Days of Gratitude - The Near Paradise Of An Autistic Fringe Yurt

These were great days.  I feel I should warn regular readers of something.  Lots of the days since have been very difficult indeed as my lovely autistic brain has struggled with the whole idea of getting through things and has failed to do so at times.  Although in another sense it has succeeded because, after all, I am still here.  Last night was very difficult.  Today has been very difficult indeed.  So many tears.  So much shaking and yeah, it's generally been horrible.  I cancelled today.  I had things I wanted to do or needed to do and cancelled the lot.  Later I did manage to get a few things done - like prepare this post.  But self care involved pulling out of everything I had committed to.

But these days below were great.  It astounds me.  Today I couldn't leave the house.  Yesterday I couldn't leave the house.  But I spent three days in the unknown-to-me city of Edinburgh, wandering the streets, navigating my way around - including managing to find the Quaker Meeting House in order to meet strangers for a bit of Shape Note Singing.  I spent time among more strangers and people I've not met that much.  I coped with a pretty harmless but rather too friendly drunk woman and was deemed brave by one of the "names" of the autistic community.

I was quite amazed with how well I managed those days.  Yes, much of it was spent in autistic space with autistic people and that's easier to cope with than most things.  But it was all unknown.  And I am pretty proud of myself for how well I did.  It's the confidence boost I mentioned in the last post.  There's going to be another confidence boost in the next post too - it won't just be staggeringly crappy days.

So here we go.  Four days.  And a musical decision at the end.  I was playing it today.  Parts of the Mozart Clarinet Quintet.  Badly of course.  I am surprised to be playing it at all.  It was a horrible day in many ways.  But I played a clarinet.  And I played a guitar.

September 16^th


Grateful that I have coped today with day one at an autism conference in Edinburgh.

This is the Fringe Yurt, safe autistic space.

And a conference hall that by all rights I shouldn't have been in.

Grateful too to meet up with a friend I haven't seen for 20 years. She says it was totally obvious then that I am autistic. Took me a long time to work it out for myself!

September 17^th


Grateful to have been given this opportunity to be in Edinburgh at the Autistic Fringe and to have been able to sneak into the main Congress too.

It's been a bit like an unstructured mini Autscape. Being with part of my tribe for a few days.

The yurt was well lit in the evening.

September 18^th


Grateful for the yurt days and the autistic space. But grateful for my own bed.

The weekend was an amazing opportunity. Totally glad I went. Now I need to recover from the last couple of weeks.

 Grateful too for a morning walk in Edinburgh. Pretty.

 September 19^th


Grateful for a decision to pick this thing up for the first time in years and blow air through it.

There is a plan to blow lots of air and maybe make some nice sounds too.

But it's been a long time. The sounds are not currently as pleasing as once they were.