Urban Autism Solutions Part I

“People on the autism spectrum don’t think the same way you do. In my life, people who made a difference were those who didn’t see labels, who believed in building on what was there. These were people who didn’t try to drag me into their world, but came into mine instead.”

-Temple Grandin, Author of Thinking in Pictures

What an insightful statement. I remember reading Temple Grandin’s book, Thinking in Pictures, many years ago when I was trying to understand how to help my son, Doug. Temple Grandin, an American professor of animal science at Colorado State University, is also the world’s best known adult with autism. While Doug wasn’t labeled “autistic” he didn’t have functional speech until he was close to 4 years old. In those days (over 20 years ago) no one really knew how to help him, and I was shuttled between a variety of specialists. 

I began to study the brain and how people acquire language. I spent hours trying to communicate with him in the only way that I understood – verbally.  It was a frustrating experience for both of us. Over time, I realized he was communicating with me all of the time; it just wasn’t in a way that I understood.  As Temple beautifully illustrates that instead of “dragging Doug” into my world, I needed to go into his.

Temple’s book also gave me a role model – her mother, Eustacia Cutler. Temple was born at a time when children with disabilities were separated from their parents at an early age.  Eustacia Cutler went against the norm and wouldn’t allow the separation.  Instead, she was committed to helping Temple learn how to navigate the human journey and put her energy into discovering how Temple could use her unique gifts.  She epitomized what Temple so accurately states about the important of building on people’s strengths instead of trying to remediate their challenges.

It’s in this vein that we celebrate Autism Awareness month by featuring one of our favorite Zen partners, Urban Autism Solutions. 

I met the founder, Julie Tracy, over 6 years ago.  Introduced through mutual friends and knowing I was trying to create the zen of slow cooking, she called me one afternoon to share our challenges and the unique opportunity we shared in creating uncharted paths on behalf of our sons.

Her dream was to create a home in Chicago where her son John could live in community with other adults with autism. He would then have access to all of the work opportunities available in the city.

My dream was to create a business where adults with developmental challenges could find a pathway toward sustainable employment.

While our paths have been filled with ups and down, twists and turns, we have stayed connected to our shared vision, supported each other; and I’m pleased to say that we are both well on our way to building those dreams.

In the end, we are simply two moms who absolutely refused to buy into the concept of accepting a limited life for our children. Thankfully we had families who supported our vision.

We’ve experienced many wonderful blessings from our connection, and I want to share one of our favorite stories, which involves a young man named Zachary.

Julie called Jane and me in 2014 and asked us to kick-off the grand opening of the residential community, Project 1212, with a slow cooking class. Thrilled to be fulfilling one of our core missions, the three of us created the class together.

At the very first class we met a young man named Zachary. His excitement was palpable and we could see he had a genuine passion for the culinary arts. When his mother came to pick him up he enthusiastically asked her to, buy him a slow cooker so she could slow cook for the family. I turned to her to ask, “Are you working?” She replied, “Yes.” Then I asked Zachary if he was working.  When he said no, my response was, “You can be the chef in the family.”

And today he is!   

The last time we had a cooking class he brought us not one, but five pumpkin pies that he made from scratch and sells in their urban garden. It was so great to see his language and confidence expanded, and we felt grateful that we had been a tiny part of this discovery.

So this month we are celebrating adults with autism all their gifts and especially the gift of absolute kindness and authenticity that they bring to all of their relationships.

Author’s Note:

For the last three months we have been thrilled to have a high school intern on Team Zen – Carli Kaufman. Carli is a senior at The Cove School and has created a social media campaign around autism. We’re celebrating Carli’s hard work by donating 20 percent of all online sales through our website during the month of April to Urban Autism Solutions. See Part II of this month’s Zen Inspiration for more detail.

Zen Moment

“From this point of view, to avoid your strengths and to focus on your weaknesses isn’t a sign of diligent humility. It is almost irresponsible. By contrast the most responsible, the most challenging, and, in the sense of being true to yourself, the most honorable thing to do is face up to the strength potential inherent in your talents and then find ways to realize it.“

-Donald O. Clifton