“The sharing of joy, whether physical, emotional, psychic, or intellectual, forms a bridge betwen the sharers which can be the basis for understanding much of what is not shared between them, and lessen the threat of their difference.”1
“Another important way in which the erotic connection functoins is the open and fearless underlining of my capacity for joy…that self-connection shared is a measure of the joy which i know myself to be capable of feeling, a reminder of my capacity for feeling. And that deep and irreplaceable knowledge of my capacity for joy come to demand from all of my life that it be lived within the knowledge that such satisfaction is possible, and does not have to be called marriage, nor god, nor an afterlife.”2
“The point is that Soren has been encouraged to seek out and explore his autistic environmental identity, which allowed us to enjoin our own empathy by relocating ourselves in the world of autism, as opposed to being in a world with autism tacked on.”3
“When is speak of emergence from the darkness of autism, i do not mean to i offer a success story neatly wrapped and finished with a “cure.” I and the others who are autistic do not want to be cured. What i mean when i say “emergence” is that my soul was lifted from the context of my earlier autism and became autistic in another context, one filled with wonder and discovery and full of the feelings that so poetically inform each human life.”4
“I was especially excited about the tones and textures of leaves and stems. How there could be so many tones of green light and so many endless textures. When clover touched my skin, it reminded me of my mother’s arm brushing against my face. The vines of morning glory made my body tingle. The color of their leaves in the early morning was like the C note on an oboe, and the blossoms swaying ever so slightly were like hypnotic splotches of light. The leaves of maples seemed to laugh and play like children, to take me up in them and float me on the wind. Poplars whispered. Cedars mourned. Pines did not want to be touched. The forsythia grew like baby fingers and could not stand straight for long under the weight of its own desires. Strawberry plants smelled me coming and got quiet. Blueberries never stopped talking. Blackberries were like old men, tired of the world, wanting to sink down into the thickets and explode with dark, ancient sweetness. I heard all the time from family and classmates and friends that I was in my own world. What they meant was that I wasn’t in their world.”5
“The ability to so openly love a thing, and to share it with another person, was amazing and extremely liberating. It wasn’t just jokes though; we talked about all sorts of things, at extreme length. Now, you may say that that’s just a typical new relationship thing, getting to know each other, but it was so much more than that. There were so many times where we would allow ourselves to get completely carried away, infordumping about trains, music, legos, the history of board games, and more at length. At first this was regularly punctuated with apologies for “going on for so long.” each time we reassured the other that it was more than okay to do so, and each time we trusted ourselves to go a little longer.”6
“And then there’s vocal stimming. Stimming is a contraction of the expression “self-stimulation,” but that name did not catch on in the autistic community for reasons I’m sure you can imagine. It can take many forms: hand-flapping, foot-tapping, tocking, swaying, clicking, drumming. Absolutely anything that adds sensory input to one in need of excitation. Stroking a scrap of fabric can drown out other unpleasant perceptions; fiddling with a pencil in a claustrophobic classroom can aid concentration; snapping fingers and clapping hands provides much-needed sensation–it feels good enough to do it again, and again, and again, and again. Stims can occupy any sense, including making noises. It’s two for one, really: the sounds and the words are pleasant to hear, buzzing through the ear canal and causing delightful bursts of feeling, and the feeling of vibration through the throat and tongue and lips can soothe the itch that builds up through the day which needs to find some release.”7
“The words consume me, the chaotic and unforgiving world blocked out behind the pages I have written. I am in a paper-wrapped world of my own creation and i exist there in absolute equilibrium, content to remain in that nest for eternity. But, I get lost in which parts to cut. It looses musicality, and not in a way that is interesting. The divergence from the beat feels messy and unintentional. Not exactly palatable. The flow is lost amid my efforts to sound more profound, or to tighten it up into something that’s snappy. There is a value in brevit. And I’m not very witty. It loses all rhythm, but thats alright; i’ll dial it in. Perhaps one day i’ll be brave enough to stand behind the microphone.”8
- Lorde, Audre. 2019. “Uses of the Erotic.” In Pleasure Activism : The Politics of Feeling Good, 31. Chico, CA: AK Press. ↩︎
- Lorde, “Uses of the Erotic”, 31. ↩︎
- Figueroa, Robert Melchior. 2017. “Autism and Environmental Identity: Environmental Justice and the Chains of Empathy.” In Disability Studies and the Environmental Humanities : Toward an Eco-Crip Theory, edited by Sarah Jaquette Ray, Jay Sibara, and Stacy Alaimo, 587. Lincoln, Ne: University Of Nebraska Press. ↩︎
- Dawn Prince-Hughes as cited in Gibbons, Sarah . 2017. “Neurological Diversity and Environmental (In)Justice: The Ecological Other in Popular and Journalist Representations of Autism.” In Disability Studies and the Environmental Humanities : Toward an Eco-Crip Theory, edited by Sarah Jaquette Ray, Jay Sibara, and Stacy Alaimo, 530–51. Lincoln, Ne: University Of Nebraska Press. ↩︎
- Prahlad, Anand. 2017. The Secret Life of a Black Aspie : A Memoir. Fairbanks, Ak: University Of Alaska Press. ↩︎
- Magnet-Dale, Jane . 2023. “Without Shame.” In Stories of Autistic Joy, 52–63. Jessica Kingsley Publishers. ↩︎
- Taitt, Matrim. 2023. “I like to Echo.” In Stories of Autistic Joy, 25–33. Jessica Kingsley Publishers. ↩︎
- Taitt, “I like to Echo”, 32. ↩︎
The Art of Autistic Joy 