dwarf alstroemeria, and my miniature roses.
Oh, my roses. Dead from my depressed neglect. The miniature Black Jade, such a deep, luscious red. The miniature Irrestible, creamy white with a faint clove scent. The miniature Little Sunset, a harlequin of pinks, reds and yellows. The miniature Moon River, delicate pink with a vivacious, outrageous scent for its size. Beautiful little roses with a flower head the size of a 50c piece.
Their empty, barren pots and planters reproach me, every day.
With a creative hat on, and tried and true techniques, the food scraps from my meal prepping go into brown paper bags, what I think of as “compost bags”. These get buried at the bottom of a plant pot, then the soil is replenished with supplements of dried, matured manure, trace elements, blood and bone, powdered eggshells, and Seamungus, an organic pellet fertiliser. By the time these pots have matured soil that won’t burn delicate little roots, I’ll have a newfangled Bluetooth connected water timer tap, and little irrigation lines run to those pots, and then it’s time for planting.
Alyssum and coriander, to bring the pollinators. Wormwood, to keep the possums away. Chard and kale, in the right season, for folate, perpetual spinach, radish, salad greens, parsley, mint, nasturtiums, spring onions. All in pots on the kitchen verandah.
The bins, then, to be rejuvenated, for sweet potatoes.
Then there also the big raised cyprus planter boxes, 600mm x 600mm – four of them. Once rejuvenated, maybe another pineapple, maybe an aloe vera, maybe a wildflower seed mix. These are exposed to full sun, so these plants must be very hardy, and well catered.
That’s my plan, the creation of my new garden, food and flowers.
And all planned in a spreadsheet, of course. This is my autism. Plant, weeks to harvest, aerial plants and root plants alternating season by season, what’s in which pot with what companion plants, watering needs, nutrition needs.
Autistic creativity takes many forms.
What does your creativity look like?
The Auld Skald's Fudgel 