The Season of Being Creative

Writing, autism, and the search for my true creative self

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance… - Ecclesiastes 3:1-7

My Early Experience with Creativity

I grew up in a family of artists and writers. My grandfather sculpted, my father did pen and ink and my uncle painted. My mom worked as a journalist before starting a family. And my great uncle Howard was an environmental activist and writer at a magazine called The Living Wilderness.

In light of all that, my parents were fine with the many hours I spent drawing and writing short stories and poetry. This was a good thing because, as an undiagnosed autistic growing up in a very unfriendly world, those activities were a port in the storm. On the flip side, however, the bar was set high at home and I didn’t get a lot of positive feedback on anything I created.

Which might have been why the nice things my teachers, and the occasional classmate, said about my writing and artwork had such an effect.

By the end of elementary school I’d decided that my teachers were right and that when it came time for me to go away to college I would study English or Art or both.

My parents didn’t agree. Probably because everyone in my family, no matter how talented, worked a regular nine to five that was “real art” adjacent and did art with a capital A on the side.

According to my father, real art was a hobby—not a career. As part of that conversation, I distinctly remember him saying that being the best artist or poet in entire seventh grade didn’t mean anything because by the time I got to college I would see that other people were better.

At twelve the idea of choosing a career that didn’t pay the bills seemed almost irrelevant but, because being the best was a big deal in our family, I took the prediction about others being better to heart. My teachers and classmates still said nice things. But by my sophomore year in high school I had stopped drawing and, aside from the occasional dark poem, there was no more writing for some time to come.

When it came time to settle down pick a career, I chose nursing. But as an adult, just like many of my relatives, I dabbled.

My Career Choices

Nursing was the worst possible fit for a sensitive undiagnosed autistic with an aptitude for art and literature and little else. I did manage to do it for almost fifteen years but I was never happy.

And so in my spare time, I took art and craft classes and wrote a series of unpublished manuscripts. Eventually I went back to community college and majored in commercial art. For a time I had a lovely job in the graphic design department of our local newspaper. Eventually, however, I went back to nursing because I was a single mom and I needed the money.

I missed the freedom of working at the paper but there were some things I liked about nursing—like the people I got to know as a visiting nurse. Some told me stories about the coal mines and the depression and growing up in Czechoslovakia or Ireland. Others patiently corrected my garbled attempts to learn Polish or Irish.

And one predicted my future.

Her name was Vivian. She was a bright, cultured woman who lived with her elderly sister in a big brick house with a beautiful terraced garden. On a warm afternoon you could find her outside with her easel, painting big blown out Georgia O’Keeffe style flowers and impressionist landscapes that dripped with color.

One day after showing me her newest painting, Vivian made a prediction. And, unlike the prediction made when I was planning my college career in seventh grade, this one came true.

I remember it for word. “You are going to love retirement, Barbara, because it will give you a chance to do all the things you’ve always wanted to do.”

The Season at Hand

I guess that a lot of people probably think they’ll pursue what they love when they retire and then don’t have the money or good health to actually do it. But I am, I think, one of the lucky ones—because the things I love, like writing and media and learning, are mostly accessible.

This isn’t to say, of course, that the pursuit of my creative calling is effortless. As is the case with many autistics, writing is challenging for me. And while my challenges are not extreme or easy to spot they present very real obstacles.

Since being diagnosed with autism in 2022, however, I’m coming to terms with these issues. I am not necessarily happy with the stories I write, but I no longer ask myself why I can’t write the kind of books other people write. I know.

In some instances there are work arounds and in others, I’ve come to accept my writing as is. I still struggle with confidence and relatability and feeling judged. But, no matter how discouraged I become, I keep coming back to it.

I started this blog almost two years ago. In July, I added the autism podcast. Last month I finished my very first vampire story. Next month, I’ll began to format it for publication. In between those things, I started a new story and a nonfiction book on autism and writing.

And it feels like coming home.

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For more on my experience with calling and career please see:

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The painting at the top of this post is Ophelia by John William Waterhouse. I love this image almost as much as I love the description of Ophelia’s demise in Act 4, Scene 7 of Hamlet. The first time I read that passage, it seemed so vivid to me I was sure that Shakespeare must have actually seen it. As it turns out, he might have. There is no water in the painting or maybe it is there just beyond the edge of the meadow but, to my mind, Waterhouse has captured his subject better here than any other artist (or any of his other attempts). And I always felt a sort of kinship with Ophelia.

The original John William Waterhouse painting is now in a private collection.