Can I ask you something? What does autism mean to you? For some, it means a life interrupted—a family landscape forever altered by the diagnosis. It is a universal language of flapping hands, and dancing fingers, and a lot of race cars lined up in a row. It’s meetings at school and locks on the […]
When I walked into the store, you were standing in the produce section near the fruit. The first thing I noticed about you was your jacket. I love that color blue, and it looked nice with your dark hair. I walked past you, and I almost tripped over an empty basket someone had left in […]
Hey, can we talk for a second? Can we talk about something that affects many, many women around the world? Something that was once considered a powerful symbol of femininity and fertility, and now is the source of jokes and embarrassment? A condition that disrupts life for many of us? Can we talk about it, […]
My son Jack has autism. He is thirteen. Every day he comes in contact with a variety of people who don’t understand the way he thinks, feels, speaks, or moves. I have no idea what this is like for him. And yet, I am guilty of it also—guilty of always trying to show him a […]
I don’t like getting massages. Everyone who knows me knows this. You know me. You know this. Yet, every time we go on vacation, you suggest we get a couples massage, the kind where we lie side by side in a darkened room while two massage therapists thump on our arms and legs. The last […]
I have been chasing autism for a long time. Thirteen years ago, it started as a question that flickered across my mind every few days. It was little more than a seed, really—a kernel of doubt that I could not quiet. There was something about my son Jack I couldn’t quite put my finger on, […]
Hi. My name is Carrie. I was named after my mother’s cousin. Her other cousin was named Alveena, so I guess it worked out pretty well. My husband and I have five kids and we live in New Hampshire. Our 13-year old son Jack is different from most people. This is not a bad thing. […]
Sometimes, when I’m bored, or irritated, or just kind of noodling around, I like to think about what it would be like if more people had a child like my son Jack. You know, a great big tall 13-year old who wears heavy black boots from November until May. A teenager who dumps ice in […]
The thing is, the Dad never wanted me. The Mom, well, she reminds me of this almost every day. She scoops me up in her arms and she nuzzles my neck and she whispers about how she had to convince him to adopt me. Then he takes me from her, and he cradles me until […]
Who are you? I sit across from you at the table, and I watch you reach for a roll and I think about how your fingers are long, like mine. I listen to you order your lunch from the server and I see your eyes dart up to her face and back down to your […]