Tomorrow Is Yesterday In a Different Place

March 12, 2021 By Lise Quintana in autism, weight Tags: autism, invisibility, social networking, weight loss Leave a comment

One of the many things I lost in the fire was all my archery gear. I had a beautiful one-piece recurve bow and dozens of arrows, a left-handed hip quiver, a couple of arm guards – all the stuff. And then I didn’t.

I’ve been part of the local archery club for a couple of years, but first the coronavirus hit and nobody could use the indoor or outdoor ranges, then I lost my house and all my stuff and was relocated too far from the range to make using it practical. In the time since I last saw them, I’ve lost over 100 pounds, and when I went to replace my bow, quiver, arrows, etc., nobody at the archery shop I’ve been frequenting for years recognized me.

I’ve seen lots of episodes of different television shows about exactly that scenario. A person walks into a place they’ve been in many times, and the people there don’t recognize them. On television, the person runs around screaming at everyone they meet until they wake up, or the devil shows up and tells them they’re in hell, or until they go running out of the shot, driven insane by the knowledge that nobody knows them.

In real life, I mentioned that I’d been in various archery leagues and done well. That I am an archery club member. That I was on a team with the club president and his family, that I had just been to the house of the club treasurer. That I’d taken third in the last league I participated in at the archery range all of us frequented.

Nothing. Not a glimmer of recognition.

Then I started thinking about other places I used to go a lot, and other people I thought I knew, and wondering whether they’d recognize me. When I had an office downtown, I would walk down the street from my office and run into half a dozen people I knew. Would any of them recognize me?

That feeling of disorientation I feel is battling with my deep need and desire to be left alone. Maybe this is fulfilling my dream of being able to walk through the world invisibly. Which is better? To be completely visible, but no one recognizes you, or to be invisible?

Radio Free Silence

March 21, 2012 By Lise Quintana in personal Tags: anxiety, podcasting, religion, silence, social networking, talking, therapy 3 Comments

There are three of you out there who remember my podcast “Satellite of Grace.” In it, I talked to people from all over about their religious beliefs. I talked to people from just about every major religion, I talked to people whose religion was a central factor in their lives and people who were largely indifferent to faith. What I really loved about doing the podcast was the freedom it gave me to listen. Really listen.

When interviewing someone, I normally had a loose agenda of things I wanted to know about the person’s religion or their own personal experience of it, but I never knew in advance what people were going to say. Sometimes, people expressed surprising views about their beliefs or their doubts. More than once, people tried to convert me. Listening carefully, with my entire heart and mind, meant that I was able to experience the unexpected with excitement rather than consternation. Someone coming up with something new was an opportunity to take the discussion in an exciting direction, not a failure to follow format. Listening to people with my whole heart and mind meant that, as I heard them speak, I felt humbled and privileged that they chose to share something so personal with me.

I’ve mentioned before that I’ve been seeing a therapist, and last week, we had what struck me as sort of a summing up. He said that I’d been seeing him for about five months, and when I first started seeing him my complaints were basically stress and anxiety and an inability to sleep and elevated blood pressure (are you sensing a theme, here?). He wanted to know if I still felt that way. While the specific incident that made me seek help in the first place has long since played out, the fact that I’m constantly stressed hasn’t changed. When he asked me “What exactly do you want help with?” I realized that all I want is to be able to relax and enjoy life a little more.

I realized that when I was interviewing people for the podcast, I was so completely outside myself and into their stories, that I felt utterly happy. I’m not the kind of person who enjoys things like skydiving or white water rafting (although I do miss my motorcycle), but there was something very in the moment about talking to folks about themselves. I’m considering taking an extended break from talking (read: Facebook, Twitter, email) and concentrating more on listening. It might be a way to get out of my own head and into some other people’s.