Note: Every autistic person’s experience is different. This is my experience with my daughter and she read and approved of this before I posted it. I can tell you the day I discovered freedom because I remember every intoxicating detail of the moment I drove alone for the first time…

Mother’s Day has a different meaning this year. I have an only child. I shut down my uterus store at 31. The “We are closed” sign went up and no more babies were to enter as customers. The womb is in the tomb. …

I raised my child in a shopping mall. Not the kind of my youth: An enclosed, 1980’s dark-floored cave with a Spencer’s and The Limited, Orange Julius and Chick-Fil-A; a constant fountain whooooooshing in the background. No, this shopping mall is a modern, outdoor arrangement with a small fountain in…

I should have found my voice by now. As I creep toward the second half of my life, I guess it’s no surprise that I feel like I haven’t. I’ve been telling the stories of others far longer than my own. But a writer’s voice is ever-changing. The voice I…

I keep snow in my freezer. In Alabama snow is rare. So years ago my daughter Isabel and I started gathering it each time it snowed. We put each scoop of snow in a baggie and stuck it in the freezer, marked with the year we collected it. It may…

I dust off the plastic bin I put away 10 years ago and carefully pry the top open. I stand outside on my balcony because the years of dust cover it. I gasp when I look inside. It was the same gasp I took 10 years ago — with a…