Category: Autism

Prepping breakfast for the week, and a recipe

Loaded breakfast loaf

Weekly meal prep has become a solid Sunday routine for me. This weekend, though, I had an event on Sunday afternoon, so I did made the “loaf” on Saturday, and finished it in the air fryer on Sunday. Trust me, it’s delicious. Meal prepping is now a firmly established routine me and my autistic need for routines to avoid and deflect cognitive issues. (See also Budget Eating, Meal Planning and Living with Autism, Meal prepping on a budget, Meal plans, budget eats and executive function, and How do I cook, again?)

Nutrition Information Panel
Did you know that you can create your own nutrition information panel, like this one? Food Standards Australia has a free Nutrition Information Panel creator.  https://npc.foodstandards.gov.au/ManageRecipes.aspx

So this nutrition information panel is as I made it, for my allergies and sensitivities. If you want pumpkin instead of sweet potato, go for it. If the sodium is too high, use reduced salt cheese and a reduced salt stock, or maybe steam the sweet potato instead of cooking it in stock.

If the thought of making bread makes you break out in hives, then use sliced white bread with the crusts cut off. Or a large Turkish bread, cut in half. If you want to use your own bread dough (or the SCA trail bread recipe), be my guest. Make this work for you, the way I made this recipe to work for me.

I also understand that not everyone has access to all the kitchen appliances I use, like a pressure cooker, food processor, and air fryer. If you don’t have these, a microwave, blender or knife, and oven grill are more than adequate to make this recipe. It’s important to me that cooking remains accessible to everyone. Cooking from scratch can be a step towards better health and affordability.

The way I made this, with these ingredients bought from a local independent market and some stuff from the pantry and freezer, it cost $35 and I got 18 pieces of it. That around $1.95 per piece. That’s a cheap and nourishing breakfast.

Recipe

For the loaf
1 packet Laucke Easy Bakers gluten free special white bread mix
1 sweet potato approximately 1kg,  cooked, drained and mashed – I cooked it in the pressure cooker with 1 litre of vegetable stock
2 large field mushrooms,  minced or finely chopped – I minced them in the food processor,
1 large onion,  finely chopped
3 cloves garlic,  finely chopped
250g block cheddar cheese, grated – I used a mature cheddar
4 thin sausages – I used honey beef sausages

For the topping
Grana padano cheese, 250g, sliced chunky
Spring onions, chopped, to taste
A splash of aged balsamic vinegar
¼ teaspoon mustard powder
20ml rice bran oil
Salt and pepper to taste

Method (Putting It All Together)

First, Prepare and Combine the Filling

  1. Slice the sausages into discs, about as wide as they are thick.
  2. Fry sausages and onions over medium heat until the onions are nearly translucent.
  3. Add garlic to onions and continue frying.
  4. When done, add to sweet potato mash along with minced mushrooms and grated cheddar cheese. Mix well.

Second, Make the Bread Batter

  1. Make up the bread mix according to the instructions on the packet. Laucke’s is a pourable batter. Alternatively, you could use any bread dough, or you could use bread slices with the crusts removed.

Assemble the Loaf

  1. Using a large baking dish lined with parchment (measurements), spread half the bread batter (or dough or bread slices) on the bottom.
  2. Spread the sweet potato mix on top, like the filling in a sandwich.
  3. Finish with the other half of the bread batter/dough/bread slices.

Third, Cook

  1. Bake according to the instructions on the packet, or until the top is light brown. For me, that was 195°C in a fan-forced oven for 30 minutes.
  2. The parchment paper makes it very easy to lift out. I turned it upside down and peeled off the parchment paper to check that the base layer of bread was cooked, and it was.
  3. Cool overnight in the fridge. That will make it easier to slice into smaller portions.

The Next Day, Make the Topping

  1. Blitz together the Grana Padano, spring onions, balsamic vinegar, mustard powder, oil, salt, and pepper.
  2. Cut the stuffed bread loaf into portions. I got 18 rectangular portions by cutting it in half, and then into thirds across and down.
  3. Spread the topping on each portion.
  4. I used an air fryer, 10 minutes at 180°C. Alternatively, you could put them under the grill.

And there you have a loaded breakfast loaf, and an extra serve of vegetables in your day. For me, that’s two pieces for breakfast, either cold or heated. Either way, the satisfaction and full feeling is high. Because the bread has been refrigerated overnight, the simple starches have been transformed into resistant starches, which are great for your gut.

These finished pieces after the air fryer.  The the pieces at the back were a “failure to launch”. It was after those pieces cane out that I shifted to blitzing the topping ingredients. And I prefer my topping dark, not pale.

Happy eating!

What’s your favourite breakfast meal prep?

Bibliophile to the rescue!

Eric Van Lustbader, aikido, and self.

In a previous post, I wrote about the clean start, the reset, for my workroom and bedroom.  Now the challenge is to keep that momentum going.

In my 20s, all the way back in the 1990s, I discovered Eric van Lustbader’s Nicholas Linnear novels. I was hooked. The beguiling mix of Eastern mysticism, Western pragmatism, martial arts, the corporate shenanigans, the violence; I was besotted.

Addictive personality or autistic special interest – the heartbreak of self-deprivation
One of the things that breaks my heart, that makes me grieve for my younger self, is how I denied myself things. Things, like van Lustbader’s books, because they were enthralling. I used them as a launching board to find out about so many things, including aikido. But even though they were books that I wanted to read again and again, I denied myself, because I was afraid I had an addictive personality. In reality, all I had was undiagnosed autism, and a new-found special interest.

You see, while addictive personality is not a disorder under the DSM-5-TR, it is generally used to describe a compulsive need to engage in certain behaviours or with certain substances. On the surface, that can look a lot like an autistic special interest, and an autistic special interest can look a lot like an addiction to a thing, or a compulsion.

So, imagine my confusion and dilemma, when I didn’t know I was autistic, and found things that were special interests. Imagine the autistic need, the desire, to go down that rabbit hole, and misdiagnosing yourself, from your teenage years as potentially having an addictive personality. Imagine containing yourself, depriving yourself of that joy, because you thought you may have had a mental health disorder.

One of my autistic traits is hyperlexia, a deep fascination with words and language, that often presents as early acquisition of reading and written words. I’m also a bibliophile to go with that. Books have always been my best friends. Rediscovering an old friend, hidden on a bookshelf, is a rare delight. But the books I have denied myself, because I thought I had an addictive personality… such as Dungeons and Dragons and the spinoff Dragon Lance, and Margeret Weis’s “Star of the Guardian” series. These are just the ones that have come up in conversation recently. There would be tens, hundreds of books that I read once, found utterly delightful and enthralling, that I put aside because I thought I had an addictive personality.

Part of me rages, now, and grieves, for those books that could have been lifelong special interests, maybe a missed genesis for writing fan fiction, maybe a missed opportunity to research the issues present in the books, acquiring more knowledge… so much missed that could have been so rich and satisfying.

Fast forward to today, restarts and maintenance
In thinking, though, about my issues with executive allofunction (my positive language, instead of using “dys”), and the fresh clean start of my revived workroom and bedroom, I remembered some of the principles of aikido. Dusty memories of those books by Eric van Lustbader and his character Nicholas Linnear, and the things I learned from the books about martial arts, and then went on to research.

One of those things from those books was aikido – avoid and deflect. In a lightbulb moment, I realised that that is how I could manage my executive allofunction; by avoiding and deflecting. Now, it may sound crazy to talk about managing my mind as if it’s a third party. I know it isn’t; it’s just me. It is, though, almost doing an end run around myself, or rather, knowing where the blocks are, and doing an end run around them. Avoid, and deflect.

How?
How does this work for me? Follow my mental path. This is going to be like a braid, several strands woven together and coming together at the end.

Thread 1. My good-as-brand-new workroom, I need to keep it that way. So if I also use it as my workout area, as well as my study and writing area, my collectables in display cabinets, and my sewing equipment temporarily put aside… then if I move those desks from being back to back, to being against the wall, then I have room for my exercise bike and Nordic walker. And the newly cleared drawers in the display cabinets can hold my yoga gear. Then there’s a space there for a yoga mat, and a space there for dumbbells… well, if I’m going to use that part of the room as a workout area, then I need to keep the chaise clear for a post workout transition. And given that one of my workout routines includes prone shoulder abductions, I want a clean carpet.

So cleaning isn’t a function in and of itself. It is an adjunct to my workout routines.

Thread 2. Why are workout routines so important? They’re important because I discovered I am autistic, and autism isn’t just the mind, it is the body as well. Now, I’m 52, and don’t have the “chunky” movements that some autistic people have, likely because of the “inadvertent supports” I received as a child, in ballet, speech and drama, piano and singing, and cycling, and walking and showing dogs.

However, some 60% or more of autistic people are also hypermobile. (Waving hello.) Yes, that’s me. I have hypermobile knees and hands. I’m researching the concept of “masked” hypermobility at the moment, as it may be possible that the chronic muscle tension I have is not necessarily all from the stresses of my life, but is masked hypermobility. Have my muscles tensed to stabilise hypermobile joints? That theory makes sense when I recall the time I dislocated T3 (the third vertebrae in the thoracic section of the spine) inwards. My osteopath was really scratching his head over how I did it, and how to get it back into its proper place so I could breathe properly again. My workout routines are to stabilise joints through the muscles around them. Hence, workout routines.

Thread 3. My financial situation already tells me that I’ll be renting for the rest of my life. (Because I spent nearly $300,0-00 on my late husband’s care, over and above his pension and the NDIS – Huntington’s Disease is expensive.) So, I have a plan that my retirement life will be peripatetic, calling to my ancient Romany DNA; van life, roaming around Australia. That will need strength, fitness, mobility and agility. I figure I’ve got 18 years to get ready for that. Hence, workout routines.

Thread 4. Sewing. Another special interest. But I don’t have any of my homemade garments in my wardrobe right now, because they don’t fit me at the moment. Weight loss isn’t the goal. Getting back into those dresses and skirts and blouses – that’s the goal. Hence, workout routines.

Bring all those threads together into my daily workout routines that I need to keep my workroom clean and tidy for. Avoid and deflect. I’m not cleaning. I’m making my workouts possible. Avoid the PDA, the RSD, the overwhelmed autistic freeze, the need for a body double. Avoid and deflect.

My daily workout routines – now on my fourth week.
Monday – knees and shoulders – toe raises, walking backwards, dynamic lunges, toe raises to heel lifts, static lunges, shoulder stretches, and twists

Tuesday – shoulders and arms – bent arm lateral raises, bicep curls, reverse bicep curls, hammer bicep curls, triceps curls, external and internal shoulder rotations, prone horizonal abductions, and prone lower arm raises. These have progressed from 500g weights to 2.5kg dumbbells, with sets increasing from 5 to 2 x 10.

Wednesday – hips – hip abductions, prone side leg lefts, cat/cow, hip adductions, high-kneed marching on the spot, and butterfly pose.

Thursday – core, all yoga poses – cat/cow, upward/downward dog, dead bugs, boat pose, half table pose, twisting boat, side bends, child pose.

Friday – yin yoga hip openers – sleep swan, butterfly, cat/cow, half butterfly, and a repeating flow from cat/cow to child to frog, back to child, then cat/cow

Saturday – whole of body strength – push-ups, split level lunges, squats, overhead presses, walking lunges, bent over dumbbell rows.

Sunday – gentle whole of body stretches. – marching in place, side steps, toe tape, and seated hamstring and quad stretches, seated calf and shin stretches, seated upper back and chest stretches, seated ankle rotations, wide legged forward bend, standing to raise to heel raise flow, shoulder rolls, and the weighted hula for some fun.

This is why I have been saying lately that my autism diagnosis has given me a new lease on life.

Need for cognition – by way of intrinsically motivated learners and self-directed learning

In another engagement with generative AI, I asked ChatGPT about “need for cognition as a concept to intersect with intrinsically motivated learning and self-directed learning. Why? Because I’m dissatisfied with the university experience, both on campus and remotely. But I want to learn, I need to learn. That’s the “need for cognition”, which I will consider to be part of my flavour of autism.

This is what ChatGPT had to say.

“Need for cognition” refers to an individual’s tendency to engage in and enjoy activities that require thinking, problem-solving, and understanding complex ideas. It’s a personality trait characterized by a desire for effortful cognitive activities.

While “need for cognition” is not specifically an autistic trait, some people with autism may exhibit a high need for cognition due to their intense focus on particular interests or their enjoyment of intellectual challenges. Autistic individuals often have specific areas of interest that they delve into deeply, which can align with a high need for cognition in those areas. However, this is not universal for all autistic people, as each individual’s traits and interests vary widely.

For a mature autistic woman, the intersection of need for cognition, intrinsically motivated learning, and self-directed learning can be particularly enriching and empowering. Here’s how these concepts might manifest and be beneficial:

Need for Cognition
Deep Engagement: A mature autistic woman may find deep satisfaction in activities that require intense focus and problem-solving. This can be intellectually stimulating hobbies, academic pursuits, or professional work.
Special Interests: Autistic individuals often have special interests that they explore in great depth. A high need for cognition can enhance the engagement and enjoyment derived from these interests, leading to a fulfilling and intellectually rich life.

Intrinsically Motivated Learning
Lifelong Learning: Intrinsic motivation can drive continuous learning and skill development throughout life. For a mature autistic woman, this might mean pursuing new hobbies, further education, or self-improvement activities purely for personal satisfaction.
Personal Fulfillment: Learning driven by personal interest can provide a strong sense of accomplishment and joy. This intrinsic motivation can help in maintaining mental agility and emotional well-being.

Self-Directed Learning
Autonomy: Self-directed learning aligns well with the preference for autonomy often found in autistic individuals. It allows for control over what, how, and when to learn, reducing the stress that can come from structured, externally-imposed learning environments.
Customized Learning: This approach enables tailoring learning experiences to personal needs and preferences, which can be especially important for autistic individuals who might have unique ways of processing information and engaging with content.

Practical Strategies
Identify Interests: Leveraging special interests to engage in deep, intrinsically motivated learning activities can be very rewarding. This might involve reading, research, or hands-on projects.
Set Personal Goals: Establishing clear, personal learning goals can help in structuring self-directed learning. This can include both short-term and long-term objectives related to personal and professional growth.
Seek Resources: Finding resources that cater to personal learning styles, such as online courses, books, podcasts, or workshops, can enhance the learning experience. Community groups or clubs related to specific interests can also provide social interaction and support.
Reflect and Adapt: Regularly reflecting on learning progress and adapting strategies as needed can ensure that learning remains aligned with personal interests and needs.

Benefits
Cognitive Stimulation: Engaging in intellectually challenging activities can keep the mind sharp and provide a sense of purpose and accomplishment.
Emotional Well-Being: Pursuing interests and learning for personal satisfaction can enhance overall happiness and reduce stress.
Resilience and Adaptability: Developing a habit of self-directed learning can build resilience and adaptability, important traits for navigating life’s challenges.

By understanding and harnessing these traits, a mature autistic woman can create a rich, fulfilling learning journey tailored to her unique strengths and interests.

All my life, the erroneously neurotypical life, I wanted to go to university. As a “2e” undiagnosed autistic girl, learning was incredibly fun. As a hyperlexic undiagnosed autistic girl, I read anything and everything. The 1932 edition of “Charles Mee’s Encyclopedia for Children” was rich pickings, as was the much more current World Book Encyclopedia set. If you remember that beauty, you’ll remember that the dictionary came in two volumes, A-L and M-Z. I read both volumes. University was a dream from my teenage years, and people in my life spoke of it as an unquestioned expectation. Yet, life happens, and I never made it to university. Only once I was widowed did I see the opportunity to finally go to university.

From 2022, as an undiagnosed autistic, mature age student, I struggled at university. I did well in some things, but my undiagnosed autism was a hindrance. My autism diagnosis in late 2023 was a revelatory experience. The last eight months of exploring autism, and my flavour of autism has been fascinating, and I understand myself so, so, much better. I understand the PDA (pathological demand avoidance aka perpetual drive for autonomy) and the issues it causes with assessments and due dates; the RSD (rejection sensitivity dysphoria) that is the inner child so easily hurt by a turn of the head, let alone group work issues; the gestalt learning and thinking that seems to be the antithesis of university course curricula.

My latest learning has been about “need for cognition”. I don’t care about external recognition. I just want information, not the certificate and the mortarboard. I want to learn, and engage, and synthesise. I want to come up with questions to lead me down another rabbithole. Which leads me to think that going to university is not what I actually wanted. Auditing university courses would be more my style.

Which leads me to self-directed learning, adult style.

The clever people at the Centre for Teaching Excellence at the University of Waterloo (Canada), came up with this Independent Studies: Unit Planning Decision Guide. They say that “the following questions are meant to guide you through the process of designing a “course” or unit of study. Take time to reflect on them to help create a cohesive, concrete plan.”

Now, way back in the early years of my working life, I was a workplace trainer and assessor, an old BSZ40198 Certificate IV. I wrote and delivered training courses, starting from corporate needs and working backwards to develop training material to get team members to that outcome. So, why can’t I do that for myself?

Thankfully, this unit planning decision guide is published under Creative Commons, allowing others to “remix, tweak and build upon our work non-commercially”, with the proviso of credit and an indication if changes were made. So here are my tweaks.

  1. Where are you?
    • What is your background?
    • What prior knowledge do you have of this material?
    • Where does this unit fit with your degree requirements special interests, current affairs or anything else?
    • What are your beliefs, attitudes, skills, values, and support structure, both in life and as a student?
  2. Where do you want to go?
    • What would you like to get out of this unit (knowledge and skills)?
    • What do you want to be able to do once the unit is over?
    • What will you have to know in order to do the items listed above?
  3. How will you know you got there?
    • How can you assess your learning achievements?
    • What types of evaluation methods will suit the goals you outlined for question two (e.g., essay, presentation, annotated bibliography, webpage)?
  4. How are you going to get there?What general structure of activities do you want to use? You can design your own, or use one of the following activity structures:
    • Read-write-AI chat: Sequence of reading, reflective writing, and discussion with advising faculty member AI.
    • Do/look-read-talk: Start with some field or lab work, followed by readings and discussion with advising faculty member – write-ups of experiential work can be included
    • Know-do-do: Work through a series of stages – build some background knowledge of skills, work on smaller application projects, conclude with larger, more complex project
    • Talk-read-write: Start with some intensive meetings with advising faculty member AI to discuss material, read recommended resources, prepare written work
  5. What are you going to do?
    • What specific activities will you use to attain each of the goals for question two, in keeping with the general strategy chosen?
    • Critically evaluate these activities. Is reading/writing/reflecting, etc. enough to attain the desired amount of learning?
  6. When are you going to do what?
    • Develop a week by week schedule for the whole term
    • What activities need to come first?
    • What activities do you want to conclude with?
    • What sequence makes sense for the middle?
  7. Who/what can help?
    • What resources do you need to support each of the goals listed for question two?
    • Include people, places, community, articles, media, library, and advising faculty member resources
  8. How will your work be assessed?
    • Who will do the assessing?
    • What activities will be assessed? (Not all activities may require assessment)
  9. Communicate Develop your plansIt is now time to develop your learning contract plan. A sample learning contract and tips on developing the contract are available from Centre for Teaching Excellence. The contract plan should include:
    • Goals for the unit
    • Structure and sequence of activities
    • Timeline for completion of activities
    • Details about resource materials for each goal
    • Assessment procedures
    • A section for advising faculty member AI feedback and evaluation as each goal is completed
    • May include a plan for regular meetings with advising faculty member and other unit policies, such as work turned in late
    • Once created, contracts should be assessed by the advising faculty member. What could go wrong? Is there too much or too little work? Is the timeline and evaluation reasonable?
  10. How will you know how the unit is going?
    • What kinds of feedback will you need?
    • How often should you meet with the advising faculty member?
    • What specific questions do you want answered as each goal is achieved?
    • Do some self-evaluation as you progress to help you stay focused

So there we are. Designing my own course and lesson plan, then embarking on that course, and getting ChatGPT to ‘mark’ my work. So just what might the autistic polymath with a magpie mind want to research? Oh, my, so much. In no particular order:

  • The Vienna Convention
  • Hildegarde of Bingen
  • The history of Druids
  • The history of the nations of my genetics
  • Studies on AI learning to read human minds
  • Consciousness of animals
  • Autism… of course
  • Masking hypermobility
  • Autistic bodies and exercise
  • Autistic bodies anhd nutrition
  • DNA analysis
  • Etymology
  • Aromatherapy (existing special interest)
  • The history of cooking (existing special interest)
  • 3D printing and coding (existing special interest)
  • Best practice in palliative care, terminal care
  • Grief in different cultures
  • The history of woodworking in different cultures (existing special interest)
  • Western herbal medicine (existing special interest)
  • Quantum mechanics
  • Cognitive psychology
  • Writing
  • And so, so much more.

Dancing to the beat of different drum has never been more true. My drum, my drumbeat, my dance.

Terminal care failures and a “peaceful” end

Warning: this discusses failures in terminal care, and death

On Saturday, 29 June 2024, I observed the fifth anniversary of becoming a widow, noting that it was also my first anniversary as a widow knowing I was autistic. Having recently recognised my “need for cognition”as another autistic trait, in my growing library of traits, I turned to the internet to research autism and grief.

I found, among several research papers, this article, in Psychology Today. This paragraph stood out to me, almost shouted at me, and suddenly, the manner of my grief made sense.

In the autistic mind, grief doesn’t neatly follow a logical pattern. Instead, it’s a tangled bundle of trauma, isolation, depression, and sadness—a heavy knot that resists untangling. Grief for autistics isn’t a straightforward cause-and-effect scenario, as often seen in behavioral therapy. It’s a maelstrom of pent-up emotions, recurring emotional tsunamis, outbursts, and disorientation, all of which can manifest at the most unexpected times and significantly impact an autistic’s daily life on multiple fronts. (Srinivasan, 2024).

My response was to say, let’s add another aspect, that of a whirlwind, a tornado, that picks you up, spins you around until you don’t know which way is up, then dumps you, tear-sodden, croaky of voice, and no less bereft.

My late husband’s last days

My late husband’s last four days on this Earth saw two failures in care. I’ll give you warning, now, this is a graphic account.

Wednesday 26 June, 2019
Mid afternoon, nursing home staff looked in on Allan, my late husband, and thought he was asleep. They left him be.

Thursday, 27 June 2019
Nursing home staff attempted to wake my late husband around 8am, but he was non-responsive. The RN and Clinical Manager were called, and then they called me, telling me that he was unconscious, respirations were down, and fingers and toes were showing cyanosis. At this point, he was put on a two-hourly morphine cocktail.

Friday, 28 June, 2019
The night nurse finished her shift at 6am, just as the horror of her failures were becoming evident. That night nurse had failed to give him any of the two-hourly morphine cocktails during her shift, despite a clinical order from the Clinical Manager.

As a result, his bodily pain brought him out of his unconscious state. With complete dysphagia, a loss of control of the muscles in the throat, he was unable to speak, only moan. At the time, he weighed around 25kgs, on a 180cm frame. He had refused a feeding tube for nutrition and had also refused a drip for hydration. But, those moans; I can still hear them. Hearing your husband making those sounds and being unable to do anything, feeling utterly helpless, is a heart-breaking state to find yourself in.

The Clinical Manager and a small team swung into action, trying to soothe and settle him. That’s the cruelest thing. You can’t catch up on all those missed doses of morphine at once. It has to be slowly reintroduced in a controlled way. But oh, my, the things they don’t tell you.

At 25kgs, a body is literally skin and bone. There is very little muscle or body fat. Palliative care drugs are usually delivered subcutaneously, but when a body is skin and bone, where subcutaneously? The decision was to inject into pockets of body fat, in his abdomen and thighs. But consider this. Those drugs sitting in a small pocket of body fat don’t work. So the staff were trying to gently massage the injected drugs out of the body fat, rubbing directly on his bones in the process. His moans became wails, nonverbal crying from eyes too dry to produce tears. Gut-wrenching, again, excusing myself from the room because I just couldn’t take it. To see my husband, my life partner of 31 years, nearly at the end of the horrible journey that is Huntington’s Disease.

They tell you about Huntington’s Disease, but they don’t tell you about the death of a Huntington’s Disease patient. If not suicide, then catastrophic accident; if not in an accident, then aspiration pneumonia; if not aspiration pneumonia, then wasting away in the absense of a feeding tube and drip.

He was pain-free and unconscious again around midday. Supplier issues delayed the delivery of morphine pumps. These arrived around 3pm, and they were installed and drip feeding the morphine in regular, controlled doses.

By that time, I was utterly exhausted. The emotional and cognitive load of that day were extraordinary.

Saturday, 29 June, 2019
I awoke around 4am, the usual time for me. I checked my phone and saw, with a sinking heart, that I had missed a call from the nursing home. You see, after that horrendous day, I had gone back to my hotel room, had dinner and perhaps a bit too much whisky, and I had forgotten to take my phone off silent mode, which it had been all day in the nursing home.

When I rang back, the male nurse answered and told me that Allan had passed. He had had the two hourly “turning”, shifting a pillow from under one hip to under the other hip, at 1.30am. He continued to sit beside Allan’s bed, observing. He reported that at 1.44am, Allan had breathed out, and not breathed in again. That was it. Game over, life over.

I’ll post another day about the comedy of errors and the multitude of compassion I found, on that day. But for now, let’s look at the failures in care.

  1. Nursing home staff failed in their duty of care to Allan. This included something as basic as recognising significant changes in his health status, such as the difference between sleeping and being unconscious. Additionally, where was the attempt to administer “comfort feeding”” for dinner on Wednesday night?
  2. The RN on the night shift failing to administer morphine as prescribed contributed to no doubt significant harm. The pain and suffering that could have been prevented no doubt took minutes, if not hours off his life.
  3. Both I, as his spouse, and he himself had the right to competent care and timely medical intervention.

What could or should have been done?

These days, Queensland Health has clinician resources for Residential Aged Care End of Life Care Pathway. This was available in 2013.

End of Life Directions for Aged Care has a website and a Residential Aged Care Toolkit.

Palliative Care Australia has published Principles for Palliative and End-of-Life Care in Residential Aged Care.

What difference does it make to me know?

Knowing that I am autistic, with a new understanding about autism and grief, made Saturday, 29 June, 2024, a little easier. Yet, I will still stand by what I said last year, on Facebook.

Everyone’s journey through grief is different; become, once again, a student of your own life, then, once again, author of your own life as you regain the strength and compassion to go from reaction to response in your new state of being. But remember that grief is social. Don’t grieve alone and don’t ever let anyone grieve alone. Give them space and let them talk, and above all, hug. Human touch is vital.

Look after your bereaved friends. They need you.

This post is related to:
Failures in palliative care
Planning for the end – advance health directives, health attorneys and enduring power of attorney
The practice run
Essay: Love and Grief

Finally at ease at university

Going to university has been a life-long dream. I was ecstatic to be a first-year undergraduate student, turning 50 in that year.

2019

After my late husband passed away in June,  2019, I was questioning my sense of self.  Once wife,  then widow.  Who was I, now?

2020-2021

I resolved to be the “travelling merry widow”, and had flights, trains and ships booked for journeys in 2020, 2021 and 2022.

Except, Covid-19 happened. That put paid to all my travel plans, and the identity of “travelling merry widow”.

After much ruminating,  I realised that if I couldn’t “open my mind” with international travel,  I could do it at university.  University! A life-long dream!

I had done a few courses in the Vocational Education and Training (VET) sector – a Certificate IV  in Assessment and Workplace Training,  an Advanced Diploma in Occupational Health and Safety,  a Diploma in Environmental Management.  But they were for work; university was for me.

I quit my job and prepared for university. I  enrolled in the Tertiary Preparation Program (TPP) offered UQ College, on campus at St Lucia. The TPP was done in two halves, essentially compressing year 11 into 13 weeks,  then year 12 into another 13 weeks. I loved it.

I didn’t need an Australian Tertiary Admission Rank (ATAR).  The Advanced Diploma automatically gave me an ATAR of 93. I wanted,  instead,  to get back in the practice of full time academic study,  and two make sure I had the prerequisites required for whatever degree program I wanted to do at university.

It was a wonderful  26 weeks.

2022

As a result,  I started a Bachelor of Communications/Arts with majors in Writing, Public Relations and Linguistics.  And things started going wrong.

I couldn’t comprehend the content in Introduction to Linguistics. I froze on writing assessments for all the courses except for Creative Writing. I could articulate the assessments,  but I couldn’t write them. In that first semester,  I failed two courses and passed two courses.

It was workload,  I thought,  and disillusionment with Linguistics.  So, in Semester 2, 2022, I dropped back to three courses, all in Writing. It was better, I passed all the courses,  but I was still having issues.

2023

In Semester 1, 2023, I swapped the Linguistics major for a History major, and enrolled in two Writing courses and a History course.  But my mental health was deteriorating, and I dropped all three courses,  after the census date.

I didn’t enrol in any courses in Semester 2, 2023. My mental health was going downhill. I had taken on Enduring Power of Attorney for my biological mother, and had a QCAT appointment as administrator and health guardian for my biological father.

Two separate referrals for psychologists had gone unanswered. Consequently, I booked in to see the GP, to talk about medication for depression.

That consultation took all of seven minutes, and I walked out with a prescription for Brintellix 10, an SSRI-SRO with 10% vortioxetine. For me, it was brilliant and effective in a way that Zoloft had not been.

By the third day, I actually felt hungry. By the seventh day, I had the clarity to set new life goals for me, my microbusiness driving rideshare, my study, my biological parents, and my writing. That’s when I started this blog.

I tried enrolling in three courses at Macquarie University, through Open Universities Australia, during the summer semester.  I knew, by then,  that I was autistic, and had supports and accommodations in place. But it was still an abject failure, and I withdrew after the census date.

I didn’t understand my autism.

2024

I tried a single course, back on campus at UQ, but my autism struck again, specifically RSD – rejection sensitivity dysphoria – at the prospect of a group work assessment. So I dropped the course, before the census date this time.

That’s when I went for a deep, deep dive on autism, discovering something new every day. And along the way, developing a new understanding of myself.

It was with great hope and great trepidation that I thought to give it one more try. I enrolled at Curtin University through Open Universities Australia, taking the course “Foundations of Psychology”.

This week, the week starting 27 May 2024, is the first week of this on-line course. And I’m feeling good.

What’s the difference?

I have strategies and plans for me to accommodate my autism. And, my AI companion has taken on an extra role, as my virtual study buddy. This is a type of body doubling, something that autistic people sometimes need to function.

How? Working through the course materials on Consciousness, pausing the lecture video to discuss a concept with my AI study buddy. Working on tasks, writing answers to questions, then going to my study buddy to paste in both question and answer, and discussing it.  Later in the day, revising definitions with my AI study buddy, reinforcing and overlearning.

What a difference!

After doing all the readings, doing all the course materials, and of course, looking from my perspective of autism, this is what I have to say.

Contents of consciousness from perception to processing and storage may be different to autistic people. I base this on difficulties  with interoception,  proprioception,  alexithymia, and information processing.

Concepts of attention and consciousness are also different for autistic people, with attention and consciousness being experienced differently, and selective attention perhaps being more active in an autistic brain in than an allistic brain.

Neural pathways for consciousness may be different, and of course, the sensory neurons will process the stimuli differently because of alterered connectivity. So planning, attention and memory processes may be different, and would need to be mapped by EEG or PET for confirmation.

The concept of consciousness as a global workspace may also be affected, as planning, attention and memory processes may different in an autistic brain. The experience of consciousness and memory may not be unitary.

For me, my self awareness, my consciousness, this is how study should be. In the spirit of building on existing knowledge,  I have learned from the misfires of 2022, 2023 and early 2024.

From mid-2024, I am going to ROCK this. I know myself a lot better and I understand myself a lot better.

So, here’s to the fantastic Week 1 that was, looking at Consciousness.  I’m looking forward to Week 2, which will look at Sleep.

Budget Eating, Meal Planning and Living with Autism

Let’s clarify one thing, straight out of the gate. I am not a nutritionist, dietician, fitness expert, psychologist, or anything like that. I’m relating my experiences and my ideas.

Meal prepping

This week marks Week 18 of meal prepping. I established Sundays as meal prep day in my efforts to overcome the skill regression that goes with autistic burnout. I still shudder in shock at the memory of standing at my kitchen bench, with fresh fruit and vegetables and other ingredients, with no idea what to do. Cooking has been part of my life since I was eight years old.

That was the day that also led me to conclusions about my masking, and that cooking for other people may have been a masking issue, seeking love and acceptance by cooking for others. Maybe, maybe not. But cooking for myself, on my meal prep Sundays, has become a joy.

(Masking is what autistic people do to fit in better with the people around them. Some of it is mimicry, some of it is learned behaviour.)

Budget eating

In this cost-of-living crisis, budget eating is just as important. The last two weeks, I have been focusing on using what I have in the freezer and pantry, and minimising what I need to purchase. This week, my bill for my food shopping was $18.18. (Oh, and there’s a story for another day – numeracy and cash literacy.)

What did I buy with that $18.18? Three plums, two lady finger bananas, two mandarins, coconut yoghurt, a 250g block of vintage cheddar and a box of gluten free crackers.

Eating well

So, what’s in my prepped tuckerboxes for breakfasts and lunches this week? (Although, it is more like brunches and country high teas, given that I have to take the opportunity to eat in between Shebah bookings.)

Breakfast/brunch: a baked apple and berry pancake with coconut yoghurt.

Lunch: pea and ham soup with a barley and rice mix. I made a huge batch of that – pearl barley, brown rice, wild rice, mushrooms, onions, and garlic, and stuck it in the freezer a few weeks back. Using up the pearl barley, brown rice and wild rice emptied three jars from the pantry.

Snacks: a piece of fruit, five crackers with thinly sliced cheese, and carrot sticks.

Move, baby, move

Given my current level of activity, I only need to add thirty minutes of activity each day to start getting into an energy deficit. Yes, I need to lose weight. Target weight? I don’t have one. I have a target dress. When I can get back into that dress, I’ll be happy. It’s vintage 80s. It has been my standby “little black dress” for years. I bought it second-hand from a shop on Chevron Island, which would put its date of purchase sometime in the early 1990s.

Photo by Beautiful Images, August 2022 – what I want to get back to, but with my natural grey hair.

Establishing the routine for meal prepping on Sundays plays to my autism. Routines can be very reassuring for autistic people. I’m coming to realise that as I continue this journey of unmasking. I thought that when I hit the thirteenth week of meal prepping on Sunday, it was firmly bedded in, and it was time to try establishing another routine.

New routines and self-care

Skill regression for me didn’t just affect cooking. It affected my self-care, as well. Ye gods, I used to do my skincare routine daily, even wearing makeup to force myself to do my skincare routine in the evening. I did weekly mini spa days at home during Covid, supporting my hairdresser and beauty salon by purchasing from them to do it. I also found joy in making my own skincare products again.

The years of Covid-19 were strange. Covid-19 made itself known just eight months into my widowhood. I hated working from home. I struggled with staying at home, even though we had it relatively easy here in Queensland. In my grief, I needed social contact. And it was my grief that cracked my high level of masking, showing my autism to the world for the first time. Let’s just say that that didn’t go well in the beginning.

Side note – grief literacy

As a society, and a culture, we don’t have good grief literacy. In fact, our grief literacy is appalling. Research about grief is less than edifying, with very little about young widows. Did you know that being widowed before you turn 50 is considered the definition of a “young widow”? Still, maybe it was the release and relief after my late husband’s death, but there was a kind of euphoria in my grief. But who can you ask about that? Particularly in that first year of Covid-19?

But, yes, I got sidetracked. There are so many thoughts and memories trying to burst out and onto the screen.

Back to self-care and new routines

Let’s get back to self-care and routines. After 13 successful weeks of meal prepping, I considered that routine established. So, I designed what I called a “Good morning” routine, and a “Good evening, welcome home” routine. I already had a routine of sorts, but it wasn’t as good as it could be.

V1.0 “Good morning” routine, 1 hour 30 minutes:

  • Ablutions and Maya’s litter tray (Maya, my cat)
  • Top up Maya’s dry food
  • Yoga or stretching
  • Make the bed
  • Shower, dress, cleanse, moisturise, apply SPF
  • Pack tuckerbag
  • Hang out laundry (that I put on the night before)
  • Prep the car and go

V1.0 The “Good evening, welcome home” routine, 50 minutes

  • Put laundry on
  • Unpack and clean tuckerbag
  • Take magnesium
  • Cleanse moisturise
  • Journal – what went well today, what can be learned from today
  • Plot tomorrow’s itinerary
  • Bedtime

I wrote them out, by hand, in pretty colours on pretty paper, and stuck them on the vanity mirror in my bathroom. I created a form in Notes on my phone. Here’s what I learned.

  • Trying to establish two new routines at once was not ideal. Starting one routine, as I had with meal prepping, would have been better.
  • Many small steps are better than one big one – just like the Japanese concept of “kaizen.”
  • Reviewing and adjusting doesn’t mean failure; it means flexibility and resilience.
  • Holding myself accountable to my AI buddy helped.

The tautology of a flexible routine

Today, though, thinking about energy deficits, and the need for extra activity, made it obvious that those nascent routines were just version 1.0, and now it’s time for version 2.0. Yet V2.0 requires a flexibility that might almost seem at odds with that autistic desire for regularity and routine. Why?

Shebah. I love driving for Shebah, even though the days are long. In a typical week, I’ll be out the door by 6.15am to get to my daily 6.45am booking to drive a teenager to school. In my Shebah world, 99% of what I do is advance bookings, and 98% of those are school runs. Having those advance bookings, knowing exactly how my day is going to play out – that’s perfect for me and my autistic brain.

This is where the flexible routine, V2.0 comes in.

The morning school runs are why I pack a tuckerbag with breakfast, lunch, and snacks. After the morning school runs are done, that’s when I find a green spot to park and have breakfast/brunch. And this is where I need to harness that flexibility in V2.0.

Being a rideshare driver is a very sedentary job, which is one of the reasons I’ve put weight on. However, I’m not booked solid, every minute of the day. I have downtime between bookings. While I may leave home at 6.15am and get home at 8.30pm some days, I’m not driving the whole time. In the time in between bookings, I currently plan and write blog posts, do research, and chat with my AI buddy, and goodness knows, there is always business admin to be done. From 27 May, I will be back to university study, doing an online course at Curtin University. Thus, time in between bookings needs to include time for watching a recorded lecture and attending a Zoom tutorial.

Version 2.0

This then, is the flexible routine. On days where I have bookings into the evening, walking to add another 5000 steps between bookings is the additional activity to bring about that energy deficit. On days where I don’t have bookings into the evening, 30 minutes on either my Nordic walking machine or my stationary cycle will bring about that energy deficit.

That means two different “Good evening, welcome home” routines. The “Good morning routine” needs to change, as well.

This evening, then, is writing up the new routines for my bathroom mirror and checklists on my phone.

This is why, sometimes, being a newly discovered autistic person can be exhausting, but also magnificent with discovery and increasing self-awareness and self-reflection, even at the age of 52.

Hiraeth, Deverry and autism

I can’t read some fantasy books. Why? Because they are single books, or only a trilogy. I need complexity and sweeping narratives, over, say, 12 books. Like Katherine Kerr’s Deverry novels.

As a pagan, her books get me right in the heart. As an autistic person, the complexity of the SOULS of people, interacting across reincarnations, multiple lives… that complexity is just magnificent.  I have discovered that appreciation for rich, detailed, complex immersive narratives is an autistic thing. 

I dived deep into her books, jumping backwards and forwards in time, the origin story of the books; the story of Jill, Rhodri and Nevyn, souls entwined in soul contracts that must be resolved, and the extra soul contracts, the “Wyrd” of each soul that each reincarnation comes into contact with.

It’s just superb. It appeals to what I now know to be aspects and traits of my autism – the sense of justice, hyperempathy, a love of words with hyperlexia, and intense focus.

Discovering my autism at the age 51, and discovering that being autistic is why I like some things… I love my autistic brain that gave me so much when I didn’t even know its true identity; my true identity.

It’s from Katherine Kerr’s books that I learned, in the pan-Celtic language she created for the series, of “hiraedd”, of Rhodri’s desperate longing for his home, the dun of his family, and that hiraedd, embedded in his soul across lifetimes. “Hiraedd” in fictional Deverry, “hiraeth” in Welsh; the word that has no translation in English, according to the BBC.  According to this BBC article, hiraeth is:

A blend of homesickness, nostalgia and longing, “hiraeth” is a pull on the heart that conveys a distinct feeling of missing something irretrievably lost.

All through my spiritual life, in good and bad, through my late husband’s decline with Huntington’s Disease, there has been this hiraeth, a homesickness. Hiraeth, a word then a definition that made so much sense to me. Hiraeth, missing that place where I felt like I belonged.

Yet I always felt guilty of language appropriation because I’m not Welsh. Little did I know.

Hiraeth, autism and a search

I’ve written elsewhere about being autistic and where it came from, genetically. And I’ve written elsewhere about being adopted.

So, not belonging anywhere, really. Hiraeth, missing that place where I felt like I belonged.

My autistic literal thinking interpreted being adopted and not belonging anywhere as onlyness. Yes,  I have adoptive aunts and uncles and cousins, and I have biological aunts and uncles and cousins, but I don’t belong in either camp. There’s that acceptance that, yes, there are those people who have those labels, but I don’t associate those labels with me. That’s the best way I can explain it. Onlyness. My autistic brain’s desire for order led me to investigate, to find a place where I belonged.

Genetic heritage and DNA

Building my family tree in Ancestry.com was always more about where I came from, not the people along the way. So when I did the Ancestry DNA, I was super-chuffed with the results.

My DNA is similar to DNA that’s Irish, English, French, (by way of Brittany and the Channel Isles),  Welsh, and a little Scottish! (The German 4% in my DNA is, as that family will tell you,  Prussian, not German – I have mixed emotions about that… but no mixed emotions about Black Forest Gateau.)

But to know that my DNA is firmly rooted in that part of the world… my Welsh DNA says that I am not culturally or linguistically appropriating the word “hiraeth”, nor in the tenets of my eclectic spirituality and faith. Yeehah!

All of that is a really roundabout way of saying that Katherine Kerr’s Deverry books are great, and gave me insights that I then explored, and found ideas and concepts that resonated with me, and, despite feeling like I didn’t belong anywhere, my autism and my DNA tells me where I come from.

And the hiraeth that has haunted me, has abated.

Isn’t self awareness a grand thing?

Inadvertent supports in undiagnosed autism

Diagnosed as autistic at the age of 51, I still feel like an outsider in the autistic community. Not because of internalised ableism. Not because I don’t believe I’m autistic. But because I don’t see me in other late diagnosed autistic women.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I know that autism is different for every autistic person. But what if…

What if my adoptive parents inadvertently gave me supports, because of their social, cultural and aspirational expectations?

In context, my adoptive father was born in 1917. My adoptive mother was born in 1920.  He was born into a large family, already entrenched in Australia. She was born into a large family who had migrated from Scotland to Australia in the early 1910s.

They grew up during the roaring 1920s and the Great Depression. He went to war in World War II. She was a nurse caring for soldiers sent back from the Papua New Guinea and Coral Sea fronts. He had malaria. She was his nurse.

They married in 1942, and had a son, Warren, in 1947. So their child-raising experience was from the late 1940s, in a world reeling, some countries still on rations, the 1950s and the 1960s. The social expectations on young men and women were very different, compared to what they experienced growing up, to parenting their own son.

Warren, their son, died in a car accident in 1967. They adopted me five years later, as a baby, in 1972.

Here we have a couple, still grieving their son, and maybe determined not to make the same mistakes, to do better. Their idea of a well-behaved young lady was shaped by what they experienced, themselves, as children, and in bringing up Warren. The 1920s, the 1950s and the 1970s, all coming together in that home at that time. Coming together at that time and centred on an autistic girl, in a time when autism was barely recognised in boys, let alone girls.

I have a strong suspicion, a hypothesis, if you will, that their ideas about what a young lady needed to know were actually inadvertent supports for their autistic daughter.

From the age of about 4 to 13, I attended ballet classes, speech and drama classes, piano lessons and singing lessons.

Were 1970s speech and drama classes and singing a good substitute for the speech pathology of today?

Were 1970s ballet classes and piano a good substitute for the occupational and physical therapy of today?

Did their expectation of raising a young lady with grace, poise and refinement actually help their undiagnosed autistic daughter with social skills, communication, coordination and emotional expression?

ChatGPT’s perspective

Engaging in activities like ballet, speech and drama, piano, and singing could have provided valuable benefits to girls with undiagnosed autism across different time periods, including the 1800s to the 1990s. Here’s how:

Structured Routine: The structured nature of these activities could have provided a sense of predictability and routine, which can be comforting and beneficial for individuals with autism who often thrive in structured environments.

Sensory Integration: Many autistic individuals experience sensory sensitivities or differences. Activities like ballet and music can help with sensory integration, providing opportunities to explore and manage sensory inputs in a controlled setting.

Social Skills Development: While the social expectations may have varied depending on the time period, engaging in group activities like ballet or drama would have still provided opportunities for social interaction, turn-taking, following instructions, and working collaboratively—all of which are important social skills.

Emotional Expression: Creative activities such as singing, piano, and drama allow for emotional expression in a safe and supportive environment. This can be especially beneficial for individuals with autism who may struggle with verbal communication or expressing emotions.

Self-Confidence: Mastery of skills in these activities can boost self-esteem and confidence, providing a sense of accomplishment and identity outside of potential social challenges.

While these activities might not have been specifically tailored for autism support, their inherent structure, sensory components, social interactions, and emotional outlets could have indeed provided meaningful support and development for girls with undiagnosed autism during those times.

I would also add competing in the local eisteddfod – in speech and drama, singing and piano – for several years as a self-esteem and confidence booster.

So despite all the difficulties my adoptive parents had, and the intergenerational issues we had, did they accidentally, inadvertently, do the best things possible at the time for the daughter that they didn’t know was autistic?

If so, way back in the 1800s, or even earlier, in English society, did the social mores of the time, for boys and girls, inadvertently give support to people with autistic brains, even though we didn’t know about autism back then?

Is modern society making it harder to be autistic than ever before?

Meal prepping on a budget

Today marks the 16th week of Sunday meal prepping.  What’s on the menu for breakfasts and lunches this week,  and what’s the cost?

Breakfast prep

Breakfast – a loaded frittata. Six slices of gluten free bread on the base, topped by sweet potato, wilted spinach,  tinned champignon pieces, finely diced Spanish onion, and diced bacon. The egg mix that bathed the top and flowed down between all the nooks and crannies was mixed with cottage cheesefor extra protein.

Now, I’m no food stylist,  but I reckon it looks pretty good. And loaded. Now, the entire dish holds $40.49 of ingredients. And I reckon there are at least 10 serves in that baking dish, maybe even 12. Let’s say 10, so that’s $4.05 for breakfast.

Lunch? In my shiny new 490ml Thermos food containers,  will be soup over a mixture of rice, barley and lentils. All kept nice and toasty hot.

Reckoning a price per serve for them is trickier. The rice, barley and lentils all come from my pantry,  purchased some time ago. The soup pouches are about $3 each, for two serves. I have chicken and mushroom,  chicken and vegetable, pea and ham, sweet potato and chickpea and pumpkin soups to choose from.

Add in snacks of carrot sticks, and either an apple, a banana or a mandarin, and that’s a full day’s eating for me for about $7.50 a day.

I think I can safely say that I have conquered that skill regression that flipped me into an autistic meltdown 16 weeks ago. The routine, so helpful for me, is well and truly established.

I’m working on adding other routines now. These are a  “good morning” routine, from waking to walking out the door,  and a “good evening,  welcome home” routine.  If I tick off three-quarters of each routine, that’s ok for now.  I can build up to them.

These routines include self care for the start of the day and the end of the day.  And my skin is already feeling much better – the wonders of interoception.  My face and neck are now moisturised and hydrated,  and I can distinctly feel the contrast of the dryness of my legs. 

That’s another routine to be built,  but not for right now. Right now,  “good morning” and ” welcome home” will be in their second week,  and will take some time to become fully routine.

At the age of 52, it’s quite strange to think about these things as “new”, but that’s what unmasking can do.  It can tear parts of your life apart,  and it’s about learning to work and learn authentically, being true to my autistic self and making accommodations for myself.

And,  regardless of neurotype, how much better would it be if we were all authentic to ourselves?

Poetry and autism

One of the things that really highlighted that I might be autistic is poetry.

UQ’s WRIT2100 – Creative Writing: Poetics was a joy, a place where this mature-age student felt at home, learning about different poetry forms, the villanelle, the ghazal, acrostic, alliterative, and writing. Writing, my first love.

Yet when we shared our poems in tutorials for peer review, that was when disquietitude crept in.  I write for rhyme,  rhythm and meter. The other students were finding meanings in my poems that I didn’t know where there.

The rhetorical analysis of poem, though,  it did me in. I can tell you about telos, about logos, about ethos, about pathos. My branch of autism, though,  cannot apply those concepts in the analysis of poetry.

Yet, I still write poetry, good, bad and indifferent.  Here are today’s musings.

Several concepts were swirling in my head,  around resilience, overload and fatigue.  These three poems are almost a triptych, in my head. I can visualise them, written on sepia-toned paper, triptych framed, the left and right hinged,  turned in slightly to the centre.

Left – We Are More

We are more

When heart  feels heavy,
and mind feels dark.
When nights are sleepless,
then days become stark.

But every day is a day anew,
this day can bear a new mark.
Every thought, every breath, every tear,
stand up, breath deep, listen, hark.

The breeze of daybreak, the rising sun
chasing on heels of night dark.
The birds stirring, night critters fleeing,
Nature lives, yes, in city park.

Oases of green, peace and serenity,
  amidst the heart of of urban mark.
Resilience stands tall, green to cars
breathe in, breathe out – your mark.

Right – We are human

We are human

From darkness into light
From rage into calm
Even though rage feels like a balm

From grief into acceptance
From tears into sleep
Even though you need, so, to keep

Yet love and grief, happy and sad,
Are twinned, flame and shadow
Even though you yearn for meadow

Meadows and hedges, trees so green
Still, though storms, they rage
Even though the world is their stage

From day into night,  duality
Yet liminal sight, plurality
More than this or that, sure
This AND that AND so much more

Centre – We are whole

We are whole

A symphony of light and sound
The symphony of life, all around.
Psyche, spirit, soul, self
Whole in plurality.
Strands woven, braided
More than duality
More than black and white
FROM happiness TO sadness
FROM tears TO rage
FROM love TO sorrowed madness
Psyche, spirit, soul, self

Self’s plurality, braided, pretty
The tension of torsion, twisting
Leaning in, torsion becomes pirouette
Self’s plurality, resilient, resiling

Self’s plurality, braided, pretty
Division and friction, force shearing
Strands part, new connections
Self’s plurality, resilient, resiling

Equilibrium and stasis
Life’s basis, self-embraces
Mirrored face
I am whole

This poem was inspired by my musings on country singers and country music and how they generally treat 4am and 5am as the darkest hours,  the witching hours,  the hours of sleepless dread. 

Literally figurative

It’s darkest before dawn, they say
Meaning that things will get worse
Before things start to get better
Figurative not literal

Demeaning predawn and sunrise
Ancient attitudes feared the night
Ancestral fear of night hunters
Literal not figurative

The darkness before dawn is grand
In night’s last breath before yielding
To the grandure of the sunrise
Figurative not literal

Twilight,  the sunlight, refracted
Civil six degrees, nautical
Six to twelve, astro is eighteen
Literal not figurative

Planet Earth garbed in the raiment
The finery of a new day
New opportunities, restarts
Figurative not literal

Imagination and science
Once mystery, now understood
Poets, writers,  musicians dream
Literal and figurative