Haunted by the Bother of Words? (Amber Intro) (10/30/2020)

A recap of the week's writing at Atticus Review. Introduction by Amber Shockley.

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I’m writing this a few days before Halloween. We’re near the end of a long year of masking. We’re gearing up for a holiday that once made masking fun. Will it be fun this year? 

I need a little fun. I’m still slowly digesting the masking I do as an autist. I’ve started to unmask here and there. People ask me if I’m okay. 

Somewhere between high school and my 20-year high school reunion, I learned that facial expressions and speech are favored by society at large. I worked to become animated and talkative. Some might say I came out of my shell. I would say that I crawled into a different shell. It is neon, twinkling. 

My shell, my mask, is the opposite of a ghoul or witch or goblin. It is me smiling and nodding as if I am perfectly fine to be around other people, perfectly happy in this bright, plastic, dazzling world. Even now, I try to make my eyes smile, crinkling at the edges, when I pass a stranger. I leave the grocery store, go home and take a nap. 

I said I need a little fun. Maybe that was masking as well. What I need is some peace, some time alone. Actually, I need a lot of it. On a regular basis. 

I’ve learned through the neurodivergent community that if we become tired or stressed, our masks can start to slip. Several weeks ago, my mother was diagnosed with cancer. My brilliant, unique, creative mother – we’ve wondered aloud to each other if she isn’t on the spectrum herself – is currently being treated for a second occurrence of breast cancer. It has been a stressful time, but I put on my bravery mask. For this woman who has seen me at my most raw and uncovered, my superhero daughter mask. 

For all else, my mask, my ability to appear and behave as if neurotypical, cracks. One thing at a time. I cannot play the roles of neurotypical friend, girlfriend, writer, editor and pet mom all at once. I go to each of those doors with a different mask, and a few of those masks are now buried at the bottom of my satchel. I cannot reach them. 

I mentioned that at some point I worked to become more talkative. Conversation – both talking and listening to another – is extroversive. My preference is to stay inside myself. Therefore communication, for me, has the false feel of a mask. Support and connection from friends and family becomes the added burden of response – expressing thanks, describing my mother’s condition, describing my own. 

Perhaps for all of us, language, spoken or written, is one of the most difficult masks to don. Anne Sexton wrote, “Words bother me. I think it is why I am a poet. I keep trying to force myself to speak of the things that remain mute inside. My poems only come when I have almost lost the ability to utter a word. To speak, in a way, of the unspeakable. To make an object out of the chaos…a final cry into the void.” 

Two truths: My mother’s cancer is chaos. Her favorite holiday is Halloween.  These truths only begin to touch the vast unspeakable that remains mute inside. 

What’s worse, I’ve had to come up with something else to say to my mother’s surgeon, or to her sister, or to my concerned friends.  

Back in June, in this pandemic time of telemedicine, I stared at a screen as a medical professional spoke the word

Asperger’s

. Soon after, I began to search for other poets on the spectrum. I found Joanne Limburg, and her collection

The Autistic Alice

. In it, she has a poem titled “Alice in Reception Class” which involves guessing and choosing the right words in a neurotypical world. The poem ends, “Alice notes:

The answer they want/ isn’t what it is – it’s what it isn’t.

” While as an autist I relate deeply to Limburg’s poetry specifically, I know that, as writers, we are all concerned with what is, and what isn’t, with masking and unmasking, with knowing the difference, and coming up with ways to express it. We are all haunted by the bother of words.  

Thanks for reading. We're glad you're here.

Amber Shockley

Assistant Poetry Editor

THIS WEEK AT ATTICUS REVIEW

FICTIONTWO STORIESby Frankie McMillan"Why his daddy died, is why his mother tells him to watch himself. A step gone wrong on the wire, and the show of his life is over. The boy swivels his neck from side to side. He can watch from here, there, over and away."READ ON

POETRYUNFILTERED LIGHTby Jennifer Freed"In the sunlit exercise room, my mother sitsbeside a balding, bearded man in a motorcycle jacketto practice clipping clothespins to a paper cup."READ ON

CREATIVE NONFICTIONDINING WITH CANNIBALSby Brooke KnisleyPart of our Superunknown: Stories About Songs series"I don’t write about what hurts me the most, the bloodiest, rarest pieces—in my opinion. But the perceived “little horrors” don’t make for good literature these days."READ ON

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