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In my mid-60s, I started to suspect that I had lived my entire life with unrecognized autism. I didn’t want to assume, without a clinical diagnosis, that I was autistic, so started to keep a journal of things I did and experienced throughout my life that correlated with symptoms of autism I read about in the clinical literature. As the evidence gradually became overwhelming, I found a clinic, was tested, and diagnosed at age 68 as autistic.

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This installation presents writings from my correlations journal as a stream of consciousness that echoes the natural, arbitrary order of my insights and reflects aspects of the autistic thought process (see each individually enlarged panel). This piece, installed along the Grand River Walk in Lansing, MI, summer 2020, elicited touching feedback from viewers who saw in it a loved one, or themselves. The response from viewers is growing to becoming a work of its own. I welcome your thoughts: william.charland@wmich.edu. 

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