Keep Feeling Fascination
Exploring my tendency toward developing a laser focus, through the lens of mild autism. PLUS: Two events I'm doing with "Permission" author Elissa Altman, in Manhattan tonight; Kingston next Monday.
Recently I unpaywalled my Oldster posts in the “On the Path to 60” series I launched around my 59th birthday last fall. So far there are only two posts in the series because I’m struggling to know what I want to say regarding my freaking out about turning 60 other than: I’m freaking out about turning 60. (I do have another series post in the works, though, about trying to find a new, more grownup look, beginning at an Eileen Fisher outlet.)
Among the newly unpaywalled posts is this one, about receiving my mild autism diagnosis last fall:
As I noted in a recent post here, I’m not ready to officially do anything about the mild autism diagnosis I received last fall, and I may never be. But I’m having an interesting time looking at my behaviors and tendencies through that lens. It’s helping me to understand what I have always just thought of as “my weirdness.” Like, my entire life. It’s the reason I sought a diagnosis, and the reason the diagnosis feels like one of the truest things I’ve ever come to know about myself.
Last week, as I led a week-long personal essay workshop at the Southern Vermont Writers’ Conference, I found myself placing under this particular microscope the way I become endlessly laser-focused on certain subjects, not unlike the way I’ve seen autistic kids become laser-focused on everything from model trains to famous battles in history to types of dinosaurs. In each case, I’m driven to collect an encyclopedic body of knowledge and data around the subject, then become self-conscious about my laser focus and need to ask other people to share their experiences around that subject, so that I feel less alone—a curiosity/insecurity combo platter.
I have most notably done this with the topics of: how memoirists handle revealing difficult things about themselves and others in their memoirs, plus all the other aspects of writing and publishing in that genre; the push-pull that New York City exerts on its inhabitants, making it as difficult to stay as it is to go; and getting older. While I was at the conference last week, rattling off details I’ve effortlessly memorized of personal essays and memoirs I’ve reread many times, it occurred to me that my laser focus on those subjects is what ultimately facilitated my turning them into a viable line of work. (Thanks, mild autism.)
I am a full-on geek around all three subjects, and my curiosity about them is never even close to sated. It feels as if my endless curiosity is almost an independent (yet internal) engine driving me through my work life, which is intertwined with my personal life, because I gravitate toward memoirists and people who live in or have left New York City. It makes it so that even when I’m doing too much work, I’m not unhappy, because I am learning and sharing about things I’m obsessed with. Even when I’m tapped out, I want to know more.
Some other tendencies I’ve recently considered through the lens of mild autism:
The way in which things Brian says to me can cause me to rifle through my cerebral inventory of showtunes and old standards, then sing him the most closely related song. It’s a testament to how safe I feel with him that I’m not uncomfortable doing this. Conversations with other people trigger the rifling, but with most people I keep the songs to myself.
The way in which my brain registers patterns, and identifies similarities between things that might otherwise seem entirely unrelated. I detect similarities between people, too, and then find myself doggedly laboring to get two strangers into the same room on the off chance they might connect with each other. You’d be surprised how many times my hunch has been right, despite having little information to go on.
My tendency to photographically remember incidents and even entire days from long ago, and to almost involuntarily memorize phone numbers, birthdays, and other numerical details.
Man, do I make weird faces, especially when I’m thinking or listening. (In my book I call it “resting worry-face.”) This is not new information; all my life family members and friends and boyfriends have often said to me, “What is that face you’re making?” I’ve become hyper-aware of it now that I’ve been doing Substack Live video interviews. I struggled to watch my interview with Rosie O’Donnell from yesterday. I’m going to have to get over it and just deal, because I do not know how to not make weird faces.
I’ve already written here about my hyper-empathy.
It occurs to me as I write this that mild autism has the potential to become yet another subject I get laser-focused on. Right now I’m treading lightly on it, while enjoying the discoveries (until I get overwhelmed and have to stop). But I could see eventually digging deeper, and maybe exploring the topic more formally, as a writer and editor.
Maybe it’s another theme around which I’ll eventually collect a chorus of voices…
In other news…
Speaking of my laser focus on certain things that interest me, I’m about to do my second and third events centered on
’s important new memoir/craft book, Permission: The New Memoirist and the Courage to Create. (On Sunday I moderated a panel at the Woodstock Bookfest inspired by the book, with Elissa on it.)City friends, come hear me in-conversation with Elissa tonight, 4/8 at 8pm at Bookclub Bar in the East Village. Be sure to RSVP if you’re coming!
And upstate friends, come hear us at my wonderful local indie, Rough Draft Bar & Books in Kingston, NY, on Monday, April 14th at 6pm.
I started reading On Permission, and after about five pages, I had to stop. Somehow I'd left home without a pencil. I can read some books without a pencil, but this, this required a lot of underlining and exclamation points and notes in the margins, none of which I can bring myself to do in pen. So I'd dog-earred and double dog-earred pages (top & bottom) and am heading back in tomorrow morning, pencil in hand.
I also make faces when ruminating/re running conversations in my head. My husband will say "are you having a conversation with yourself?" because he can see the expressions flitting across my face!