Journeys with Autism

My life has been very busy of late — in very good ways. I thought I’d bring you all up to date.

Since coming through the long Vermont winter, I’ve been spending a great deal of time outdoors, much of it spent gardening. Over the past couple of years, Bob and I have been preparing some garden space on the north side of our house. We let the fall leaves remain on the beds to suffocate the weeds, and we added a lot of goat manure as fertilizer. This spring, I decided that it was time to start planting, so we went out and got mountain laurel and dogwood bushes; raspberry, gooseberry, and honeyberry plants; and an apple tree with four different varieties grafted together. Everything is thriving! Plus, I’ve been planting new flowers, keeping everything weeded, adding more herbs to our herb garden, and tending the vegetables that Bob planted on the south side of the house.

There are very few things I love better than going to a garden store and coming home with new flowers to plant, and I’ve been having a great time with it. I love being outside, and I’m determined to spend as much time at it as possible before it gets too cold to be enjoyable.

I’ve been feeling so good of late that I decided to go back to work part-time. So, in addition to serving as the copy editor for The Commons, I’ve started training to work as a personal care assistant for a little boy with multiple disabilities who lives right in my neighborhood. I did an online search for personal care assistant positions in Brattleboro and Keene, and I ran across the listing for the job on the Keene State College website. It was amazing to find it, because it turns out that his parents used to live in our house before us! As soon as I saw the listing, I recognized the name. And even more incredible? The little boy was born right here in our front room — where I’m sitting right now! Once I’m trained, I’ll be able to care for him at his house and at mine. He’s a sweet little boy, his moms are friendly, down-to-earth people, and his younger brother has a smile to melt your heart.

In addition to my jobs, I’m hard at work on two new books. One is a sequel to The Uncharted Path; it will cover all the ways that my life has improved over the past two years and will tell the story of how I got there. The other is an anthology of poetry and prose by autistics over 35, which I’m working on editing. I’m hoping to make a lot of headway on both before the fall, because I’ll be starting a part-time Master’s program in History and Culture at Union Institute and University. It’s a fully online program that will take me three years to complete. I’ll be putting together a curriculum in Disability Studies.

I love the fact that the program is online for many reasons, not the least of which is that I’ll be able to continue it when I go out to visit Ashlynne in Santa Cruz next year. I’m planning on an extended stay from late January to late March, which will have the dual effect of allowing me to see Ashlynne on the west coast and making it possible for me to escape the winter on the east coast. When I get back, it will be spring!

So that’s the news from here. Life is good. I hope all of you are well and thriving.

© 2011 by Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg