Coming home

I saw these two neighbors in their colorful draperies searching for their keys as I arrived home after a couple of medical appointments. I’m struggling with allergies, so I saw the allergist; and I needed a renewal of the occipital nerve block that frees me of migraines. I'm grateful for my tag on the blip of the last one because I reported that it left me "nauseated, dizzy, and sleepy" the following day. I had forgotten, but now I'm forewarned. It was worth it.

I’m in love with a new book, and I want to tell the world about it. It’s Nine Minds: Inner Lives on the Spectrum, by Daniel Tammet (2024). Tammet, who defines himself as an autistic savant, tells the lives of nine people with autism. The stories (to quote the cover blurb) “celebrate the power and beauty of the neurodivergent mind.”

I wasn’t sure I wanted to commit to reading the whole book. I thought I might skim and pick one or two stories to read, but by pages 6 and 7, I was hooked. “Vaughan was excited at the thought of seeing his story put into print. Then hopefully his ex-wife, with whom he remained on good terms, would come to a clearer idea, on reading it, of the often awkward, silent, confusing man who had loved her as best he could during all those years. Years that had rolled by at the speed of life.”

That last line. Now I can’t put it down and am on the fourth life. I admire Tammet's sensitivity and writing skills, and I really want to understand more about neurodivergent people. I love hearing and telling people's stories.