There is a reason that parents and advocates of autistic children and adults create autism awareness.
Unless you understand what these amazing individuals are capable of not only doing but perceiving, you do run the risk of damaging them unintentionally. Yes, this is another autism post. I hope the lesson it brings really resonates with you. Because the percentage of autistic humans walking around sharing the world with you is enormous and growing exponentially. Take heart and be gentle. ~author K. Day *photographer K. Day model and autistic son, Aiden G. artist Beau Vincent
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In the middle of a conventional diner, busy fingers silently twist and bend discarded straw paper. A pen comes out, the hunched figure goes about doodling something. Then up he gets. Scans the room for just the right person...a child, or a stranger...then over he walks silent as a ghost and places the thing he's constructed on their table. Such a tiny thing. A paper puppy. I watch as he does this again and gifts another one to a different table. Finally I approach him, "So you're the one who leaves the paper animals for people." "Yes I am," he humbly replies. Then quietly returns to his seat across from his wife. I follow to introduce myself as a writer and shake his hand. "My name is Sherman. This is my beautiful wife. She has dementia. We come here every day. And I make the paper animals and I give them to people. I like to see them smile." I had to ask Mr. Sherman to tell me a little about himself. I especially wondered what compelled him to do this, daily. I wanted to know his story. "Well, I'm the last living survivor of the massacre in Ducduc during the Vietnam War on March 29, 1971. Sgt. Dennis Sherman. I was a Marine Lieson at the time. When you look it up on the internet you'll see my group in a photograph. The smiling happy guy right in the middle...that man was dead less than 24 hours after that photo was taken." This information was much more than I had anticipated. I'd find that Sgt. Sherman and the other Americans had come to aid the innocent Vietnamese villagers and defend them against the approaching Viet Cong army. They were however unsuccessful and by the end of the slaughter almost all of the men, women and children they were there to protect, along with most of their company were dead. [In the photograph to the right, Sgt. Sherman stands the following day after the attack...thankful to be alive.] This now older man sitting in an American diner 47 years later changed something in me in the telling of his story. What gratitude and humility one gains from meeting death face to face...surviving and somehow granted a beautiful life after filled with meaning. Dennis leans in to tell me that his wife is British and he still remembers her in his favorite blue dress and that she is just as beautiful to him now as the day they met. They come, they quietly share their meal, he makes paper animals while they wait, he gifts them and then like that they are gone. Once a mother was so happy her child received one that she left a gift card for Mr. Sherman the following day. My eyes see the world in different way and I have Dennis Sherman to thank. If they happen to visit the diner during one of the Shermans' daily visits, some might see an old man tinkering away at straw paper...but I know this isn't true. I see a magic man who makes toys out of nothing sitting across from his beautiful princess. And that is altogether worth far more than gold. Wherever life takes them, I know that grace will touch their footsteps always. And I am grateful to know them.
~author K. Day Post Script: After reading the article himself, Mr. Sherman told me there was one very important thing I left out... The reason that he does what he does. He does it, he says, for Jesus...in the hopes that others will be touched by the Spirit and in turn seek as he has. And that is a beautiful and powerful sentiment. We encounter the most intriguing individuals on our wandering adventures, my significant other/very best friend and I. Like Mr. Jimmy Davis here, a former army medic and veteran. Jimmy grew up in a poor part of New York state next to a steel mill that his father worked at. He was the only white kid in a neighborhood where most were African American and Native Americans. He told us that he never considered himself color blind and never felt he had to because to him, "human beings are human beings, no matter what they look like". He's traveled the world several times over and fell in love with a Turkish girl who one day in his elderly years he actually ran into here in San Antonio...all the way from Turkey, by happenstance. And he still calls her a "girl"...the heart knows no age. He tells us he's an incredible dancer and isn't much for ballroom dancing but loves to shake a leg to any kind of music that has a good beat. And he still pushes his walker aside to show us a trick or two. When I grow up, I hope to be just like Jim Davis. For what it's worth, I think he's still teaching us all how to live. ~author K. Day I would like to give a very heart felt special nod to my friend, writer, life coach and all around girl boss Kimberly Scott of Not A Basic Life.
Kim is one of the few women in my life who also lives with and battles autoimmune disease. We share that invisible illness stigma and it's a greater war than most realize. From day one she has reminded me that I am not alone and has lent strength to my will even when she isn't aware via documenting her journey through her admirable blog. I love you, Kim, and I solute and uplift you for everything you do for this world despite the overwhelming and debilitating obstacles you face. I'm made all the more determined by it. If you or anyone you know suffers from chronic pain and illness, please be gentle and forgiving of the process. It's common to carry a sense of resentment for it; tell that voice to take a back seat. It's not your fault or theirs. And you are not alone. You can find Kim at @notabasiclife on instagram Photographer Sinjin Hilaski @sinjinhilaski (on instagram) Tamara Adira is an exceptional culturally-minded artist who is in tune with her heritage which is one of the first things that captivated me about her. I found most intriguing her ability to marry her Jewish ancestry and the art of Flamenco in an uncommon way. "It began with ballet when I was 4," she starts, her bare feet folded under her Indian style atop her chair. "The art of Flamenco," she went on to tell me, " was born of three entities: the gypsies (the Roma people) who came through what at the time was known as Hindustan (modern day India), the Muslims (the Moors) and the Jews. The gypsies produced the more visual aspects of Flamenco, the theatrics and the hand work---the hands are the expression of temperament or seduction and it tells the story. The Moors gave to the art of Flamenco the rhythm," clapping her hands in time, she robustly illustrates such a rhythm to me. "The Jews were said to have contributed the element of song." After the brief background explanation, she illuminates, "When I first came upon Flamenco, I was a young adult and I didn't know what I was looking at. All I knew was that I had to be a part of it, immediately. I was in New Orleans watching a Flamenco show at The Red Room. It is, believe it or not, a club that was at one time the top of the Eiffel Tower which they shipped to the United States during the Louisiana Purchase. It was lined entirely with red carpet, red velvet, red roses...red everything. I didn't know what I was going to see, didn't even know what Flamenco was, and when I saw it I was just mesmerized. And that was it. And I took one class a week. And then two classes a week which turned into five classes a week and then I couldn't stop, and I haven't stopped. And that was it." "Prior to learning the art," Tamara recalls, "I had no idea of the connections it had to my own genetic identity. Maybe me getting caught up in it so instantly was some sort of ancestral connection. But who's to say?" I expressed what a beautiful sentiment that is and part of the mysticism of it all---less about what you know and more about what you 'feel'. The first performers she saw that day in The Red Room, Solangel Calix “Lali” and Michele Paule “Micaela” became her first instructors and they remain close even now. She moved on to study under Teo Morca after being introduced by La Miguelita. Over time Teo became more of a father figure to her. Soon it wasn't about an 'art of dance' anymore. He would teach her a way of life. To this day Tamara seeks to honor her master in her performances. "I remember one day when I was on stage at the Carver about to do a classical piece and I heard Teo's voice in my head say, 'Well, ok...You said you were going to do it. Hope it's good.' (in a cynical tone), and I'm thinking, 'BE QUIET!!!" yelling to emphasize the internal angst she felt. "I'm never fully satisfied with what I do. But I'm more satisfied with what I do when I compose it. And when I do Teo's choreography I always feel a pinch because I want to keep his work alive. I also know that nobody will ever do it like him again." This elicits a tear which she holds back, recentering herself in her chair. She battles herself, she explains, in trying to take her work from the drawing board to the street. Over-perfectionism can become crippling. Tamara came to realize that isn't the point---that "it doesn't have to be perfect. It just has to be good." People can't relate to perfect. They idealize perfect, like to see it in their celebrities, but when it comes to art, perfectionism can cause it to flop, to fall short of the art's intended message. Things that are raw, that are even ugly or messy, those are the things that touch people because those are the things people can relate to. "It's funny you say that, because Flamenco and dance saved my life. I'm a survivor of domestic violence and they say that one of the best cures for narcissism is art. I think that's what redeemed me in the end because I really went through some terrible stuff. I'm still going through it." Her performance titled "Angel of Gravity" was born of this very concept; a project about narcissism and love. "It was about loving somebody and not being loved in return. Being suspended in this longing, in a sense where you're in love with the idea of being in love and the other person kind of lets you do that because it serves them. That piece was really beautiful. Doing 'Angel of Gravity' was like giving a gift that comes straight from my soul because it's based on what I've gone through and I wanted them to feel it." Dance is a vehicle for Tamara to tell her story. To teach and to inspire. San Antonio is a place ripe with culture where the artists truly lead, as opposed to those who curate the art taking control. That's not very common. In other regions, typically artists seek approval from their patrons, their financial backers. They have little to no connection to what the common person, the 'layman' thinks about what they're producing. I like to see that here it's the opinion of the common man that matters over the opinion of the expert, the patron, the critic. The question then becomes "when you look at this piece that I've made, what does it make you feel? Is it relatable?" Tamara produces alot of work that is open to the public, often times free, extending herself so that the community as a whole can experience her art form. In the past it was a more exclusive genre only dedicated to the privileged. "Only the elite could witness this sort of thing," she tells me. As such, she is an advocate for the community which has recently garnered a grant from the city for her troupe, Arte y Pasion as a result. This brings me to what originally drew me to Tamara Adira: her public performance for the ancestors of Holocaust survivors, "Estrellas". "This for me was the start of doing art installations in a concert with my dancing. I had to first install it (from the ground up) and then perform it. It was extremely strenuous. It was going to be an 18 hour project easily, and that was not counting the repetitive motion of crafting and painting each Jewish star." She breaks down the concept behind the installation. "Estrellas" (which means stars) was about the genetic memory of the descendants of the Holocaust survivors. It was multimedia and I derived alot of inspiration from Darian Thomas after his amazing installation called 'Move On, Get Over It' which was about what it means to be a black person in America." Darian ultimately was the voice of certainty who gave her the confidence to "just do it". "On each star I silk screened the word 'Jude' which is the word the Jews had to wear. I also silk screened the word 'Mexicano' and the word 'Muslim' because I wanted everyone to see the universality of the star." She needed this to be personal to the audience, to be more impactful. "Our country is going in that direction. And that's why I chose to do this. I really felt that it was time. And I want to perform this piece again and again." Tamara isn't interested in popularity. This is an EDUCATION. "A Rabbi said in the high holy days when we were young...I'll never forget it...he said 'Prayer is not magic. We are instruments of God. And we're here with our minds and our hands---we're here to manifest. So when we pray, we need to manifest the things that we want.' Certainty is key to all of it." Estrellas was the first piece that Tamara would present which was a definitive subject, concise and deliberate. So she knew that in order to yield her desired results, she had to carry that certainty with her. "It took months; to plan, to storyboard, to construct. I had to install broken glass and mirrors on the floor symbolizing The Night of Broken Glass. That was the night the Nazis destroyed all the Jewish businesses before the Holocaust began. So by the time I'm performing, I'm already exhausted." I interjected that actually the exhaustion lends itself to her cause. When we imagine how exhausting war, genocide actually is, cruelty beyond measure. It would not have suited to go into the thing refreshed and caffeinated. You walk into something like that carrying your heaviness, your pain. And you give the performance despite the pain that you're feeling which actually makes the performance. More from Tamara Adira's "Estrellas" captured by photographers Oscar Moreno and Nicole Marie Moore. "Thank you!" She says, "One thing you mentioned was genocide. I had to meditate a whole lot on what it means to be an ancestor of the people who survived." We began touching on what Tamara refers to as genetic memory. "There was a type of Jew who was willing to sell out other Jews in order to survive. They had children, these not-so-nice Jews. And they had grandchildren..." She alludes to a very bloodstained legacy, cupping her bowed forehead in a mixture of shame and sadness. "Why was I a black sheep in my family? I realize I was a black sheep in a world full of wolves." "That's not something that's easy to look at. Something that happened in history affected me today, in 2017. I've been ashamed to talk about it." She explains her sense of responsibility, "I don't want to see that happen to anybody else. It already happened to my people." Enough. The most powerful word in the English language. It's only when we decide that we've had enough that healing can begin. It takes courage. To me, Tamara Adira is courageous beyond measure. "I hope to instill in others a sense of responsibility infused with their own flavor." I am profoundly honored that Tamara took the time to tell her story. This is why I do what I do. I sincerely hope that the reader is as touched by the truths she has shared as I have been.
~author K. Day This powerful documentary film is the accumulative effort of over a decade of focus from American painter, Seth Camm, a man on a mission to challenge the way our society's most vulnerable are treated and change the way we see each other, for good. From The Stone Pillow Instagram platform, "From the street to the canvas to the gallery they go, all the pretty saints. This initiative is not aimless. It literally gives otherwise invisible people another reason to pull back up by the bootstraps and even give society another chance. And for some, it truly is the difference between life and death. Inspire real hope, real love, and you will astound the world." ~K. Day The full length documentary film can be found here: https://vimeo.com/59250500 The Stone Pillow is a nonprofit homeless project with the sole purpose of changing the way we see each other. We are the voice of the invisible. see www.thehomelessstory.com Frame 2: director Michael Avila Christman of Darkhorse Photography captures footage for the second major documentary for The Stone Pillow, interviewing Seth and myself in his private painting studio on that day of filming.
"Whenever a great many people focus their attention or consciousness on something similar like Christmas time, a football championship or the funeral of Lady Diana, Princeton's random number generators start to deliver ordered numbers instead of the random ones. The power of our collective consciousness has a strong effect on our reality. Let's use it knowingly for the betterment of our world." +Please visit John's official site here: http://foodisfreeproject.org/ "To me all of life mixes, melds and swirls, affecting all the rest of the experience of life. By deeply examining our consciousness, our thoughts, our beliefs, our tendencies, our wants, desires, needs, by becoming aware of process and empowering infinite possibility we become inspired in freedom to live in a powerfully enjoyable way.I hold space for this. Because I know anything is possible and that there is nothing anyone needs to be, it is easy for me to facilitate without judgment of what, while simultaneously knowing what could be. Being aware of what is is of the utmost importance when this is combined with the freedom to expand – then a perfect balance is realized. There is no need to be subject to the past or the future. There is no need to be subject to what others think do and feel. Life is an ongoing process. We only are where we are but it never ends. Expansion, evolution, enhancement and upgrades are always possible. I feel that this is my purpose, at least for now, to live this for myself and share this with others. All process is accelerated in my presence for I am a channel of enhancement and focus. Infinite Blessings. It’s All Ok." +Please visit Quinn's official sites at: www.intothegardenofeden.com and www.newparadigmactivation.com "It should be that if you're an American citizen, our school system has failed you, you're homeless...it should be mandatory that teaching programs in United States homeless shelters teach one how to read. It always amazes and frightens me the number of individuals that are homeless who want to learn how to read, but the ability to learn is not provided. 'Investing in each other is the greatest reward'." +Please visit Seth's official sites here: http://www.sethcamm.com/ and https://www.facebook.com/groups/628163643930139/ "Talking to Earthlings can be draining and so confusing. They ask the darndest questions. "Do you work? Where do you work? What do you do?" Umm...I live. My existence is not defined by my work. I AM not defined by the work I do. I am a human being. I live. I do what I love. And that changes on a day to day basis. I teach dance. I am also an actress. Not the kind of actress striving for her big break. But an entertainer, an artist who doesn't require what others consider success for validation. I make no-budget independent films with people I like and I LOVE it! I get up four times a week to go to my "job" where I get to turn on music and dance and play and have fun and CREATE. And even that only takes up seven hours out of my week. "Well what kind of dance do you do/teach?" Umm...All kinds. I'm a dancer. Dance is dance and I don't discriminate. Mostly, I get up and I do things I want to do. They say when you do what you love all else falls into place. Perhaps not immediately, but yes, things are gradually coming together. I don't have a J.O.B. Seriously, no one will hire me. I get up everyday and I live. I LIVE. I LIVE!!! One of my favorite things to do on Fridays after two hours of work, is visit my friends Kat and Fernando and we fellowship. We eat. We chill. We garden. We talk Spirit. We talk Science. We talk about the modern day slave trade otherwise known as the Rat Race. We talk Life. I also serve on a regular basis. Volunteering and giving back is built into me. I've been doing it since I was a Brownie Scout and I never stopped. I graduated high school with over 600 service hours when all that was required of me was 100. And I still serve. There are days I think 'Damn, if I just had a job, I could afford to do more of the things I want to do', or 'If only I hustled a little bit more'... But then I remember I am living the life I've dreamed of since childhood. I am creating my legacy. I am building something to leave behind. I am living a life that matters. I am living a life of purpose on purpose. Even if it kills me. I can think of no better way to go out than having lived life on my terms." |
ArticlesThis is an assortment of words --- thoughts, dreams, confessions, advice, experience, love, war and hope --- contributed by people who inspire or move me. Archives
May 2018
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