Conquering Carolina, Part V: A Dusting of Autism

 The next morning was Monday, which is -- during summer months, anyhow -- the local farmer's market and craft fair on the fairgrounds(?) next to the beach. It's a few miles from the house, and it's always a highlight of our trip there, even if we don't get anything and/or it's a million degrees outside.

We had plans for that day; because my aunt and uncle left so abruptly, we were able to cancel our dinner plans we'd had to eat at some fancy restaurant that they all wanted to go to -- there was little there either Daisy or myself could eat anyway, and my parents had been there multiple times and they were just going to do something nice with my aunt and uncle. With that out of the way, my mother asked us if we wanted to do the farmer's market that morning and then go straight from there to Gabe's. We also offered to get her lunch at Seaside Bagels or the Sealevel City Vegan Diner (both places in town that we love and make sure to hit up when we're there), but she didn't seem too interested. When we mentioned that we could also go to the Brooklyn Cafe to pick up the same donuts and beignets that we got last year when we were there, she perked up and said she'd be down for that. That sounded like a great plan to us, so that's what we set out to do.

The farmer's market opens at 8, and if you're not there by 8:30 or so, especially if the weather is nice, good fuckin' luck finding a place to park that isn't a mile away. You'll burn a gallon of gas circling the parking lot waiting for someone to leave and pull out so you can take their spot if you get there mid-morning -- so be there early, grab a spot, and go exploring. Well, we did get there by around 8:30 or so and parking was plentiful.

We didn't personally get anything at the market, but it excites my mother to go and shop around. She always purchases at least one tomato (this time around I think she got two) and that day she also bought a beautiful bunch of asparagus -- asparagus that looked really tasty. 

The rest of the market/craft fair was just meh. They had some very pretty art for sale that I was in no way going to spend $100 or more on (which was the asking prices for the larger pieces; smaller ones the size of my hand started at $40 and only went up from there). They always have food trucks too, and I could have gotten a funnel cake or any number of other goodies were I interested, but I really wasn't. 

"They want nine dollars for a lemonade?" I said to my mother. "That had better be the best fuckin' lemonade of my life." 

She laughed. What I really wanted to say was that lemonade better come with a handjob and a hot towel for cleanup afterwards if I'm paying nine dollars for it, but I held back. 

Gabe's is in Wilmington, about 40 miles or so from the parents' house on the island. Wilmington is a really cool seaside city, but getting through it and navigating your way to locations can be challenging -- it reminds me a lot of Omaha. I've lived here in Omaha for eleven years and Daisy has lived here for almost 25, and we still have to use GPS to find places because of the way the city is laid out. Wilmington is similar. Looking at statistics, the population is about 1/4 of what Omaha has and the entire metro area of Wilmington has about half the population the metro area of Omaha has. The actual physical size of the city is about 1/3 the size of Omaha -- so it's much smaller overall, and it does have that feel -- but the city is pretty condensed into neighborhoods and main drags and business/shopping areas just like most other cities. Well, because of that, and because it's on the ocean, the street maps are fairly creatively drawn and will just veer off in different directions while calling it all the same street, which plays hell with our GPS and following its directions. Gabe's in particular is in one of those shopping areas in one of many long strip malls, behind one of Wilmington's (apparently two) main shopping malls, and at the end of a long residential area. It's like driving through nice little neighborhoods and then you come to the end of a nice quiet street and it's BAM, shopping center! 

Like, it is what it is, I guess. I just find the town arranged oddly. It's likely very normal to most other folks. 

It was the first time my mother had actually been to this Gabe's; she knew it existed, but she never took the initiative to go on an adventure there herself. With how convoluted the GPS instructions were to get us there from the island, I don't blame her -- she'd likely get lost trying to find it herself. But, when we returned from there last year with bags full of things, she said then and there that when we came back she wanted to go with us the next time, and reiterated this on the phone a few weeks before we flew in. My aunt also wanted to come with us and make it a big trip, just like the old days, to see this Gabe's that I had seriously talked up due to its size and amazing selection of products. 

Last year when we went, it was pouring hard rain. I would like to note that as I am writing this, here in Omaha, it is also pouring hard rain. 

The morning was sunny and hot, and the sun at the farmer's market had done us no favors when it came to keeping cool. We had the AC in the rental Jetta on blast the entire drive. I mentioned to my mother that we would never have known this Gabe's existed if she hadn't told us, so any money we or she spent there was her fault. She seemed to get a kick out of that. 

This year, the Gabe's was...different. I've talked about Gabe's before here so I'm not going to go into a lot of detail, but imagine if Kmart, Burlington, and Big Lots had a romantic tryst that produced a baby, and that baby was a store with 80% clothing and 20% food/around-the-house stuff and clearance racks. That's sort of Gabe's in a nutshell. It's a department store with more clothing than anything else, really, but I've purchased a wild amount of odd items at various Gabe's stores over the years and they have rarely, if ever, disappointed me.

Last year, they had an entire giant section of Carhartt hoodies/pants/coats/shirts, including so many things in my size for deep-discount prices. I did not have the room last year to buy the big canvas duck coat and bring it home, but we knew we were coming to Gabe's this year and thus both Daisy and I left extra space in our luggage to accommodate. 

Well, this year, that giant section of Carhartt stuff was no longer there. They did have a rack of Carhartt t-shirts, and that was about it. Overall, I found a lot of the selection lacking this year, and they had giant sections of the store that was completely empty. Upon closer inspection, these were places where they'd be bringing in the racks of fall and winter clothing -- which wasn't out yet because it's still summer (last year it was out because we were down there over Labor Day, which is when these things start coming in stock). So that was a bit disappointing. 

Still, I found a few shirts, a few pairs of shorts, and several pairs of nice sweatpants. Some were on clearance, some were just "normal priced" at $4, $8, $10, etc. It's pennies compared to retail prices or if I were to try to order the same clothing on the sellers' websites. Daisy found some Torrid stuff, as well as a few pairs of shorts/skorts and some other odds and ends. We were shopping with the mindset that whatever we decided to purchase, money wasn't necessarily an object but luggage space was. 

When we were ready to go, I made sure my mother checked out first and that Daisy walked her out to the car to help put the stuff away while I grabbed a blue-and-gold flannel fall jacket off the rack and purchased it for my mother as another birthday present for her. With that, and with ALL the stuff Daisy and I both got, it was only $130 -- insanely inexpensive. My mother's jacket was $11 and that wasn't even a sale price, that was normal price. 

My mother, incidentally, got my dad a new pair of shoes, a new shirt, and some nuts as supplemental birthday gifts for him. I kind of got the sense that she hadn't gotten him anything at all (aside from the new Stephen King book, which she did show me the day prior) and needed the trip to Gabe's for that.

At the other end of the plaza Gabe's was in, there was a Harris Teeter grocery store. Now, I'd heard of Harris Teeter but I had never been in one. Neither had my mother, and she was curious. She asked if we could go in. Sure, why not?

She got some things -- I didn't really pay attention to what, honestly -- and I very quickly noticed Kroger-brand products on the shelves, so I knew it was owned by the Kroger company. That also meant that our Kroger cards would work there for discounts/sales and the like, just like they work at any of the other Kroger-owned stores (and I was right). But, my attention fell to the hot food bar, where they not only had amazing self-serve veggie fried rice, but amazing lo-mein/yakisoba too. I looked at the price. $11-something a pound. Pricy, but not crazily so. I got a container and got to work loading it down with equal parts fried rice and yakisoba. I filled it as much as I could and closed it up, and tested the weight -- eyeballing it, feeling its heft with my hands, etc -- I figured it was a little more than a pound, and I was okay with that. I'll pay $12-14 or so for good Chinese food that I don't have to cook myself, pick up, or get delivered -- it would be a nice little vacation treat meal for me. 

When we checked out, it was $23.26 (I looked at the receipt) for that container of Chinese food.

It was worth every penny, I'll add. 

Anyway. We got a few groceries there (mainly, we were browsing around while my mother did her own shopping), stuffed 'em in the trunk with the Gabe's stuff, and we were off to drive all the way to the other side of town to get the donuts and beignets -- what my mother had specifically requested. 

On the way there, I knew I had a captive audience with my mother in the backseat, and I knew she wasn't gonna bail out of a moving car, so I had a question for her that I had waited until that moment to ask because I knew she wouldn't be able to avoid it or walk away from it.

"Mom -- and I do not mean to offend you or criticize or anything like that, but I am just curious -- when I was a kid, did you ever have me tested or screened for any type of autism?"

"Psh, no," she said, looking at me like I was insane. "You don't have autism. You were a special little boy. You need to stop reading that shit."

Reading what shit? I had made no mention of reading anything.

"Well, I can tell you, I've taken some tests and I match up pretty heavily with a lot of autistic traits." 

Daisy and I exchanged glances. Daisy was driving and was finding it very hard not to burst into laughter. My mother became withdrawn and silent and did not respond to the question, or my statement, any further. 

Now, mind you, the only experience or exposure my mother has had to anyone autistic or otherwise on the spectrum is the particularly offensive or downright wrong portrayals of deeply autistic people on television -- like the kid from St. Elsewhere, for example -- or shows/movies that have written autistic spectrum characters as being one shade short of being retarded, because to those characters, it is debilitating to them (Rain Man comes to mind) and prevents them from leading a normal life. 

As you and I both know (hopefully, anyway) the spectrum is just that -- a spectrum, and that spectrum is wide. It ranges from people who have a dusting of it, a sprinkling of autism, to those who are full-blown catatonic and cannot function in society. I lean far more to the former than to the latter, but it's still there. It is definitely there. My mother seemed to be basing her knowledge of childhood autism on something like this list:

Well, yeah, based on that, I was not autistic as a child. None of those were traits I had then.

But...

And...

I had almost all of these. Well, not all, but a large number of them. I definitely had echolalia, and I remember hiding it from everyone until I could train myself to stop doing it. I focus on parts of objects, I used to spin around until I got dizzy or sick (apparently, that's stimming activity), I get upset by minor changes, I have obsessive interests, I am extremely routine/pattern based, and I do have unusual reactions to sensory things. 

I also have unusual eating and sleeping habits, gastrointestinal issues, mood/emotional instability at times, absolutely have anxiety/stress/worry/fear, etc.

But I also have a pretty normal life, none of it is debilitating, etc. 

So...it's a dusting of autism. 

But.

Daisy and I both realized something else, something big, and something we noticed at almost exactly the same time -- my mother has autism.

Of a sort, at least. She is definitely, absolutely on the spectrum. Undiagnosed, untreated, just part of her "quirks." I have no idea how I never noticed or realized it before. But it fits. It completely fits. And it explains so very much. Most of the items on the list that I can tick the box for, she could also tick the box for -- and for her, sometimes that tick would be in bold ink, underlined, and highlighted, if you get my drift.

Again, these are not all the traits of autism spectrum disorders -- this list almost completely bypasses the social/interacting-with-people aspects of the spectrum. So, let's go through those:

I have all of these to varying degrees, some of them more strongly than others. My mother also has all of these, in varying degrees as well. 

Again, it explains so very much.

Anyway.

We did get the beignets and donuts, of course...

I apologize for my sweatiness in this photo, but I will not apologize for the Tragically Hip shirt I'm wearing or for the tie-dye shirt my mother is wearing (that I made for her)

And then we returned home to the island after a very long day out and about, and my mother watched her soap operas and we took an afternoon nap. The autism discussion did not linger nor did it present any issues, we just moved on and it was seemingly forgotten.

"But Brandon," Daisy would tell me later with a smirk, "you were a special child."