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International Day of the Stim: The Worry Stone

Photo © the author [image: Close up of fingertips grasping a worn black pottery shard.] Hannah King mystinkybackpack.blogspot.ca September 17, 2018 is International Day of the Stim! For more articles and information, see dayofthestim.blogspot.com. I found this old piece of pottery at the beach. It’s been worn smooth from the waves, and it fits perfectly in my hand. My thumb rub it over and over and over and over—it feels great. My thumbs are major in my stimming, always have been. I think one reason my thumb stims survived the years of stim-suppression I underwent at school and home is that I could stim—surreptitiously—with my thumbs. It was easy to tuck my hand into the folds of a cardigan sweater and reach for the nubby underside of a button, or to slide my thumbs and fingers quietly along the coolness beneath a school desk. And while I loved to glide…

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The Taxonomy of Plants: A Tale of Multi-Generational Autistics

Hannah King mystinkybackpack.blogspot.ca GRANDPA If you wanted to talk to my grandpa, plant taxonomy was a good opener. He would take us for long walks in the forests of North Jersey. Be quiet now, don’t scare the wildlife. “What kind of plant is that, Grandpa?” I would whisper. I never remembered the answer. But I liked to hear him talk to me. Photo © Hannah King [image: Close up of a barnacle-covered rock at low tide.] Every July, us kids would stay at their house near the shore. Grandpa, who had been an inventor at Bell labs, kept the tidal charts taped to the side of the refrigerator so he knew when to fish, when to swim and when—at four in the morning—to take the six of us racing down the pebbly sidewalks to collect shells and walk the puddled moonscape of a Jersey low tide. Back home in his…