As I contemplate my blank screen… I hear the lovely tones of the piano drifting up the stairs from the basement.  Craig The Amazing is working out a few chords for a piece he is transcribing. He is a jazz percussionist – mostly he plays drums – but he has been working on transcribing pieces for the vibes, like ‘Killer Joe’, that he will play, amongst other works, as a part of a second tribute to Milt Jackson and Ray Brown later this month.

Craig is gifted with music. As he works… I hear the piano.  I hear the runs – and then the breaks as he pencils in the notes. A brief silence… then more beauty drifting up to me.

I lift my focus from my writing.

I listen more closely and am awed at the intricacy of what he is able to do – seemingly so effortlessly. The feeling in the music… the tone… the movement… drifts up to me and I feel the need to breathe it in and appreciate this wonderful man. I am grateful for his music. To me it embodies the beauty of who he is as a person.

Later he is working more… but this time upstairs on the computer. Now… he is transcribing Dizzy Gillespie’s ‘Birks Works’. At the keyboard – I hear the clicking of the keys and the sometimes-sigh of his concentration.

I occasionally talk to him when he is there – in that place – but I shouldn’t. He is deeply focused, and if I interrupt his thought, I will only get a slightly unfocused response to a half-listened-to query.

It is like a stop-gap measure to brush away an annoying bug.  I get that!

Craig and I are the same in so many ways…

When I am deeply engaged in my own thoughts or favourite activities – I do not want to be pulled to the surface for either air or conversation. I am deeply absorbed – and then it takes me a while to bury myself back into that place or thought: the sweet spot of my focus or processing.

I was describing this to Craig:

“It is like diving for a shiny stone: taking a deep breath and swimming down… and if you can just reach it… you can get it. But if you have to swim to the surface for another breath – or a conversation – you have to sink back down to search again for that stone – and having shifted your gaze – you may never find it again…”

Sometimes the drifting up is hard indeed…

The splitting of attention…

The shifting of gaze…

The alteration of focus…

Today – however – this drifting up fills my world with beauty and appreciation in real-time for this home of mine and my wonderful family.

And I am breathing it in… and I am grateful.

___________________________________________________

30 Days of Autism is a project designed to fight stigma, promote civil rights, and increase understanding and acceptance for those who process and experience the world differently.

© Leah Kelley, Thirty Days of Autism, (2013)