Back from the morning river walk
with Riley. Dogs of all kinds and their owners gather every Sunday morning on
the riverbank near the dog park in my community. The dogs leap and fetch sticks
thrown to them in the Rivanna River at a small beach where the water is just
slow enough so they don’t get swept away.
Riley, my Jack Russell terrier/Shih
Tzu combo doesn’t swim so he spent most of the morning running the beach,
rolling in the sand and eyeing Daisy longingly from the shore while she swam. Yes,
he’s half-crazy over the love of Daisy. She, in turn, does her best to ignore
him.
Have just begun another book with a
Maine connections, a Europa edition titled Three
Weeks in December by Audrey Schulman that looks as if it is set alternately
in Bangor, Maine, and Rwanda, and again alternately in 1899 and 2000. Already
I’m distracted as the central character in the 2000 version is a ethnobotanist
named Max, who has Asperger’s. I find myself busily comparing her symptoms with
those of young women I knew who also had been diagnosed with the syndrome. From my somewhat limited work with those both
male and female with this diagnosis, I know one adage to be true: You’ve seen
one person with Asperger’s Syndrome, you’ve seen one person with Asperger’s
syndrome – that is that it manifests in very different ways. I also know that
it manifests differently in girls/women than boys/men and that one of those
differences is in the way eye gazing takes place. So far, Max’s Asperger’s is more like the
males I’m familiar with than the females. So I’m distracted. Max, like men with
AS, doesn’t make eye contact – does that mean she has a mild form according to
research? See link on research about eye gaze in girls:
Or does it just mean she’s just one
person with AS? Probably the later, because I suspect this author has
thoroughly researched the subject. But I, keep trying, like others, to
understand what this word means—and how it’s different as I continue to
encounter it in both life and art; increasingly we are meeting individuals and seeing
characters on television and in books who are likely candidates for the
diagnosis. See link:
Sunday unrolled a little differently than I originally
thought. I was interrupted before posting and spent the rest of the day away.
I have tired my dog out at the moment as well. Riley looks like a cute dog. Enjoy your Maine reading and upcoming trip. cheers.
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