In this quiet little place

I love quiet little places.  As someone on the Asperger’s/autism spectrum, I frequently find myself going off to be by myself, away from the fray, toward the peace and quiet.  My solitude becomes my sanity and self-preservation.  My being and wellbeing depend on it.

I’m fortunate enough to have a few of these little places to choose from.

A couple of them are located within the semi-secure confines of my apartment complex.  We chose this particular complex for its plentiful mature tree growth and the ambiance that ensues.

Some of my quiet places are nooks and crannies people might never think to check.  Others are out in the open, in remote places. And still others can be found within the walls of my apartment.  And still others are in commonly trafficked areas, but at uncommonly trafficked times of day.  The time zone that’s all my own, during which I have the world to myself.  When everyone else is still slumbering and all is calm, and all is dark.

And yet another lies within the deeper recesses of my own brain, where my thoughts are my own and I’m under no obligation to share them or make sense to anyone.

In these quiet places, time has a way of wrinkling its eyebrows even more than usual, flying and crawling by at the same time.  Time and space contort and distort, winding themselves around my whims.  They become mine to mould and shape however I see fit.  My mind goes on its own journey, at its own pace, a pace that is both leisurely and warp-zone at once, leap-frogging and monkey-barring its way through various dimensions of understanding and consciousness.

It’s a volleyball game and a high-speed race, an excursion and a safari, a flight and a road trip through the Twilight Zone in transcendental wanderlust.

The only sound is my own broadband thought-stream, the only vision is the nature around me and the images obtained from my mind-wandering journey.  For me to be my only company is quite sufficient; during these times, I’m never lonely.

To the outside observer, I look much like anybody else, a regular citizen hanging out, watching the world go by.  Or I might be sitting at the desktop computer in my home office, appearing no different from anyone else.  Or I might be walking around the apartment complex, looking up at the trees, aware of my surroundings but uninterested in its goings-on.

But inside, there’s a fury of activity.  An alternate state of being. It’s my way and the highway.  A highway of my own, on which I’m the only traveler.  That’s just how it always is; that’s just how it’s always been.  And I figure that’s just how it will always be.

Sometimes I need a quiet little place, with Population: me. 🙂

This post was inspired by a song that frequently plays in my “mental jukebox” while I’m hanging out in such a place, called “In This Quiet Little Place” by the band K’s Choice.  The video of the studio version of this song can be found on YouTube here.

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