It is often said that of the great things about autistics is our ability to think outside the box, which is true, but it is because we rarely see this type of box. The box that can sometimes/often frame us is the mime’s box. Thick plexiglass on all six sides, we can see and hear through it but we cannot connect through it, so the stark sense of loneliness is brought into that awful place of lonely even when around others.
Intellectual problems or other people’s problems are liberating, they help the focus away from the mime’s trap and into the wider universe of possibilities. Even problem solving and I can even forget that I am suspended in that universe in Marcel Marceau’s gift to the world. A bittersweet gift that I would like to think of a way to remove permanently.