A Tale from Love on the Spectrum

Most days go by like any other.

But some days are truly unlike to others.

Not too long ago was there a day not alike to any other and on whose evening was I sat at a table near a pond within this restaurant in the highway-hugging town of Yandina that bore the breathy name, the Spirit House. Thereat was a young woman sat over from me who I then had known merely for an hour and some minutes more but who by chance soon was to become one of my dearest friends.

Our time had been spent together with talking and eating and eagerly now were we waiting for our deserts. Mine was to be the fantastical banana parfait and I truly did think that nowhere in all of parfaitdom could there be a greater delight than such a treat as that which also was served together with the glorious banana, abound so abundantly with its nutrients and latex allergens and yellow bendiness.

But it was not within solitude that we were eating nor was anything eaten with the privacy that such a meeting would bear on most other days. Each and every bite was seen by the seeing gazes of one camera at one way and then another at this other way and each sight was caught by a tall man who was bestowed the name of Davo. Each and every spoken word was heard by the ears of a shorter man who bore the bestowed name of Jazzer.

And then there was the Director – Cian O’Cleary.

Cian O’Cleary was a likeable fellow but an atrocity soon was done when he came from behind the cameras to our table and said to me with an apology that the night was becoming late and our deserts were not yet ready and before us and that my fantastical and glorious banana parfait thus would need to be missed so that our own paths onto our homes could be started ere a greater latening.

And so came an end to the filming for that night. The sheen of the cameras shone no more and the crew came forth from their hidden abodes in the corners of the venue to pack away their many items and gadgetry wherewith were all my antics to be televised. And I rose with Charlotte and I said to Cian, “You owe me a parfait.”

He gave me a peek and said plainly, “You owe me a $95 meal.”

Only the galliest of man can be a Director, and I know that it is with some gall that Cian O’Cleary bears himself for it is not so that a man who is bereft of such a thing could ever deny to me my desert and then so brazenly give a teasing answer to my whining over that denied desert.

Cian O’Cleary was never around without his director’s cap. He was seemingly a quiet man who spoke softly and who always was gazing around our environ for some stead wherefrom could I be filmed. He lope quickly from one place to the next with a sorely keen but undistracted gait.  

And in much of my time with him would I try exceedingly to say some words or do a deed that would bring laughter from him. This was done with triumph at a few times – but it was learnt that he was one of the more stubborn victims of my antics. But stubbornness does not equate to impenetrability.

But also was he a man who was not bereft of any ability to cause for the eruption of presumptions. This was to be seen shiningly in an instance where I was putting on my phone a dating application. I was confused by the processes for its navigation and it was from behind the camera that Cian was guiding my hand. I then was struck by wonderment and it was asked to him, “how do you know so much about Tinder?”

From behind the camera, he then took out his phone and it thereon was shown that he had a Tinder profile. I knew then that this old sausage incontrovertibly had more charm than was evident.

But Cian O’Cleary was only one among a few.

Jazzer took his every step with his torso so wrapped with a kitted bundle of tools for the apprehension and then the analysis of each and every noise that was sought by this Sidneyan crew. Around his neck were his headphones wherewith were all ensnared sounds heard and at his side always was one of those large sticks with those fluffy ends that I since have learnt are called boom-poles.

It was the ordained duty of this man to pursue a reality where no area of privacy was remaining as untouched. Before each oncoming sheen of the cameras would he come to me and with the manners of a gentleman from a bygone era would he put a tiny microphone down my dacks or around my hairy ankle. Often was this done at my house before we left or at the scene of a café or even an esplanade. And we both would make japes about how non unordinary it was for me to stand so still in the open as he stood by me and gave my trunks a fiddling.

Then was there Davo, who was a highly tall man and was a camera-bearer alike to Cian – it was by the two of them that I was ever watched for those several days. Of Davo can I recall his talent for putting himself into corners whereat should no man of his height triumphantly fit. His slender and long body had with it the skill of folding into itself so that he could take himself and his camera into any tightness. 

Davo later made his way to the south and his stead was taken by another bloke whose bestowed name was Azzer. Of him can I remember not too much but it did seem to me as if he were a younger form Cian with his beardiness and their shared love for shirts and hats. The two had worked before with the other and they very quickly found a common vision for each moment that was to be taken as a scene.

Then there was Courtney. She was a dweller of Brisbane and so Gympie was not too strange to her. Her task was to be an attendant of my needs and this was done with many ounces of coffee and with a respiratory exercise prior to my first meeting with Charlotte and many gestures of applause from where she hid lingering behind the cameras and away from their periphery but always was she watching and listening.

Our journeys from Gympie often were long and it was with her and in her car that I went from one stead to another and thus was it with her that I spoke the most. The week in which I was filmed was made of almost endless shifting between my house and venues and it was a moment of respite for myself to have the few hours that were given to share tales about myself and to hear about her own tales.

The bozo team - Azzer, Jazzer, Cian, my friend Carley O’Donnell, and then myself.

None from among these folks ever were before the camera but it is not without any of them that this icon of triumph for myself, and for so many others, ever could have been gained. It is with the awareness of Autism that I can find more freedom in myself and that others on the Spectrum and off from it thus may find more freedom in who they are. This crew have done more as agents for this cause than most.

And so to the deed of pondering have I given many moments of my cognition – to the nature of this series. We reside in an era where Autism is a diagnosis for which there is the requirement of documentaries. And it is sought that we reach an era where there exists no inquiry for such documentaries as there is existent in this hypothetical time no occasion of ambiguity for what it is that the Autism Spectrum truly is.

But our existence does not coincide with the existence of this era. And it perhaps only ever will be hypothetical, this era of the disambiguation of Autism. And so will there ever be the requirement for agents of awareness and I ably can afford my interest to these southern folks from Sydney for it was in the evident sincerity of those depicted that I first found my love for the ambition to show these people. It thusly has been in my participation with this ambition that I have found that what was shown was not a pretense for any other evident purpose than the authentic enthusiasm for this novel aspect of humanity as which the Autism Spectrum is so existent.

And this statement is not absent of any necessity, for there is a dilemma in this advent union between media and Autism. For this union in each and every occasion has not been of oneness and this dilemma derives from this inharmonious introduction of one with the other. The authenticity that resides in the representation of this diagnosis has been, is, and may yet be hindered by the limitations of the disseminated facts.

In this idea of representation, there is for myself a supposed desire not for any stringent parameter of depictions that abide by my own biases for what is proper and improper for the display of this diagnosis that is so idiosyncratic to each and every diagnosed person. But there is in the media this focus on an assortment of archetypes that are a cause for the veracity of this diagnosis to be obscured by presumption.

But it yet is true that this diagnosis is coming into a state of enormity as an aspect of modern humanity and yet its’ prevalence does not exist in alignment with the imprevalence of portrayals of Autism. Those portrayals that are existent are corruptible by sensationalism and notions that are incomplete. Thus can Autism be seen by others as something for which it is inexistent.

The media are the portrayers of that which most cannot see and thus may they be educators and advocators of empathy and comprehension of that which hitherto may have been incomprehensible. Documentaries are the most earnest of portrayers for often are they made by those who wish yearningly to show to the world that which they think should be seen and understood.

And I suppose that, in this idea of representation, I simply desire for myself that the stories should be about people on the Spectrum and not about the ideas that others have for whom it is that these people are. And  Northern Pictures truly have done some amount of good in this – for when I at last was able to watch myself on the television, I only saw myself and nothing else.

Love on the Spectrum is a small story that shows to people something that can be misunderstood. And now maybe is the likelihood for misunderstanding thusly lowered. It truthfully appears to me to be an earnest effort for the advocation and disambiguation of Autism.

Maybe in the forthcoming years can it be decided if this documentary was a major contributor to the entry of Autism into the conscience of Western society.

With surety can I believe that it has helped.