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In 1914, grey seals became the first animal to be protected by government legislation.
I relate to their need for personal space, and their antisocial behaviour.
Enough. Even this most enthusiastic naturalist has to move on. I rise and walk towards some other sparkly thing of interest.
I have to hold so much in, phase so much out. It’s exhausting.
the bat didn’t make it through the night, and we didn’t lose just one bat, we’ve lost every generation that could have followed. Her injuries, caused by a cat,
Many people accuse me of ‘not looking autistic’. I have no idea what that means. I know lots of ‘autistics’ and we all look different. We’re not some recognisable breed. We are human beings. If we’re not out of the ordinary, it’s because we’re fighting to mask our real selves. We’re holding back and holding in. It’s a lot of effort.
Undertones T-shirt
We can’t access nature the way my parents’ generation could. Our exposure to wildlife and wild places has been robbed by modernity and ‘progress’. Our pathways for exploration have been severed by development and roads and pollution.
Warrenpoint,
I wish we could translate the language of trees – hear their voices, know their stories.
If only we could be connected in the way this oak tree is connected with its ecosystem.
I often imagine a canopy of leaves above my head, protecting me from the world. More often than not, though, it doesn’t work. The humiliation builds into despair. I get completely exhausted by the amount of energy spent taking deep breaths, ignoring remarks, weathering punches.
Where does all this hate come from?
Autism makes me feel everything more intensely: I don’t have a joy filter. When you are different, when you are joyful and exuberant, when you are riding the crest of the wave of the everyday, a lot of people just don’t like it. They don’t like me. But I don’t want to tone down my excitement. Why should I?
I want to belong, yet I hate the notion of belonging.
I am not like these birds but neither am I separate from them.
This work must be like riding a pendulum, moving quickly between joy, adrenalin, anguish, anger.
Schools can be extremely bad places to learn if you’re autistic. Filtering out noise can be impossible. Focusing and concentrating require so much energy.
County Down.
Doubt hounds me so much in life. If there’s even the minutest chance that something might go wrong, that is still a number to me, a possibility.
horse flies (we call them ‘cleggs’)
It always amazes me how Dad can talk, look and find all at once – I just can’t do that. It’s too much for me.
A tiny, solitary creature has the power to lift our spirits. A human catastrophe is transformed by a singing insect.
the skeins that invisibly bind us are spider-silk strong.
Only by looking can we challenge our own prejudices, clearing them out and making way for possibilities.
I now live in Castlewellan, County Down, in a small, modern housing estate.
The urgency of supporting collapsing ecosystems and protecting wildlife gets overtaken by human narcissism and insecurity.
Being autistic, I am a perfectionist and always looking for ways to prove that I’m actually an imposter, a failure.
silver Y fur can confuse the sonar readings of bats,
‘Much more surprising things can happen to anyone, who, when a disagreeable or discouraged thought comes into his mind, just has the sense to remember in time and push it out by putting in an agreeable, determinedly courageous one. Two things cannot be in one place.’
herb robert
goldfinches are called lasair choille, flame of the forest,
gathering of goldfinches is described as a ‘charm’.
We all have a place in this world, our small corner. And we must notice it, tend to it with grace and compassion.
sea potatoes – a type of sand-burrowing sea urchin – with pocks that once held spines and a bleached calcium carbonate shell that could so easily shatter on land or at sea.
The oak from Tollymore was used to fit the interiors of White Star Liners, including Titanic.
I listen to the crows again, and allow their sounds to go deep, to that place where memories are stored.
When I start to worry about school and all of the newness – of people, of classrooms – I think about the resilience and determination of swallows.
The smell of the earth in autumn is so different, intoxicating. A massive exhaling of compounds that swings my senses.
I am rising from the darkness too, and feel the light and the warmth of the soil as I lie on the forest floor below a massive birch tree.
Regarded by shamans as holy mushrooms, they were given as gifts on the winter solstice, perhaps because they are hallucinogenic (although deaths from this particular Amanita are rare, I wouldn’t chance it).
A new horizon. I vow to stand proud. I have a mission. I have a journey to make, doubtless with obstacles, but they won’t stop me, just as you can’t stop fruits bursting from tree and soil. I can battle quietly or loudly, with humility. I can be rooted, to ideas, plans, hope. I can grow.
When we (by ‘we’ I mean autistics) get interested in something, most people would call it an ‘obsession’. It really is not an obsession, though. It’s not dangerous, quite the opposite. It’s liberating and essential to the workings of my brain. It calms and soothes: gathering information, finding patterns, sequencing and sorting out is a muscle I must flex. I prefer the word passion. Yes! And it’s absolutely essential that we get to follow our passions.
my anxiety about school flowing into the earth.
twelve chieftain mountains on the island of Ireland.
hagstone
they are also called ‘Odin stones’
My ideal classroom would have no bright colours and lots of natural light. It would have a single line of symmetrical windows, six feet off the ground, looking out to sky and birds. The space itself would be cosy, and the desks would be arranged in a horseshoe, not a circle. I’d sit in the middle, at the bottom of the curve, so I could place everyone but not have to look straight at them. There would be nobody behind me – I need to know what’s happening all around. On the walls, there should be lots of inspirational quotes or cool facts.
is there a peak, a maximum amount of joy that we’re allowed to feel?
‘I’m so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers.’ Every year, my mum shares the same quote from Anne of Green Gables,
