Secret Miranda Society

On Sunday, I went along to the Renaissance Fair in Caledon Carntaigh, and found a group of people raving to medieval music. I naturally had to join in!

All the ladies were wearing the same dress, a garment named Miranda, and created by Miss Fuchsia Begonia for sale to raise money for SLRFL. It was quite a sight, all these blue dresses dancing in sync.

Quite spontaneously, with no real discussion beforehand, myself and the two other gentlemen of the group all turned to the vendor, and purchased a Miranda dress each, which we then proceeded to wear, much to the delight of the ladies.

From then on events moved rapidly downhill. The Secret Miranda Society was formed, a group created, and we were all wearing the tag "Miranda" above our names. Then to honour Miss Begonia it was decided we all should wear blue butterfly wings. Where the Jester hats came from I don't know, but they became a part of the official outfit too.

There were a number of non-Caledonians visiting the fair that day, and the bemusement on their faces and in their chat was a joy to behold. One of these tourists said something about bad acid, and so a Half of Sunshine Acid, worn on the left wrist, became part of the outfit also. I did say things went downhill rapidly!

At the height of this silliness there were 30 of us, resplendent in our full Miranda regalia, raving in sync to medieval lute music, much to the amusement of onlookers. This was one of the times I have felt most part of Caledonian society, to be part of such spontaneous tomfoolery is something I shall treasure. My Aspergers means I always feel apart from other people, whether I am being deliberately excluded or not (and I do get deliberately excluded for a variety of reasons, a lot of which have more to do with the excluders than with me, this much I have come to realise, though such knowledge does little to take away the hurt of exclusion), so to be included in a fun event and have my contribution welcomed, my attempts at wit appreciated, means a lot more to me than to your average NT - neuro-typical, neurophsyiological terminology for people whose brains have the "correct" or "normal" pattern of wiring.

Aspergers is not a mental illness, nor is there a cure. It is a physiological condition, present from birth, where the neurons in the brain are wired to follow very different pathways than in the "normal" person. Thus it is something I have to live with. The last few months of knowing what is wrong with me have been a lot easier than the past 39 years, when I had no idea why I felt so apart from society, years which involved a lot of self-analysis as to what I was doing wrong, and hence my years of self-medication with stimulants and psychedalics,and a few depressive episodes.

An Autistic Spectrum Disorder, AS or Aspergers Syndrome causes the individual so touched to lack any understanding or comprehension of social rules or etiquette, and thus appear very gauche and socially inept. Which I am. There is an inability to see things from another's perspective, or to understand how one's actions can impact on other people. These things can be learned, but never to a very high level. There are a whole raft of other symptoms, some positive such as a very logical mode of thinking and an inherent ability to use mathematics or technology, but each individual with AS expresses some or all of these to a different extent.

I still feel very excluded from my peers, or my friends, or my community, or society at large, and this causes me great pain at times, but knowing that I will always feel this way, even were I to become the most socially aware person you can think of, loved by all and constantly being asked to parties and other events, whose opinion was sought and respected, whose manners and bearing were emulated and held up as the pinnacle of good behaviour, even if I were to become that person, I would still feel excluded and apart. I just have to live with that feeling on a daily basis. It is a small comfort to know that I am not being excluded because of my behaviour and way of being, at least not all the time, but I know that my manners, sense of humour and way of being are the reasons I get excluded from certain social groupings. Though which and exactly why I will never know.

So sad as it may sound to all you normals out there reading this, to be a part of the nonsense that is the Secret Miranda Society is a big deal to me. My condition has led me to have an appreciation of the odd, the eccentric, the nonsensical, and that is why I love living in Caledon, in Tanglewood, because it is a place where the offbeat is commonplace, where streams of consciousness run unhindered and join to become great rivers of Pythonesque fun. I feel at home here, as much as I am able to feel such a thing at all, and on those occasions when I do get a sense of belonging, I know I will never get it anywhere but in Caledon, and that never includes my First Life as well as my Second.