The wreckage from the treetops littered the moss, cracking under Pim’s feet. He placed his palm against the bark of the nearest trunk, feeling the thrum of distress from its heartwood. The storm had happened too early, whipping into the new growth forest before the development of deadwood.
Pim didn’t understand the complex algorithms that controlled the dome; nothing the colony teachers had done could make numbers stay in his head. He didn’t understand how bickering over formulas in a techlab could solve problems involving living things. He did know something had gone very wrong, something that tickled the edges of his senses, and the farther he went into the steaming woods the stronger his unease.
He hummed tunelessly, absently, a rhythm he could feel like breathing. Breathing. He held his own, mouth open, fingers twitching with realization. Slowly he sank to the moss, the overly green carpet that somehow prevented the usual forest undergrowth from taking hold. He sank his hands deep into its furry softness and closed his eyes. The thrum he had felt in the trees enveloped him, and he understood what the engineers had not.
The plans and algorithms weren’t wrong. None of the dome administration departments had failed their assignments. The planet simply had other ideas and none of them knew how to hear her. Their own voices were too loud. Only Pim, wordless and forgotten, had been quiet enough to listen. He stroked the mossy fur gently and hummed with the rhythm again. Tomorrow he would show them. Tomorrow.
I’m a writer. I don’t mean that I write for the public, though obviously I do. I mean that I express myself through the written word. I love the way words come together to depict complex ideas and emotions, the beauty in the way they flow. With my pen, I can think. Except when I can’t.
For a person with neurodiverse brains, self-expression is a constant challenge. When left alone, expression finds outlet in natural ways: sounds, movements, sensations, hyperfocused interests. But other people expect words. Not just any words, but specific combinations of words delivered in specific ways. There are no official rules, and different people expect different combinations. Different situations require different combinations.
You try to translate all your natural self-expression into words, but things don’t match. You can’t find a word that describes the feeling relieved by cocooning in a heavy blanket in ninety degree weather, or the surge of undirected energy prompting the need to hum a set musical phrase on repeat. The words other people direct toward you don’t make sense either; they are too flat somehow, or the sounds making up the words trigger responses that confuse and anger the speakers.
Living in a household full of neurodivergent brains has taught me a lot about communication. While words are still a huge part of our lives (seriously, they never seem to stop talking), we have to listen beneath the words to understand. Because sometimes there are no words, not for the real things we need to say.
As a word person in a non-word house, I have discovered a strange empathy with that deeper, wordless self-expression. The strength of it overwhelms until I must share it or drown, yet all I have is words. I try to write the feelings and ideas down in ways that other people can see their beauty. I try again and again, writing and erasing until my mind is as full of rips as the paper, but I cannot find the combination that others will understand. Suddenly there are no words left.
Listen to the notes. Dance with the motions. Oggle at the skill produced from hyperfocus. Buy the heavy blankets. Share the smiles and the tears and the squeals. Maybe you’ll find no words are needed.
To be clear, I am the abnormal one in my family. No, not the “neurodivergent” one. That’s the other six people in the house. I’m the round peg. All my life decisions were something I took for granted. What will I eat for breakfast? Which TV show do I feel like watching? What job will I apply for? Which chore will I tackle first today? Even more stressful decisions merely took more time; I thought about them carefully, eventually made one, and life moved on.
For square pegs, decisions are something else entirely. The extra space in those corners reflects variables that simply do not exist for circle pegs. Some decisions careen off into empty space, out of the realm of conscious thought, rather like Dug’s attention in the movie _Up_ whenever he sees a squirrel. Some get jammed into the corners like the dust in the cranny where two walls meet that neither a broom or a vacuum cleaner can reach. Some jump from corner to corner and side to side like the old Windows screensaver, skating away in a new direction whenever almost within reach.
In a world requiring fast-paced decision making, square pegs stay in a state of agonized malfunction. Squirrels might become amazing adventures, but who can enjoy adventure with the decision posse riding around every corner? The posse is sure that square pegs can be reformed, that a decision can be forced with enough pressure, but all they accomplish is driving their prey into hiding, jamming that dust deeper and deeper into corners. No one gets anything, not decision or adventure.
As the circle peg, learning to appreciate the corners was a challenge. I was sure that love or responsibility or both would ensure efficient decisions in matters that affected all of us. That is, I was sure about that until I decided to go on the adventure too. When I did, I discovered a different kind of decision making, the decisions of imagination and possibility. A process independent of time or expectations, intuitively reacting to every new idea. A process that, rather than preventing functionality or progress as perceived, provided new solutions to problems, new paths to expected decisions.
My expectations about decisions were quite right for circle pegs, but entirely wrong for square ones. The pressure of rapid decisions polished my curves but scarred their corners. Their decisions weren’t “efficient” in a circle world, but when given time to sharpen the corners were often richer and more complex, adding variety, beauty, and excitement that as a circle I would never have otherwise experienced.
Most of us played with shape sorters as children. As part of learning the different shapes and creating the proper connections, we tried fitting shapes into holes they didn’t match. Some of those mismatches didn’t fit at all; the shape simply would not pass through the hole. The corners of a square, for example, will never fit inside the curves of a circle. Others, however, would sometimes slide through, or could be forced through, certain incorrect holes. A circle could actually fit through the square hole, even though its curves did not fill out the square’s corners.
From the time we are very small, our society pushes patterns of behavior on us. “Be normal,” we’re told. If we don’t fit the shape expected, we are labeled, separated, and therapied to death until we meet expectations or break. But who decided which shape is normal? When we played with the shape sorters, we might have begun by trying to fit everything into the same shape because we liked something about that shape, but eventually we learned that each shape had its own place. Can you imagine someone saying, “The only shape allowed in the world anymore is the square? Circles, triangles, stars – they are all wrong and must be redesigned into squares.”
Two terms that have become popular in recent years are neurotypical and neurodivergent. I understand the intent behind the use of these words, and occasionally use them myself in order to frame concepts in a way people can understand them. Unfortunately, these terms also reinforce the idea that only one shape is normal. Labels are created, therapies are invented, medications are prescribed. All of these have the purpose of making people with different shapes appear to be the preferred one. The focus is always placed on what is “wrong,” what is “abnormal,” that makes a person different then eliminating it.
But again I ask, what is normal? Just as every shape is unique and has its own place on the shape sorter (and it’s own mathematical purpose), every human is unique and has place and purpose. What is normal for one is abnormal for another. What one is capable of doing another is not. What one cannot accomplish another can. Corners and curves are both necessary; elimination of one or the other creates a world that cannot function.
What if, instead of looking for “normal” we strove to celebrate individuality? What if, instead of trying to shave off corners or flatten curves, we recognized the needed functions of both? It’s true that circles can fit within the square, but they don’t belong. Circles will never be able to reach into the corners and fulfill the purpose of squares. If forced to pretend to be squares, circles will always feel inadequate, and will never experience or even know their full potential as circles. Squares, on the other hand, can never fit in the circles as they are. They will either try to shave off parts of themselves leaving raw, gaping wounds in order to squeeze in, or they will be smashed against edges again and again until they break. Either way they lose their identity and their purpose and, like the ill-fitting circle, will never experience or recognize their potential as squares.
Our society has become adept at forcing round pegs into square holes. We admire the work and contributions of those circles who managed to find their circle holes and give us great discoveries or achievements, as long as we don’t have to acknowledge that they were circles in the first place. Because we carefully avoid recognizing the ill-fitting circles, we also prevent ourselves from seeing the broken squares. We have decided to be the infant trying to smash all the shapes into the hole that pleases us best, but unlike the infant, we don’t learn from our failures. We just keep smashing and screaming in frustration until everything is broken.
What if, instead of breaking others to look like ourselves, or breaking ourselves to look like others, we all found our own purpose as who we are? God doesn’t make mistakes. He made each of us exactly the way we are. He has purpose, specific and absolute purpose, for each and every individual exactly the way He created us. Imagine what we could all be together if every single one of us found our own.
She trailed her fingers along the wooden bannister, stepping carefully to avoid tripping over the litter of decay. The air smelled faintly musty, but the open front door lit up the foyer with clear sunlight. She turned and grinned at her companions.
Chuck groaned. “I know that look,” he told the real estate agent with a dramatic droop. “Honey, did you have to pick the dump?”
“Don’t call it a dump!” she pleaded, laughing. “Look at the lines; it’s a beautiful old house!” She gestured to the agent standing just inside the door. “Tell him how special it is.”
“A historical gem, really,” the woman agreed in a tone just a little too bright. “A bit closed off for modern tastes, of course, but a few walls could easily be removed.” She stepped gingerly over scattered glass from a broken window, forgetting to hide a grimace.
Honey followed her, peering into the dim interior of the front room. “Look, Chuck, there’s a fireplace! Oh, let’s go upstairs; I bet every room has one!”
He sighed but let her take his hand and pull him up the creaking steps. “Central heating was invented for a reason, Honey. Do you intend to have a fire in the baby’s room? And it’s gonna take a fortune to fix everything wrong with this place!”
She squealed with delight from two steps above him. “Look at the wood floors, babe! Can’t you just see them all polished up?”
He looked back at the agent once again waiting at the front door. “Are you sure there are no ghosts in this old place?” he asked with a rye grin.
She clicked her pen and opened a notebook, standing a little straighter than she already was. “Shall we start the paperwork now?”
The Grand Experiment, the village council called it. Marigold sniffed; Mayor Belfast always did tend toward the dramatic. Bunch of nonsense, in her opinion. What folk were thinking electing that bunch of nincompoops she would never know.
Six months they had wasted building the stupid things. A whole row of cottages made entirely of turf. Except the hare-brained idiots hadn’t been able to figure out how to hold up a roof made of dirt, so modern eaves of wood painted black stuck out like a sore thumb. Glass windows had been the next logical step, but only in the wooden sections. That looked well! She rolled her eyes.
The entire town had come out for the unveiling; the result had been underwhelming. Marigold really didn’t know what that sorry excuse for a mayor had expected, trying to talk up walls and floors made of dirt like they were the golden streets themselves. The tour had been a disaster from start to finish. The only person remotely interested in living in one of those fake caves was crazy old Miss Hartskell. The council had finally been forced to accept her application to recoup the cost to the town.
Since then that batty old witch had taken over the row with strays, plants, and incomprehensible handicrafts. No one bothered to argue; it wasn’t like the cottages were in demand. And even Marigold had to admit that from the main road they looked like pretty green hills nestled in an old Grove. Too bad she had to pass it on her way to work at the town hall every day.
“Rain before noon, Marigold!” Marj Hartskell waved delighted lyrics as she delivered her forecast through a cascade of tumbled curls. “Morning, Marj,” Marigold called back through the open car window. Potty old hag. “See you at tea time as usual. For goodness sake, don’t bring any wildlife!”
This morning I woke up with a heart that felt like lead in my chest. The future lay in shadows that I could not penetrate, and I doubted even the point of me. I did not think anything I tried to do came to anything. I felt as if all my gifts from God were useless, extras in the grand scheme, discardable. I felt discardable.
I buried my head in my pillow with tears pouring down my face, and I cried to my God for answers. “Why does everything have to be so hard? Why does no one want what you gave me to give? What exactly is it that you want from me? Why am I failing?”
As I lay there, my husband wrapped his arms around me and spoke in my ear. He reminded me of our children’s answers to some recent questions, answers that filled me with awe at the hearts of children. Children who have seen God. “You are not pointless.”
The telephone rang, asking if the kids could interrupt their routine to haul firewood. A cold front is coming and hard workers were needed to lay in a good supply. The hard workers asked for were my children, because they would certainly get it done. It’s what they have been taught. “You are not failing.”
My tears still flowed, my heart still screamed, and I reached out to friends for prayer. Four dear sisters heard my cry and felt my pain. Messages flooded in; prayers, empathy, wisdom, and love filled my screen. “You have been called for a purpose.”
My husband remembered a lunch meeting with a brother. Their conversation turned to frustrations, doubts, and fears that this friend and fellow worker shared with us. Commonalities that would have continued to have been suffered alone otherwise. In the sharing perspective was discovered in each other’s struggle. “You are needed.”
Family called with an invitation to a donut feast. A loved dog had died and cheer was needed. Orders were taken, favorites recorded, and two dozen donuts purchased. The laughter of children, sticky fingers, and sugary faces followed a shared supper. Grief receded into togetherness. “You are wanted.”
I went to shower and turned on the radio as I often do. My daily shower provides a few minutes of reflection and music provides a focus. Words of faith and reassurance streamed like water over my head. All the feelings I had poured out to my Lord, all the answers given through the events of the day, culminated in those strains of praise. “You’re gonna be okay!” “I am not alone!” “I will trust in you!”
My heart still aches. The causes of my feelings still exist and will continue. But in my moments of pain God heard me. In the words of friends He was there. In the calls for help and fellowship He was there. In my quiet hours He was there. God is in all my moments, and in seeing Him there I can dry my tears. In His presence I find again my reasons and my joy.
Part of Christmas tradition is the giving of gifts. It has been argued that this tradition has become too commercialized, that focus on gifts detracts from what is important. I certainly saw advertisements that missed the point and pushed the idea of social status rising from gift quality or price. However, the concept of giving gifts stems from the core of God’s nature and is one of the ways humans in our limited capacity can try to reflect Him in our lives.
Gift giving is one of our favorite family traditions, and rather than allow financial restrictions to cast shadows on our joy, we decided to let it motivate us to deeper intention. Wish lists became highlights of interests and favorites. The kids used their own money saved from birthday gifts and odd jobs for family to buy things like stickers or art supplies, or used their talents to make gifts to suit the receiver’s personality. I raided my fabric stash and used outgrown clothes to make hand-sewn treasures.
It was a simpler approach, reminiscent of a time when life was simpler, but there was nothing easy about it. Handmade gifts take time. A lot of time, squeezed between the usual chores and responsibilities that don’t vanish because holidays are coming. Artwork requires both work space and space for drying paint, which in our full little house means the dining table. Sewing with scraps and old clothes means working with materials that weren’t designed for small projects or for particular work with needle and thread. It means aching eyes and fingers from hours of close work creating straight, invisible stitches. Handmade gifts make surprises difficult, as everyone is working right in front of each other.
The hard tried to take over as Christmas drew closer, raising stress levels and encouraging distractions. Tears flowed, panic attacks occurred. It’s harder for adults to remember the important things than for kids, it would seem. It was the kids who kept us grounded with their excitement for everyone to open the gifts they had made.
When the time came to wrap everything and fill stockings, the true blessings began to be revealed. What we had feared would be a sparse spread had grown to as many or more packages as usual. They were small, but so much thought and effort had gone into every single one that they seemed larger than life. On Christmas morning, stockings that had felt underfilled were received with unmitigated joy. Sticker sheets and snacks produced reactions associated with gifts of gold and incense. Paintings and purses were pored over and strutted with as if made by the world’s finest creators.
Simplicity isn’t easy; it never was. In so many ways our lives are much easier now than when life was simpler. There’s nothing wrong with easy, but sometimes having everything at our fingertips makes us a little too focused on what we can have. Love isn’t about stuff or money, it’s about what we are willing to give up or go through for someone else. Nothing we did was extraordinary; our usually easy lives made hard begin to feel burdensome, but hard carried love that would never have been seen otherwise. Sitting in their little piles of love offerings, our kids declared our recession Christmas to be the best ever. They understood better than we did the blessing of love found in hard simplicity.
No matter what other traditions people may have around the holidays, food is always a key factor. Every family has their favorite recipes, associates certain flavors and smells with family and good times. My favorite holiday memories from childhood involve baking with my grandmother. We made piles and piles of candy, cookies, and pies.
Although most of the time I rather hate the perfectionist and time-consuming nature of baking, for a few days in December I throw myself into the process with joy. My children wait impatiently for the announcement of “baking day,” and all have their special requests. This year they were all old enough to participate independently, and my thirteen-year-old has fully co-opted her particular preference: sugar cookies.
Made of little more than flour, sugar, and butter, those economical little cookies are the perfect family activity. Everyone’s fingers and noses (and probably clothes) are floured as much as the cutting board. Reindeer, trees, snowflakes, and “gingerbread men” take shape under cutters pressed by small hands. The oven is impatiently watched between turns to “cut,” and golden cookies cover every surface while voices clamor for “just one.”
Other easy recipes soon join the marching shapes. Pretzel and cracker dips splatter chocolate in remote corners. Oatmeal cookies redolent of cinnamon fill the house with their comforting aroma. Gingerbread puffs delightfully in muffin tins. Homemade eggnog whips in the mixer.
When all the beautiful food is finished, it’s time to package it up. You see, while we do enjoy eating some of our goodies ourselves, we bake with another purpose. The time spent together is our gift to each other as a family, and the results are our gift to friends. A little of everything is packed into little bags with holiday notes attached, and on the Sunday before Christmas the kids get to hand deliver every package with an excited hug and a Merry Christmas. These gifts, made in an atmosphere of love and by the labor of their own hands, unconsciously reinforce the meaning of giving in their hearts.
Only when the gifts are ready and the mess cleared away do we taste the fruits of our labors. With a holiday movie on the screen, a fire crackling in the heater, and lights twinkling on our rather Seussical tree, we savor the taste of love.
The Word Worker 
