Hello and welcome to my blog “Living Outside the Normative”. This blog is a series of postings about the experience of being different, of living within our world, or our Western Canadian society, when one’s ways of thinking, perceiving, reacting, and experiencing are different than those of the masses of people existing underneath that large bump in the human population curve. It is not an easy place to be, outside of that normative bump, but it can be an interesting one. I have been permitted to a certain extent to see what happens out there, on the edges, through the blessing of my son. The official terminology for my son’s on the edge living is a diagnosis of Asperger’s from when he was 7 and which now, in North America, has been grandfathered in to a diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder. My son is now 18, at the time of me starting on this blog. His differences, of course, did not start with his official diagnosis, they started at his birth.

I have been considering starting a blog such as this for quite some time, with the purpose of trying to share what life really is like when one is having to live outside of the norm. There is so much to share. It can be a truly amazing world, but, it is also a bit more challenging than existing underneath that large bump in the normative curve.

There is so much, unfortunately, that our society, and the people under that bump, I think unwittingly, do that makes existence outside of that bump more difficult, and that, really, deprives not only those existing outside of that bump of true participation and a sense of value but also the rest of our community of the benefits that can come with having little bits of differences sprinkled about. I truly believe that for the most part people do not go around trying to think of ways to make life more difficult, or to disadvantage others, that this just perhaps happens somewhat accidentally, and is perpetuated through ignorance, but it still happens. Perhaps it wouldn’t so much if people realized what it’s like on the other side, how life is made more difficult when it doesn’t have to be. And perhaps if some of the different amazing perspectives, those blessings I mentioned above, were shared, then people wouldn’t fear so much the differences, would be able to come to value them instead, and then, maybe, true inclusiveness, or even better yet, celebration, of all of our members of community, would grow, and that would become the norm.

The purpose of this blog, therefore, is to share, the joys and the challenges of living outside of the normative, in the hopes that this sharing might lead, little by little, to a more tolerant, more equitable, world, where we, referring to humanity as a whole, can take advantage of the skills of all of our population, not just those who are easiest to understand by the greatest number of the population. There will be blogs which will frustrate the reader, and which may be somewhat discouraging. There will also be blogs which are incredibly uplifting. And there will be blogs which open up a whole new wonderful perspective on the world, allowing the reader to also get a glimpse of the world from a different place, a glimpse that is encouraging and uplifting, for this positive, uplifting, view of the world, presented fresh and new like what one gets from a child who is first experiencing their world, is also one of the greatest benefits from being with someone outside of the normative. So read on, enjoy, cry, comment please, for this is a conversation, a conversation about life, challenges, and possibilities, and I welcome your involvement.

Tuesday, 30 January 2018

Arrived at William Watson Lodge!




Arrived at William Watson Lodge!
 

We have arrived!  And it is wonderful!  I am writing this the first morning of Enrique and my’s getaway to William Watson Lodge, our first of many I am sure.  Because it is wonderful!!!!!!!

I came into our room and I could feel the stresses melting away from me.  Enrique had been super excited yesterday and this morning, looking forward to getting out to the mountains.  I had been preparing all day yesterday, funny, I had in my head that this was a “quick getaway”, and it is, but, well, when you need to take all of your stuff with you, meaning food, bed linens, things to do, and a variety of things to do (I was having to bring course work, and I also wanted to bring some things for Enrique and I to do together, in addition to the equipment for our hoped for snowshoeing, for when we weren’t outside in the event that he would be awake, and there is no internet or cell phone coverage at the lodge so I wouldn’t be able to access course work stuff that way, which, since the courses are online ones, was kind of impactful), well, there is a bit of prep work involved.  Although, in spite of what I’ve just described the bulk of the prep work was with food as there are no food facilities anywhere close to the Lodge… it’s amazing the amount of effort that needs to go into preparing for 3 days of no cooking relaxation! Not that I’m complaining!  And then I had to go shopping for bed linens because we didn’t have any of those of the appropriate size either.  Oh, and I had to take an online quiz a couple of days early for one of those courses because I wouldn’t have internet access to take the quiz while we were away, which meant that I had had to get ahead in that class so I could take the quiz early.  Which I had intended to do on the Friday, but, well, I didn’t manage to get quite ahead enough, and that shopping for linens took a bit longer than anticipated, so I ended up taking the quiz on Saturday morning before we left….

Anyways, where was I?  Oh right!  Wonderful William Watson Lodge, where we arrived just a little bit before check in, hung out for all of, oh, 20 minutes, having nice chats with some of the other guests as well as the staff in the lobby/lounge area until our keys were ready, feeling stresses starting to melt off, Enrique having the space to do his circular pacing that he needs for his movement stimulation and nobody looking at him weird…..

And then, we got to go to our room!  How exciting!  We drove down the road to cabin H, found it without any difficulty, and… wonderful!  All the buildings we saw were very nice looking, with these HUGE balconies/patios surrounding them, which means….space!  Enrique has sensory movement needs, he needs space to move around.  And look at this!  There were HUGE balconies outside of every door, he’d be able to do his pacing/circling right by our room!  Fantastic!

So then we go inside, and even better, there’s space inside!  That would make sense, since the cabins are supposed to be wheelchair accessible as well, and something I know I’ve noted and I expect those in wheelchairs have definitely noted, is how in many hotel rooms the floor space consists of these tiny little corridors for people to attempt to manoever between heavy, difficult to move furniture.  I don’t know how people in wheelchairs manage it.  We have issues because Enrique has spatial interpretation challenges which include difficulty in judging distances to things, so in typically arranged rooms he has to really work on not walking into things.  But here, Wow!  Space!  I could feel stress melting away from me, and, well, his reaction was certainly positive!  Imagine, a hotel room where he doesn’t have to constantly focus on where the furniture is and how he’s going to work around it (to understand Enrique’s perspective, imagine if you went away for a holiday and every time you got up to go to the bathroom or the window you were required to solve a calculus problem in your head on the way there at the same time as walking around all the obstacles in your way.  Now imagine you get to a hotel room where you don’t have to do that.  Wouldn’t that be a relief?)  And, ha ha, get this, the furniture was comfy looking too!

So here we are, stress just melting away, and we’ve been here for, like, I don’t know, half an hour.  What a great start!

And now I’m going to sign off.  This post will be very much out of date by the time it gets put up, because of course there is no internet here and by the time we get to where there is internet we’ll have had all of our days and nights at the Lodge.  And even now it’s out of date, because of course by now Enrique and I have explored the room further and had an entire evening and a sleep, but I’m going to keep this post as is anyways, and then we’ll see if I get to writing more later!   But for now, signing off with a heartfelt approval of William Watson Lodge  and recognition of the evidently hugely beneficial effect on my well being, even with the effort which was required to get here, of being in a place which is, first, welcoming, and then, next, which allows for Enrique’s freedom of movement.  I had no idea I was so wound up right now, until yesterday evening and this morning as I felt it all slide away.  I so needed this…




For the history on this adventure of ours, visit here - 
An Open Door 
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Monday, 15 January 2018

Outside the normative and NOT being protected by the "system"



Well, it really doesn’t pay to be outside the normative…. 

Zip over to this link     "A question on our legal system - a continuation"     to see what I mean in this instance, which is with people outside the normative when they’re dragged into the legal system, you know, the one that’s supposed to protect the vulnerable…. not!

Not again….

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