James, Jimmy, Jam, Jody and Jammed!

Dear Juliet

Something of a confessional mashup of things today!

There was that good lunch with my friend from college days yesterday, leaving me later at my desk, brain unleavened with nothing much to say. Cleaved from my intellect like a penitent in Erewhon, fearful of writer's block and the boring blank page.

But I think all that has happened over the last seven weeks simply caught up with me, and there's no shame in saying I needed a break to recharge for a day.

I got that in the form of some emotional release. They're making a film about the life of Jimmy Stewart, specifically the time where he flew B-24s during World War Two.

Every time I see B-17s or something similar in flight, it breaks me up completely. The last time I really got emotionally caught was the Eagle landing scene in First Man. It was more the air of quiet concentration that got to me. Like NASA, staff were going round their jobs at the National Autistic Society in Glasgow without fuss, but with a professional awareness of the job ahead and an understanding of what could go wrong. Some reviewers even thought Ryan Gosling played Neil Armstrong as an Asperger like me, though that's not accurate.

Some of Dear Miss Landau's reviewers noticed this, that we were going at it like it was a moon shot. With a quiet seriousness, aware of what could go wrong. In 2010, there was far less belief that someone with autism could even do this so it was a bit pioneering. Might even have been a world first.

So I replayed the landing scene and let all the emotion out. It's not trauma, although I suppose the feelings are as strong, and it's good to let them out on a regular basis, even if it leaves me lying on the floor like a large glop of strawberry jam. Which it pretty much did.

It's like Jody's grandfather in The Red Pony:

When we saw the mountains at last, we cried – all of us. But it wasn’t getting here that mattered, it was movement and westering. We carried life out here and set it down the way those ants carry eggs. And I was the leader. The westering was as big as God, and the slow steps that made the movement piled up and piled up until the continent was crossed. Then we came down to the sea, and it was done.” He stopped and wiped his eyes until the rims were red. 'That’s what I should be telling instead of stories.' "

That's partly why I wanted to go out again, so I wouldn't get too stuck telling the same old stories. But I'll always have these react like this to the sight of ships and planes in flight, and I don't mind admitting it.

There's a lovely scene in Powell & Pressburger's A Matter of Life and Death which also gets it. David Niven coming in on a wing and a prayer with Kim Novak listening. That's all we want. Someone to listen and know we are there while we do what must be done.

Anyway, I think that broke the writer's block.

Then I saw James Marsters on Facebook, and I am a little concerned. I don't know for sure but I think he's more depressed about Buffy : New Sunnydale's cancellation than he's letting on. Well, there's nothing more I can do than say so to you, but I keep getting a sense of niggling worry...

I always liked him.

Sometimes, when you're an Asperger, you have to have the emotional stuff explained to you. You know it's there, you feel it yourself but you may need someone else to tell you how intense it is for them. I'm still trying to understand that about you. Maybe, like Spinal Tap, I need to dial up my perception of neurotypical emotion to eleven...

So I think I'd recommend (before I burn the flickering candle at both ends and run right out to work once again) expressing one's emotions rather than blocking them. I think I'll go see Jimmy come November, watch the trailer again tonight and maybe also Star Treks III and IV while polishing off a bottle of Baileys!

Something else bothering me, but I haven't got the time to turn around and write it down...

Darn.

Love,

James