By around eight years old, I had become a very proficient comprehender as well as word caller. So long as the material was of a factual nature. Fiction was more difficult for me for it forced my thoughts to go beyond the literal. I preferred biographies and eventually made my way through every biography we had in our library, despite the librarian’s repeated request that I check out something new and different. I liked reading about real live people and their real life experiences. It didn’t matter if it was a story about Babe Ruth or Harry Truman or Harriet Tubman. I wasn’t attracted to baseball or government or social issues so much as I was attracted to the reality of the words I was reading. Even today, as I find those same biographies on the shelves of libraries, I return to that old comfortable place in my mind where those words meant so much to me.
Unlike most children, I hated active outings, particularly outings to new places, so completely that I used to become physically ill just thinking about making the visit. My mother remembers dreading birthday parties and trips to amusement parks and parades and visits to grandma’s house, principally because I was certain to throw up just as we were on our way to the event. We can laugh about this now, but we both know it was anything but funny at the time. Neither of us understood why I seemed to find life so difficult. Every child wanted to go to birthday parties or to visit grandma. Every child, so it seemed, but me. Sleep overs too, were impossible for me, even though I tried and tried to actually make one work. They never did and each time my father would come to get me and take me home.
I hated leaving my home. It made sense to me. I knew where my books were. I could depend on my dog to follow my orders. I could run my fingers along the ridges our yellow plates made as they stood in their neat stacks in our square pantry. I could stuff things down our laundry shoot, over and over again. I could slide up and down our hardwood hall. I could line up my stuffed animals and talk to them without having to bother with needless interruptions. I could hide under my bed if I needed to.
Many a time, my actions brought my parents and me to the hospital. I loved to chew crunchy things, even if they were poisonous. When I was finished with my little tin foil table settings, I used to chew them until they crackled their way into a tight, neat ball. I shaved the sand from Emory boards with my front teeth. I took great delight in grinding the striking strip of a match book between my back teeth. I chewed sugar packets whole, loving the way the grainy sweet sugar overcame the bitter paper packet. I ate school paste and play dough and paraffin. I might have avoided the trips to the hospital if I had stopped my grazing there. Unfortunately, I also enjoyed toilet bowl sanitizing bars and moth balls. My parents tell me people at the hospital began to suspect them of child abuse. I suspect they must have grown accustomed to my idiosyncracies.
As much as I loved to chew scratchy and gritty textures, I often found it impossible even to touch some objects. I hated stiff things, satiny things, scratchy things, things that fit me too tightly. Thinking about them, imagining them, visualizing them… any time my thoughts found them, goose bumps and chills and a general sense of unease would follow. I routinely stripped off everything I had on even if we were in a public place.
I constantly threw my shoes away, often as we were driving in the car. I guess I thought that would get rid of the nasty things forever! I ripped the tags right out of my clothing even though I knew I would get in trouble for the hole that was left in the tag’s place. I think I was almost five years old before I was persuaded to wear anything other than my favorite pair of blue nubby polyester shorts.
I also found many noises and bright lights nearly impossible to bear. High frequencies and brassy, tin sounds clawed my nerves. Whistles, party noisemakers, flutes and trumpets and any close relative of those sounds disarmed my calm and made my world very uninviting. Bright lights, mid-day sun, reflected lights, strobe lights, flickering lights, fluorescent lights; each seemed to sear my eyes. Together, the sharp sounds and the bright lights were more than enough to overload my senses. My head would feel tight, my stomach would churn, and my pulse would run my heart ragged until I found a safety zone.
I found solace underwater. I loved the sensation that came from floating with the water. I was liquid, tranquil, smooth; I was hushed. The water was solid and strong. It held me safe in its black, awesome darkness and it offered me quiet — pure and effortless quiet. Entire mornings would pass me by while I swam underwater for great periods of time, pushing my lungs to hold on to the quiet and the dark until they forced me to find air.
Though my pool was my favorite safety zone, I had others. I often found comfort among the strong arms of a great maple tree we had in our back yard. In the tree, I could watch everything around me without having to interact. I could take part in the world as an observer. I was an avid observer. I was enthralled with the nuances of people’s actions. In fact, I often found it desirable to become the other person. Not that I consciously set out to do that, rather it came as something I simply did. As if I had no choice in the matter. My mother tells me I was very good at capturing the essence and persona of people. At times, I literally copied someone’s look and their actions. For instance, if a schoolmate began wearing glasses, I would sneak my aunt’s so that I too could wear glasses, even though they nearly blinded me. If someone broke their arm, I would come home and complain my own arm was broken, until my mother finally cast it in flour paste.
But often, I would engage in far more assimilating behaviors. I was uncanny in my ability to copy accents, vocal inflections, facial expressions, hand movements, gaits, and tiny gestures. It was as if I became the person I was emulating. I don’t know how I choose who to copy, but I do know they were always someone I found pretty, though not necessarily pretty in the usual sense. I don’t think I paid much attention to the overall appearance of the person. I remember being attracted to pieces of people’s faces. I might have liked the color of the eyes, the texture of the hair or the straightness of the teeth. But it was the nose that really held my interest. Straight, linear, «classic» noses appealed to my sense of balance. Button noses, turned-up noses, crooked noses, and especially short and smooshy noses, sent me staring in dismay. I wanted to rush to their face and remold their nose. I would give no thought to the bones and the cartilage that lie just beneath the surface of the nose. To me, the form was pliable and stretchable. And because of those thoughts, I found no reason why anyone’s nose should deviate from the linear.
My parents tell me they were often confused not so much by my ability to copy others, but rather by my desire to do so. They thought I was giving in to peer pressure or wanting to be someone I was not. This was not the case during that time in my life. Until I was somewhere around ten years old, I held myself separate from others. I never really compared who I was to who they were. It didn’t dawn on me to see myself as a fellow third grader or as a member of a team. I felt almost like I was invisible. I was conscious of the fact that other people could see me and hear me and talk to me, but still I thought I was removed from their domain. I didn’t contemplate that they ostracized me; rather, I chose to shut them out. I could stare at them all I liked, never thinking this might annoy them. I could take in parts of who they were and never worry that I was a copy cat, never worry I had lost me. I always knew right where I was.