BGM: Silent Poets, Terry Hall - Sugar Man
It was a day off today. This morning I started ZOOM to have a meeting about autism with my friends. We talked about autism a lot. This time, the members afforded me to discuss the problems from my Russian friend, Victoria. We had limited time so couldn't discuss all of them completely (We're sorry), but I think that we had a really precious time to learn how we have been autistic until now, in our lives. Me, I was basically a really strange kid. I couldn't stay still, but also I liked reading book at that time already (the male kids around me liked playing baseball and succor). When I was a junior high school student, I was into recording/writing every week's hit chart on a notebook with listening a radio program because of this strange/weird personality characteristic (autistic people often show this kind of "maniac" character). You can see how I had been treated in my teenage days... I was really strange so they treated me with a cold attitude. And also I believed that "I can never have any friends, soul mates. Why could I get married in the future?". What a sad teenager.
But, the "really terrible era" in our lives (me and other members) had started in our "adult age", "after graduated schools", not in the school days. When we are in school days, we can survive with reading/obeying the textbooks even though we don't have any friends, being haunted by loneliness/solitude. If we get any good scores on exams... But if we get adult, we have to face the situation "without any textbook" or "without any guidance" in our works or lives. At that time, autistic people who had been soaked into loneliness/solitude and just stayed in their territories have to face their weakness. Because they have never had any experiences of failure/errors. Me, at my high school days, I had spent my time reading Haruki Murakami only therefore had no experiences of failure as lovesick. After joining a university, I had no experience of any part-time job therefore I had never been trained by others to get any social skills. I had to face the cruel reality when I tried to do job hunting... Other members also told us the same kind of stories. "How do we make failure?" and "How to learn our limits/shapes of ourselves"? They would be important keywords for us, the autistic people, to survive I guess.
After the meeting, I had lunch. I went to the "本の蔵 (if I translate this into English, it would be the "books archive")". That was a cozy place to enjoy coffee... and the staff show the books the author Kazuo Takeuchi owns, who had been from my town. I ordered an iced coffee and some sweets, and wrote today's poem. The staff saw my English poem and showed an interest, therefore I showed my poems (I had already printed out) to them. I confessed who I am, and also how I have been here through my life. When I was a college student, I learned American poetry. And also I said to them that I started writing my poems because I read Shuntaro Tanikawa's works. When I read his ones, I felt "I want to write by myself"... The bookshelf has a lot of books I have never known, therefore I am impressed that "My town seems to have such a great reader like him". I have also been interested in the pictures they have, therefore I asked a lot about them as deeply as I can (the son of Kazuo Takeuchi drew them I heard). I want to go to there again because they served a great coffee and sweets, and they allowed me to leave the handout of my poems there. I really appreciate it.
This evening I spent my time with Junzaburo Nishiwaki's poetry works. After that I had another meeting about English conversation on ZOOM. We learned an American TV drama's episode to learn English. This time, we talked about the topic of "Is it too early to decide/think the engagement/marriage when you are 18 years old". I had to be wishy-washy, and was thinking that "I can't judge". When I was 18, I already had thought that "I have lived too long". Then, the host showed his great smile and said to me "How do you think?". I got hurried but said that "Indeed, they have the right to decide their engagement to live their life. But also they have to solve various problems. How should they get the steady income? How can they build their life? And so on" (Sorry, I couldn't say this kind of clear and clean opinion like this at that time as ad-lib). I was surprised by this opinion, and thought "How would I do if I had a child who started saying 'I wanna get married!'". Oh my! It seems I have become a really conservative person. I want to approve the right of voting from 18, and also embrace them to have experiences from their decisions in their lives. But I also have such a conservative mind. The teenage kids would say that "You are not clean", "You are a liar therefore I hate you"?
