Temple Grandin

So last weekend my mother in law called and offered to keep Porter over night ( don't even get me started on my mother in law, the woman is a saint! ) So with all this extra time on our hands, we decided to watch a movie that I had been wanting to see for awhile. It can be a bit challenging these days to watch a movie when Porter is home, now that he has mastered the art of getting out of his crib, we can end up having to pause every few minutes to put him back to bed and well, that just takes away the fun of watching a movie...but back to my point!

The movie was "Temple Grandin" a semi- biographical film based on her life. Temple Grandin
" is an American doctor of animal science and professor at Colorado State University, bestselling author, and consultant to the livestock industry on animal behavior. As a person with high-functioning autism, Grandin is also noted for her work in autism advocacy and is the inventor of the squeeze machine designed to calm hypersensitive people." ( I copied that directly from Wikipedia, which explains all the links).  I have always been a person who loves to be inspired by great people. But this was different. Now more than ever,  I need a Temple Grandin.  The movie actually exceeded my expectations, Claire Danes was nothing short of amazing playing the role of Dr. Grandin! Here is the trailer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpkN0JdXRpM

Now,  I realize not every person with autism is going to accomplish everything that Dr. Grandin has, in fact that reminds me of something I read recently on one of my favorite blogs. "If you've met one person with autism, then you've met one person with autism".  Brilliant. People with autism often share some characteristics, but like everyone else, each person is unique in his/ her own way. It was however, very inspiring to watch how Temple was able to use her autism to help her achieve all the incredible successes in her life. It was also so great to get a glimpse (even if it is just ever so slightly similar to Porter's) into the mind of an autistic person. One thing that stayed with me was how Ms. Grandin said she "thinks in pictures". So for example when the word swing is mentioned, she would have a database of pictures of swings in her mind and these pictures would naturally appear when the word swing is said. I also read in one of her books that when she enters a room she sees every detail of that room. This struck me because I've often noticed Porter will "eye up a room" when he enters it. I just assumed he was looking for what kind of trouble he could get into, but perhaps he is storing all that information in his very own "database"!

Anyway, I don't want to share too much in case someone reading decides to see the movie, but I will say that after the movie I felt a peaceful easy feeling. A feeling that while life will not be as I planned, it will be "different, not less".

Chat soon,
Rae