Deciding Where They Go
No person is a one-piece puzzle. Even Autistic people, who are stereotyped as only liking one thing, do in fact have multiple interests.
That stereotype is not without a kernel of truth: Most Autistic people have what is called in the community a “special interest”: a subject that they become experts in and never tire talking about. Some people’s special interests last a lifetime; others have special interests on “rotation.”
To pull from my own life, I have had a special interest since age seven: Pokemon. My little brother, on the other hand, tends to have special interests on 1–2 year rotations. Some examples of his special interests over the years are: Spongebob Squarepants, Yo Gabba Gabba!, timers, Minecraft, and the GPS.
My little brother’s GPS special interest inspired Andreas’ map special interest, and, from the map special interest, I extrapolated out the road trip of All Ways.
But how did I extrapolate out the road trip of All Ways? I used what I am calling the “A to D” method.
First of all, I made the locations picked all in the United States. Since York and Andreas only have access to a car and do not have international passports (which do require a lot of paperwork), they can only visit places in the continental United States. And, since they are beginning in Ridgecrest, California (chosen because of its location near a state border, foreshadowing how they will negotiate the borders of their identities), they can really only go east. Andreas explains the problem with going in other directions:
“If we went west from Ridgecrest, we would be in the Pacific Ocean. If we went north from Ridgecrest, we would be in Canada. If we went south from Ridgecrest, we would be in Mexico. We do not have passports, and cars cannot swim, so — ”
Let’s take an example from the book: The brothers first visit the birthplace of the nation’s oldest cat (the oldest cat that has a confirmed birthplace, anyway). Next, they visit the nation’s largest twine ball. In this example, the birthplace of the nation’s oldest cat is A.
- A: Oldest cat (Paris, Texas).
“East of Texas” is a pretty big geographical area to work with, and I chose to work with the “themes” of places, rather than specific locales. They are so many tourist spots that, chances are, if you’re looking for something about a topic, no matter how niche, it will exist! (For example, between my house and my college, there is a “vintage radio museum.”)
- A: Cats.
I already talked “Why cats?”, but, the summary, as it relates to this topic, is that Andreas had a cat that died young, so he wants to learn about cats that didn’t die young. Now that I have my subject, I need to think about the relations to that subject.
Cats like hunting.
- B: Hunting.
Cats use hunting behaviors when they play with yarn.
- C: Yarn.
A synonym for yarn is twine.
- D: Twine.
Going from A to Z would entirely obscure the starting point, but going from A to D allows for a bit of detective work to be done to try to see the relations. Then, I Googled about twine-related tourist spots, and, what would you know, that is a rabbit hole. (As you will see in the book, there is competition about which twine ball is the largest.) But our list is complete.
- A: Oldest cat (Paris, Texas).
- B: Hunting.
- C: Yarn.
- D: Largest twine ball (Cawker City, Kansas or Darwin, Minnesota).
The connections might seem a little tenuous to outsiders looking in, but York and Andreas share so many of the same life experiences (key word: “many”) that they go down similar trains of thought, the way many family members do. The confusion from people commenting outside that circle is not an Autistic problem. In fact, I would argue that it is a way that they “pass” as neurotypical!
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