Autism Answer: Love is not a Tornado

 

A tornado with hearts and the words "I love": image by Ian Langtree (my soul mate!)

 

Love is like a tornado.

 

I love and I love and I love. My sons. My grandchildren. My mom. My sisters. My brothers. My friends. My soul mate. My nieces. My daughters-in-law. My step-daughters. I love and I love and I love.

 

It is unpredictable and intense. It drops where it will and it tears things up. I cannot make it obey me, I cannot demand that it is tender with the people I care about. 

 

Love is not a tornado. 

 

It does not cause destruction most of the time. Instead, it creates. It connects me to meaning, to the deeper strength and substance inside myself. Because of the variety of people I love, because of my desire to feel close to them, I stir myself up inside to uncover hidden possibilities of understanding or empathy. Where I find none I am often able to plant a seed and grow something wonderful. 

 

Love is like a tornado. 

 

When people I love hurt, it tears me up. It is unstoppable and natural and entirely horrible to hurt the way it can hurt. It is unfair. It is violent.

 

Love is not a tornado. 

 

I love and I love and I love. My sons. My grandchildren. My mom. My sisters. My brothers. My friends. My soul mate. My nieces. My daughters-in-law. My step-daughters. I love and I love and I love.

 

It makes me more. It makes me bigger than myself. I cannot experience so much of the world in so many different ways without those I love living life and sharing what it is with me. They share, I share, we consider each other's ideas and observations, we grow and gain because of it. 

 

A tornado is a violently rotating column of air most often quantified by the amount of destruction it leaves behind. Love can be like that. 

 

But love is not that. 

 

Love is a connection that allows for freedom. That would fight for that freedom. While, simultaneously, fighting for changes when who you love - yourself or the other - would be better with change. Better for you? For them? This is the tough stuff love signals us to think about. There is so much involved it can feel like a tornado. 

 

But love is not merely destructive and dangerous when it is active. Also, it is soft and sweet, it is the breath of a baby sleeping soundly in your arms; it is strong and supportive, it is the sister who shows up with an industrial air conditioner when you can no longer take the heat; it is honest and kind, it is the mother who tells you to do the dishes with your brother, not for him, because though it takes longer and seems like a skill your brother will never have, you are wrong and he is worth the time it takes both of you to learn that. 

 

I love and I love and I love. My sons. My grandchildren. My mom. My sisters. My brothers. My friends. My soul mate. My nieces. My daughters-in-law. My step-daughters. I love and I love and I love.

 

Loving people is hard. It can be easier to just not do it. Sure, it brings brightness and beauty, but so does a sunrise and that is less likely to cause emotional turmoil.

 

Love is like a tornado. As are most of our human emotions. 

 

States of uncertainty, tumultuous and worrisome, unpredictable and unconfined. 

 

But love is not a tornado. 

 

Love is the hardest most beautiful thing you can do with your tumultuous tornado like emotions. 

 

Don't be afraid to unleash love upon yourself and those who are worth the wonderful exhaustion and vulnerability of it. 

 

Like a tornado.

your love can reach the clouds, command attention, and influence the landscape. 

 

Do that.

 

Hugs, smiles, and LOVE!!! <----- not a tornado.

Autism Answers with Tsara Shelton (Facebook)

Autism Answer: He Smiles in his Sleep

the sun rising, reflecting on the river, across the street from our house

 

“Snuggle bug, Shay Shay, you awake?” I ask quietly, crouched on my haunches beside him where he sleeps on the floor in our basement. My twenty-six year old son makes a small sound in response. I lean in closer to rub his shoulder and see his face. His eyes are closed and the softness of sleep is settled on him like fairy dust. 

 

I see a comfortable smile settled on his lips. 

 

My second youngest son is smiling in his sleep.

 

Rubbing his shoulder I speak again, a little louder this time, “It’s 6:45, you gotta get up for work.”

 

“Rugga bugga, baby boops,” he replies. This is a common reply from him. It most closely translates to, “I heard you.” 

 

There is movement now, he shuffles a little under his weighted blanket, his eyes remain closed and the smile does not fade. 

 

“I’m going to go upstairs and make coffee. See you in a few minutes Shay Riley Bones,” I straighten up carefully, trying to use my muscles purposely and to take advantage of every movement. I like to use life as my exercise room and every movement is an opportunity to stretch, strengthen, or simply care about my body. Also, I don’t want to hurt what I have always called my “old lady knees”. I am pretty much fifty years old now, but these have been my old lady knees since my elementary school track and field days.

 

“I like coffee,” Shay says as I slowly walk away toward the stairs that will lead up to our kitchen where organic shade grown fair trade coffee beans await to be ground and brewed. 

 

I love these mornings. I love making coffee while beneath me my second youngest son unfolds his giant body, stretches out of his bed on the floor (his preferred place to sleep) and gets ready for a job he feels competent and appreciated in. Meanwhile, above me, my soul mate showers in preparation for a day working at home, sitting focused at a computer that is next to mine, accepting a slightly annoying onslaught of obsessive touches, squeezes, and smooches from me. I love standing in the kitchen, lights off surrounded by shadow, while my gaze easily consumes the sunrise kissing the river outside our front room window and the cats meow for their specially made milk and morning affection. I love this spot where I can be in shadow while watching and feeling the world unfold via its morning routine. The house is big, but each room offers such specialness I don’t mind the size. 

 

The coffee beans have been ground and are steeping in the French Press. I set my adorable cube timer to the perfect four minutes (this timer is one of my favourite gifts given to me by Ian, the soul mate I moved in with only a few years ago) and take myself to the front room to stretch a little. Four minutes of random stretches in front of a window facing the river. Lovely. 

 

The timer beeps, upstairs I hear the shower turn off and imagine my soul mate toweling himself in our en-suite bathroom, I stand straight and smile. 

 

I remember seeing my son smile in his sleep, and I am overcome with a sense of gratitude. 

 

This home, this life, this morning routine that brings me such joy, is a gift. 

 

Another favourite gift given by my soul mate. 

 

A gift given to us. 

 

Invited into his home we – my second youngest son and I – have carved our space in it. The basement is my son’s domain, where there is a kitchen, a bathroom, washer and dryer, a pool table, a bar, a sauna. He is not dwelling in darkness and brooding, though he could if he chose. Some days I’m sure he does. But for the most part, he works, he plays his games and watches his shows, he listens to music and bounces around, smiling easily. 

 

My domain is sort of everywhere. I have a dance room where I can turn the music up, close my eyes, rock out and imagine myself alone in but also at one with the universe. I have roller skates and headphones for summers outside around and around the pool. I can spend hours listening, singing, and skating in circles. There is the car where I take people places and go to the grocery store, where I listen to French radio stations and practice saying and singing the words. But mostly, my domain is beside Ian. My soul mate. I follow him around unnecessarily. This is a big house and there are many rooms, the outside is sizable too and there are many delicious spots to sit and read, think, and write. But mostly I follow him around, often with a coffee in my hand, and mostly he doesn’t mind. 

 

We – my second youngest son and I – love living with Ian. 

 

We miss the ease with which we used to have access to the rest of our family, now that we are here in Quebec and they are still there, mostly in California. We have feelings and challenges that are hard, that hurt, that we must deal with. We work to be our best selves and to discover how we can best pitch in, how we can best take part in creating an environment that includes our influence, insights, and work. We struggle to know how we can be helpful without being underfoot or overstepping. 

 

But we are graced with a man who opens his home and requires very little from us. I do the driving (though I don’t pay for the fuel). My son pays rent (enough to feel good about pitching in while still paying far less than he would elsewhere). We are living in a situation where we play a part and ask for responsibilities yet are asked to do little beyond taking care of ourselves. So though we are human and have human hardships, we are also humans with less hardships. 

 

I sometimes wonder, should we work harder? Worry harder? Are we wrong for finding joy in this easy life gifted to us? Should we be more? Are we missing something and burdening others without knowing? Are we unfairly happy?

 

Maybe so. Maybe so. 

 

But I will not deny the perk of this place we are in.

 

My second youngest son smiles in his sleep. 

 

Hugs, smiles, and love!

Autism Answers with Tsara Shelton (Facebook)

Autism Answer: Sweet Serenity

 

Serenity in my arms at her first birthday party

Serenity: the state of being calm, peaceful, and untroubled.

 

"Mom," my oldest son looked at me, concern surrounding him in a thick fog, contributing perhaps to the slow moving demeanor he appeared to have, "are you going to be okay? I have to take her to the hospital, are you staying or coming with us?"

 

Oh, I wanted to go. I wanted to be with him and his wife as their second daughter was born, but by some terrible twist of fate I was dizzy, pasty, unable to stand. Practically passed out on the couch as my son ran from one room, taking care of his labouring wife, to another, asking questions of his unexpectedly faint mother. 

 

"Maybe get Dramma. She can be with you and I'll stay here with Nevaeh." My mom could go with them to the hospital, and I would stay here, sleeping alongside my oldest granddaughter who was oh so soon going to be a big sister. 

 

My son ran up the stairs to wake my mom. I stood shakily up from the couch and went to my daughter-in-law, rubbed her back a bit while she lumbered wide legged out of the tiny downstairs bathroom. The roaring noise in my head was overwhelming and I was grateful it could only be heard by me and was unlikely to wake the baby in the other room. Even the labouring mom was moving with more grace than I could muster, and though the sound in my head was distractingly loud I could tell she was doing a good job of keeping quiet. 

 

Quickly, my mom and son came down the stairs. Again I was asked if I was okay, and asked if I wanted to go to the hospital, but again I opted to stay home with Nevaeh. They promised to keep me in the loop, photos and updates would be sent, and away they went.

 

With effort I moved my body toward the bedroom where Nevaeh slept. I saw her, there at the end of my fuzzy tunnel vision, tiny and sleeping on the big bed of her mom and dad's. A little baby, only one year old, about to become a big sister. 

 

Silently and carefully I crawled in beside her. I didn't want to wake her, but I had to feel her in my arms. I placed one arm over her and waited, she didn't move. I scooted my body closer to hers, I softly kissed her forehead, I felt myself drift peacefully to sleep. 

 

My phone was beside me on the bed, and I would open my eyes periodically to peek. Is she here? Is everything okay? It seemed things were moving along well at the hospital, and with each text or image that brought me closer to Serenity, I felt my body move closer to it's regular untroubled self. No longer feeling faint, simply bruised from it. 

 

Then, as Nevaeh stirred in my arms, in the wee early hours, I felt a true calm. I felt peaceful. I felt Serenity. My phone dinged.

 

There she was. Beautiful! Here! Born in a room I where I was not but where my mom and son were. Beautiful!

 

Nevaeh opened her eyes and looked at me with uncharacteristic softness. She is a sweet girl, but rarely is she calm and soft. She's almost always spunky and sassy. However, in that moment, she was serene. I showed her the picture and quietly announced, "There she is, Nevaeh. There's your baby sister, Serenity."

 

Nevaeh reached out and touched my phone with all the softness in the world. Her tiny fingers traced the cheeks on my screen. They moved slowly, softly. Soft small sleepy fingers touching the screen displaying her sister. I was overcome with love for these girls. These sisters. I was grateful, oh so grateful, to be there in that room. In that moment. Watching big sister trace tiny fingers over baby sister, happy and calm. Peaceful and complete. 

 

I put the phone down as Nevaeh snuggled into me to fall back asleep. Dreaming, possibly, of her baby sister. Feeling, in my arms, like a gift. A gift on her sister's birthday. 

 

Serenity: a beautiful baby, a sister, a daughter, a granddaughter, a niece, born four years ago this day.

 

Once morning arrived in earnest I brought Nevaeh with me to meet Serenity in the hospital. 

 

Serenity. There she was. It was a gift for me to share this moment - the moment of meeting Serenity - with my oldest granddaughter. The two of us having snuggled waiting for her, and now she's here. 

 

But I am also selfish. And I couldn't wait until my own moment, alone with Serenity. A moment I would get that night in the hospital.

 

It was my turn.

 

My son went home, my mom went home, Nevaeh went home, and I stayed. I chatted with my daughter-in-law, and walked the baby that night. Serenity woke up many many times, and I was fully there. Not faint. Yes, a bit tired, but oh so there. 

 

Serenity: my granddaughter, a child who helps me feel untroubled by the distance between us, calm in the certainty that we are not distant.

 

It is my fate as a grandma to only sometimes be there. The day Serenity was born was my first time choosing so clearly not to be there. It hurt, but became beautiful too. 

 

Today Serenity turns four. Once again, I am not there. Oh, I want to be with her! I want to hold her, sing to her, talk about how stronger she is with her. (When I saw her last month she woke me up every morning to show me how stronger she is. ) 

 

But it is also beautiful where I am, who I am with. Hence, it's okay. Serenity knows I am there when I can be, and when it's the right choice for us. Well, she doesn't know, she's only four, but she feels it and I hope one day it will grow into a knowing. 

 

In the meantime, I will always be here for her. Wherever my here is, wherever her here is, she has me.

 

Happy birthday sweet sweet Serenity!

I love you!

 

Hugs, smiles, and love!

Autism Answers with Tsara Shelton (Facebook) 

 

 

"We write to taste life twice; in the moment, and in retrospect." ~ Anais Nin

Autism Answer: Inclusive Sexual Encounters - A Poem about Connecting Sexually

 

A bed

A sexual connection can be like poetry: greater than the sum of its parts. 

 

Significantly more than the appearance of the thing itself.  

 

There's so much going on at once and the best way to experience it is with a gentle guiding and acknowledgement of the feelings, thoughts, words, and touch rather than a straight up narrative.

I don't generally write poetry. To be honest, I don't generally enjoy reading it much either. However, the other day I was moved to write a piece of prose.

I was thinking about the various things I'm newly learning and experiencing sexually. I was thinking about how valuable those things are and how I hope everyone gets the opportunity to have similar experiences.

I heard my thoughts and wondered, could I write about the things I'm feeling in an inclusive way? Could I be personal and specific, without leaving many others out? Could I share in a way almost anyone could imagine it for themselves?

I wanted to share the vulnerabilities, the pleasures, the communication and connection, the desires, the physical feelings.

So, though the following poem was written with a sexual connection in mind, it was also written with sexual diversity in mind (in fact, I wrote it specifically for SexualDiversity.org) and was strongly influenced by the thinking I do here, for my Autism Answers blog.

Things we think and do during sexual encounters are informed by what we've seen, heard, wanted, thought, feared, and hoped outside of sex. And people who have been abused, people who have disabilities or disorders, people who experience more than a small amount of discrimination, well - we bring that with us into the bedroom. But this does not mean we aren't able to experience pleasure and connection, it just means we may need more in the way of careful communication, we may need to practice telling and asking, listening well and being authentic.

I am sharing this piece of prose here. It is truly personal, but I also wrote it with you in mind. 

 

Visit the poem via Sexual Diversity here: With You 

 

 

With You

Mmmm…. I’m coming close

Closer to you

Is this okay? Do you like this?

Do you feel that? I want you to feel it

 

My hand is slipping between your legs

Oh, you are excited, it seems

I want you to feel good

My hand slides where you clearly enjoy it

I enjoy it

 

Tell me, what do you see when you feel me?

Can you feel me? Do you want me?

Show me

 

I want you to like this with me

More pressure? Harder here?

My body, which is ours in this moment, is in motion

Sensitive, so sensitive,

pulsing

 

Aware and alive

skin and loins, bits and buttons

My eyes are closed but I see you with my touch

I feel you

 

Where do you want me to feel you? Show me, move my body if you can

Pressure here,

soft teasing here,

no? No soft teasing then

 

I’m trying to listen to your body’s response but my own is so loud and insistent

I’m here with you but I’m here in me more; I want you to come in, feel what I’m feeling

I want to come in, feel what you’re feeling

to know how to titillate and stimulate

 

I want my sensual touch to serve you, pleasure you, and bring you to me

Bring me to you

It’s so loud! This feeling

So loud!

 

We are not woman or man, not able or un, not old or young, not colored or un

We are this feeling

So loud!

 

Oh, yes, please tell me, move me, allow me, ask me

Mmmm… I’m coming close

With you 

~

 

 Hugs, smiles, and love!

Autism Answers with Tsara Shelton (Facebook)

 

 

Autism Answer: Chatting about Love with my Granddaughter in a Dream

 

A pic my granddaughter took while we were video chatting

In my dream I was chatting with my oldest granddaughter, Nevaeh, who is four, almost five. 

 

She was looking up at me from the water of our swimming pool, standing on the stairs holding onto the rail. I was sitting on the edge leaning back on my hands, my legs straight out along the side and not in the water because, even in my dreams, I don't want to remove my roller skates. 

 

We were chatting about love.

 

"But, grandma," she was asking, "is it okay that I still love grampa?" 

 

"Of course! It's wonderful that you love grampa. And your grampa will always love you." 

 

She smiled at me with that special smirk of hers. "I know he'll always love me. But if you aren't still married to grampa do I still call him grampa? And what do I call the new grampa? Is he new grampa?" 

 

The dream was so vivid I swear I could feel the weight of roller skates on my feet. A weight that gives me the gift of moving in a way that feels weightless. 

 

"Grampa is your grampa and you can always call him grampa. Ian is grandma's love and you can figure out with him what to call him. You know what, Nevaeh? That's a cool part about love. There are so many kinds! And the more you love the more kinds of love you'll find." 

 

And suddenly, as happens in dreams, so many of our different loves began to come and go in ghost like form, appearing on the edge of the pool in a variety of snapshots that nearly came into focus and then disappeared, all around the pool they came and went and we pointed and talked about different kinds of love and what it can look like. Also, what maybe it shouldn't look like. 

 

"Look!" Nevaeh cried out at one point, turning her head and pointing her still slightly chubby fingers toward the deep end, "Look! There's my Tia! I love her but different than I love Serenity." 

 

"Right!" I said, laughing and feeling such joy to be spending this time with my granddaughter, who I love. "And even though you love Serenity, you fight with her sometimes. So love can have fighting in it." I said that because, to be honest, it was kind of a new learning for me. I'd been thinking about the times I fought with my mom as a child and how my willingness to fight with mom stemmed from my absolute certainty that she loved me and that I loved her. How it had often grown out of my certainty that we could push and pull at each other without ever breaking. 

 

But my granddaughter looked at me with confusion. "Like how mommy and daddy fight?" Oops.

 

"No, that's different," I had to admit. "When they fight it isn't coming from a place of love. I think they are fighting because they want to hurt each other and, even if it is some kind of love, it isn't a safe or healthy love." 

 

The dream wanted to turn dark, and for a moment snapshots of my son's wife screaming at him threatened to materialize, but I spoke with the intention of diverting the dream back to a lighter feel. 

 

"Love can have fighting in it, but love isn't full of fighting. Think about how it feels when you love. How it feels when you snuggle Dramma or when your daddy plays with you. Are you feeling it?"

 

Her blue eyes were closed and she was hugging herself, her bathing suit danced with colors and her small body swayed happily. "It feels good!" 

 

"Does it feel safe?" I asked. 

 

"Yes! I feel safe with Dramma snuggling me!"

 

"And do you feel like you and the person you love both matter?"

 

"Daddy matters! He's playing with me because I matter and because it's fun!" 

 

"Who else do you love? Different from Dramma or Daddy?"

 

Nevaeh did a jump for joy, "Uncle Dar! I love uncle Dar!" 

 

"That's a really good one! You love uncle Dar even though he doesn't play or talk in a usual way."

 

"Because Uncle Dar matters and I matter! And he likes to be on the swings! Wait, grandma! I know something!" She looked at me with such force I almost reached out to hold her but stopped myself. In my dreams, sometimes the attempt at touch wakes me up and I was not ready to wake from this. Neveah continued, "Sometimes when Uncle Dar is cranky Dramma talks to him in a fighting way. But it's because she loves him and wants to help him calm down. It's like they're working together. That's the kind of fighting love can have!" 

 

We talked a little more about different kind of love. About the crushes she had, the kinds of love we can feel for things like swimming and roller skating, the love we can have for the world. (Gotta love the attention span of my dream granddaughter! Giggle!) 

 

Just as I felt myself begin to wake - I admit I fought it because it is only in my dreams I can spend this kind of time with my grandchildren who live in California while I live in Quebec - we returned to the love she has for her grampa. 

 

"So you won't be mad if I keep loving my grampa?"

 

"Sweet, sweet, sweet Nevaeh," I was able to tell her in the dream, "I want you to keep loving grampa. I love your grampa, just not as my husband. Ian is my love that way. But it isn't because your grampa is not someone to love, it is because Ian is my someone to be in love with. So, yes! Love all the grandpas you want!" 

 

I could feel my eyelids begin to open, I stayed as long as I could in that world between two worlds, my granddaughter in the pool and Ian in the bed beside me, I wanted him to see Nevaeh and let her know it was okay to love him and my ex-husband. I wanted Nevaeh to see him and know how much he feels like home to me. How comfortable I am being all of me here. I wanted her here. 

 

When I could no longer keep myself in that space, where I was everywhere at once, I whispered to her, gathering as much love as I had time to gather before the dream was completely unreachable and packing it into that whisper, "I love you, Nevaeh." 

 

For the next two days I went in and out of that dream. Talking about love with my oldest grandchild. Remembering that as we adults teach our children we are never done learning and shifting and changing ourselves, so we will always have new and different kinds of love to talk about. And to example. 

 

My son and his wife are struggling to change their situation in order to become better examples for their children; in order to be better (and happier) people themselves. 

 

At the same time love is evolving, growing stronger or simply different, with everyone else in our family. 

 

And I had the pleasure of discussing the ever evolving love in our lives with my four year old granddaughter. Yes, it was in a dream. But it is also in my memory. A memory of discussing love with my granddaughter in a dream. 

 

Which is also a memory of the very real love I have for my granddaughter. 

 

There are so many kinds of love.

That is something I love. 

 

Hugs, smiles, and love!!!!

Autism Answers with Tsara Shelton (Facebook)

 

INVITATION TO PARTY WITH MY FAMILY: Today is my mom's birthday!!! I invite you to join our family party by watching this fun video of mom, my brother Dar, and the great-grandkids playing together. And to make it extraordinarily pertinent to mom on her birthday, which is also World Autism Awareness Day, you get a tip for engaging in play with your autistic loved ones while encouraging social skills. It's a perfect party celebration and I love that you're here with us!

Autism Answer: A Hand Holding Me

Often my partner will place a hand on me, my hip, my shoulder, my thigh, my arm, my chest, and I will feel at once broken apart and held together. The way that hand holds me I feel safe and encouraged to let go, I breathe deep and swim in colors, my energy spreads out and connects with the universe yet I feel we're alone with only our love. Our love. 

It lasts. This unique feeling, this new feeling stays with me while I work, write, skate, read, dance. Oh, how it grows when I dance! I facilitate the growth, encourage it, now that I know this feeling. I close my eyes and feel that hand on me. I feel it hold me with a tenderness that's somehow strong, promising not to let go. That magic hand. And I fall deeper into the music. My body moves and I escape its borders, growing out into the room and imagining scenes I'm every part of and so is the universe; it is not about me yet always me. That hand promises I can go where I will without fear because it will hold me, my partner will hold me, and I won't be lost. 

I look into the eyes that look at me and feel connected, feel supported, feel seen. How had I not noticed this lacking in my life? Or, more honestly, why did I think only I could see me and hoping others would was childish and weak? In fact, with my partner I see more. 

I seek those eyes for stories of their own that might break free when my hand touches the body they belong to. What part of me, or who I am, is like that magic hand for my partner? Love has not made me never worry, I worry that I don't have a magic hand at all. I worry that I am not giving back the intensity I am being given. 

But love has given me the confidence to try, to ask. Because I want this love to continue to grow with our participation, with our desires and hopes gathering sustenance, so the avoidance of asking would take more strength than fear of the answers; fear of failure. 

Being in love, being loved, being touched by a hand that gives me freedom to become, a hand that doesn't try to paint over my scars but instead explores them to understand, is surprising me. It is unexpected and deeply, deeply, wonderful. I want this for me. 

I want this for others. 

It doesn't matter to me if the love is experienced by people of the same or different genders. If the love is experienced by people with the same skin color or spiritual beliefs. If one is more able bodied than the other, or one is much richer, or one is a generation or two older. It doesn't matter if there are more than two people experiencing the love together, I want this for others. 

There is danger in wanting this kind of love so bad we lie to ourselves or justify cruelties (others' and our own) in order to invent it. We might build it out of all the wrong materials on a faulty foundation and simply pretend it is what it isn't. 

But it isn't our place to assume someone else has done this merely because their love looks unlike something we imagine love should look like. 

The hand that holds me, places itself on my skin and cracks open a new world of meaningful memories and safe vulnerability, is magic to me. 

I want this. 

I love this. 

I am better with this. 

I am better with this. 

 ____ 

 

NOTE: Today, May 17th, is International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia, Interphobia and Transphobia. I wrote this love story today because I am an advocate for love, inclusion, and not judging who loves who. My mom is bi-sexual, my son is gay, my other son is bi-sexual, my nibbling is nonbinary, I could go on. I want everyone I love to find healthy love. And that is easier done when the world relaxes it's judgements regarding what love is supposed to look like. 

Hugs, smiles, and love! 

Autism Answers with Tsara Shelton (Facebook)

Autism Answer: Being Present (Lessons From My Granddaughter)

With my granddaughter

Holding my granddaughter I am often transported back in time. The feel of her is similar to my sons. 

Also, it's new and special.

With my sons, I was less present. I wondered differently; I wondered with worry. Not much, but some. I worried most about my own inabilities, the cruelties of the world, and their possible eventual self-esteem issues.

With my granddaughter I am different. I wonder, I watch, I allow, I enjoy, but I'm not worried. I am too present for worry.

Life will be hers, her way. The world will have its protests and power struggles, the semantics of things will be argued and replaced, the education she receives will be imperfect.

But I'm not worried. I'm ready.

I'm comfortable in a new way. With my granddaughter, that is.

But for her mom and dad, for my son and my daughter-in-law, I'm finding little previously unexposed worries. Like, how will I help them through the millions of little mistakes, scares, and disagreements I expect - from experience - are waiting down the line? Waiting for them in the near future. Moments that make a parent feel so, so, so alone even when there are gazillions of others admitting to similar moments.

Yet, as I share these thoughts with you I feel a truth. I'm ready for this also. I'll let go of expecting and hold on to experience.

I've already seen, in only a short week, overwhelming reasons to let go of worry. My son is in love with his new family, deeply in love with his new daughter. His wife is strong, smart, and loving. They have both been wanting exactly this their entire lives.

So I'll be present. Not only with my gorgeous granddaughter but with my son and his wife also.

A lesson I have tried to example and teach to my own children becoming truly mine, brought to me as a gift from my granddaughter. Being present.

I'm not worried. I'm ready.

Hugs, smiles, and love!!
Autism Answers with Tsara Shelton (Facebook)

Autism Answer: Real Beauty (Dove and Shonda Rhymes Want Our Stories)

Shonda Rhimes has partnered with Dove (the personal care brand) and they launched Real Beauty Productions. They have called for submissions and stories, from women of every type, that will help expand the definition of beauty. Stories that will help define beauty in a thoughtful healthy manner. What a valuable and necessary project! 

So, I am sharing my story with you here (yes, I also used their form to share it with Dove) in hopes that you, too, will have a story to share. And if you don't feel that you do, I encourage you to change that! Perhaps have your story now. Make a purposeful shift in how you see and imagine Real Beauty. 

Here's the link that I hope you'll use: #RealBeauty

And here's my story. Hopefully it will get you thinking about yours. 

#RealBeauty

I was a twenty-three-year-old single mom when I met my now husband of seventeen years. As I watched him fix my mom's car I was immediately attracted to him. Twice my age, rugged, and black as night I responded to his pull by swinging my hips, pinching color into my pale cheeks, and glossing my lips. However, he seemed entirely uninterested. I flirted while he avoided looking at me. I was a little bruised by the rejection but as a single mom dating wasn't easy, so I chose to pretend I was relieved.

Later, when I went into town to pay him for the work he'd done, I dropped the flirting and was comfortably myself. Animated and authentic I playfully complained about missing my sons, who were visiting my sister. The mechanic's demeanor changed and for the first time, he looked at me. "How old are you?" My answer surprised him and he admitted that he'd thought I was much younger. Well, no wonder he hadn't flirted back! But then, also, he continued to tell me more and the reasons for his lack of interest in my swinging hips proved deep and somewhat disturbing.

As a black man growing up in the south he'd learned never to look a white woman in the eye. Responding to my signals could prove dangerous for him, though unlikely dangerous for me. As he shared these things with me I found myself drawn in ever more, but quickly showed it in a new way.

I became more myself. Rather than pout my lips and fling my hair, I displayed my kindness and tossed ideas. We connected by exploring who we were, each of us encouraging the other to dive deeper and discover more. I began to feel more beautiful than I ever had. Who I was and what I did were beautiful and as I flirted with the mechanic a confidence in my beauty grew outward.

My family saw it. My friends saw it. Even I saw it.

The mechanic and I have now been married for seventeen years and we have raised four sons together. This newer understanding of beauty, as a displaying of who I am not how I look, has informed their understanding of beauty. I see it in the way they treat themselves and others.

So it turns out that discovering my own true beauty not only helped me feel gorgeous but also made me a better mom! How wonderful!

_________________________

Now, I don't know if my story will ever be shared via Real Beauty Productions. But I do know that taking the time to share it helped me feel it. Helped me know it. So, I have benefited! Also, by sharing it here with you (which may disqualify me from being featured by Dove, but that's okay) I have also imagined that maybe you will benefit. I hope so! 

Whether you share your story or not, I absolutely encourage you to take a moment or two to consider your definition of beauty. And if necessary, make a few changes. 

Whatever definition you create for yourself, be sure it recognizes your worth and your real beauty, friends. 

There's no shame in wanting to blossom further but it will be easier and more fun if you recognize your beauty now. 

Happy Saturday beautiful friends!!

Hugs, smiles, and love!!

Autism Answers with Tsara Shelton (Facebook)  

A small sampling of women in my life that are beautiful.