Travels with my Teddy Bear: Travelogues and musings of a woman with Asperger's Syndrome and her teddy bear

By Debra Schiman

Travels with my Teddy Bear is the fascinating record of the author's journeys undertaken with her beloved teddy bear, Bearsac, through familiar cities of Europe and further afield to Mongolia. It is both a travelogue that expounds the joys and problems of travelling through different countries and cultures, and an illustration of the highs a

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bearsac Press
• Release date: Jun 3, 2019
• ISBN: 9781916092211

Book preview

Introduction

Travel is a topic I enjoy immensely. However, I find it challenging to converse once the subject matter digresses from travel and national culture to popular culture. I feel alienated and unsure of what to say. Even on travel itself, I feel I’m an outsider, trying to squeeze bits in. I’m comfortable listening, observing, or going off into my thoughts.

I’m comfortable talking about Asperger’s Syndrome. Why? Because I’m an Aspergian or Aspie and am proud to be different!

But what does it mean to be proud of being different? Isn’t it a privilege to not feel the need to be proud of one’s difference? If there was no discrimination, how many people would need to feel proud of their difference?

Asperger’s syndrome, a condition on the autistic spectrum, manifests in many positive and negative ways. It’s typically characterised by difficulties with social and communication skills. Some people with Asperger’s experience varying degrees of sensory overload, being extremely sensitive to touch, smells, sounds, tastes, and sights. Some may dislike physical contact. We may prefer familiar smells and certain foods.

The barriers presented by society are key issues: attitudes of people and establishments that don’t understand our needs, exclusion, sensory stimuli of everyday happenings that don’t tend to hinder nypicals to such an extreme. (A nypical [neuro-typical or NT] is a term some Aspies use for someone with typical brain-wiring, or what the medical world and many people consider "normal").

Of course, not having the same natural social understandings as the mainstream population means we find it harder to fit into society’s often illogical social constructions.

Without understanding and acceptance, we feel isolated by the expectations of fitting into a society in which we don’t have the neurologically built-in instruction manual. I’m not denying ‘some’ Asperger traits are barriers. They often are –– if we’re being honest. But a bigger barrier can be well-meaning people thinking they’re helping by saying they don’t think our individual ‘specific’ Asperger traits (that we see in ourselves), are barriers. Sometimes people take the Social Model of Disability too far –– this undermines its value. This I find especially true of the Disabled people’s rights movement!

I dislike being governed by ‘some’ of my Aspie traits. I fight the urge to stay within the comfort zone of my darkened flat.

I am moved to release myself from the culturally preordained path of normality I must tread to hold jobs and get along with people.

The Royal Palm sacrifices its fronds to ride the increasing storm, but I’m moved to let go of normality to ride against the storm of our society.

I can manage a short-lived uncommitted company; the type that hitchhikes the solo travel journey and the journey through life. However, interactions in each of these journeys can end too soon due to my difficulty connecting.

I was officially diagnosed aged 38. For me, it answered troubles and confusions I’d experienced throughout my life and explained why I was different in ways not understood or tolerated. It put my life into context and is still doing so. I’m comfortable being an Aspie and having a better understanding of myself; I also celebrate my growing understanding of others and of this peculiar world we live in!

My favourite subject of all is my travelling companion and teddy bear, Bearsac.

I know he isn’t alive, but Bearsac has become a living ‘character’, and to not animate him would be to kill him.

He evokes in people legions of emotions and reactions: affection, friendliness, laughter, openness, curiosity, intrigue, concern, fear, prejudice, snobbishness, confusion, comfort, discomfort, reflection, inspiration… and the list goes on. How, seen in this light, can he not be real?

I get an amused kick out of, the diverse ways people react to Bearsac and I love the way he is spoken about by people face-to-face, on mobile phones, and online. I’m unshaken by terrible things people say about him or me; I’m a great believer in Oscar Wilde’s quote: ‘There is one thing worse than being talked about, and that’s not being talked about’.

It amuses me how I’ve taken a teddy bear rucksack, animated it, and turned it into a near cult-status figure. People who started talking about the mad woman making her teddy bear talk became fans of that teddy bear once they saw the website and how many famous people and members of the public he has been photographed with. It is a fabulous way of sharing with people. Bearsac is great at opening people’s minds. He inspires them, they learn things from him, and because of his ability to inspire others to share with us, I learn from them.

What a great trait to have in a companion with whom to travel through life.

Of course, such a companion is a blessing on travels within this weird unpredictable planet. My need to research, prepare, and avoid unpredictability dominated at first. But walking the streets on Google Earth weeks before my trips lead to feeling underwhelmed once there. It’s like when you rip a bit of wrapping paper on a present to sneak a peek before Christmas Day. Even if you like the present, the element of surprise has dissolved.

Although the general chaos of travel often overrides stressful sensory overload or social situations, it can also worsen them. But I’m not moaning, just sharing!

I visited some countries before my diagnosis, so I make no direct reference to Asperger’s traits until further into my travels when I knew of my status as an Aspie.

Chapter One Annapolis – America - July 2000

I’m often considered to be too innocent to be judgmental and too naïve to have good judgement. Being considered innocent and naïve feels worse than being considered judgmental!

So perhaps this was why I found myself being a little judgmental of the overly loud socks ‘n’ sandals-wearing a little ahead of me in the check-in queue.

Which one of them was the farter? Yes, farter, not father. His or her gut was like a leaky bagpipe bag with a whoopee cushion inside. With roars of raucous laughter from each person, with every anal eruption, and too many farts to keep track of it was hard to pinpoint the source. Perhaps they were all at it, competing in a family fart competition. We were flying on the same airline and I hoped they weren’t on my flight. Worse, that I should be surrounded by them. How was it my place to judge anyway, if that is what I was doing? My brother and I enjoyed fart competitions around the Friday-night dinner table when we were young adults.

Though it was the general loudness and their annoying laughs at the farts that annoyed me more than the farts themselves; I was too farin to smell them.

It was July 2000, not long into a promising new millennium and even less into a promising new job. Thirty-three years old and paranoid of exposure as a pseudonormal, I was flying to Annapolis, Maryland, for two weeks to help set up a small office for a company embarking on cyber exhibitions (a concept in its infancy in 2000, and when few businesses had websites).

How could I go without trusted teddy bears, Bearsac, who goes everywhere with me, –– and Choc-Ice, whom I sleep with? Well, I couldn’t, could I? Bearsac took pride of place on my back. Choc-Ice was to travel in my easily identifiable purple suitcase, which was decorated with a teddy bear patch I’d glued on. Thus prepared, we set off for the States from Borehamwood, England.

This was my first flight alone. The whole experience of leaving my flat, right up until boarding the plane, was a bit daunting. My breath had felt compressed. But once the engines fired, and the plane sped down the runway, anticipation pumped my breath. I’d not been airborne for years and love flying. My enthusiasm, though, was soon eaten by the tasteless in-flight food.

The wailing of a baby ripped through my eardrums. Shakily I slumped my head into my knees muffling words that might offend. Thankfully, once its mother stood to rock it, Waily Baby simmered down, my body steadied, and my brain regained composure.

But not for long.

Waily Baby had weakened my resolve to endure the over-perfumed stench of the over-made-up lady two rows in front of me. She must have overdone it in duty-free. I sniffed at Bearsac’s fur to recover from said stench but still suffered dizziness and blurred vision, which made sure my head ached most of the journey.

Thankfully fart family were nowhere in sight, earshot, or smell-range. But the proximity of the flickering personal video screen, even the insane flashing of my neighbour’s screen, tore at my ears and nerves via my peripheral vision. I was unable to watch films. How can vision hurt one’s ears?

How odd do you think I must have looked with tissue sticking out of my ears –– if indeed it could be seen whilst I assumed an almost brace position –– cuddling Bearsac, kissing and sniffing his fur whilst muttering repetitively: ‘Wash that stench of a woman’ and ‘Coffee should be made illegal’.

I also coped with the stinks and visual attacks by thinking of the usual order of the Arsenal team from numbers 1 - 11 in the mid-1980s; the order of the planets from the sun; or the release order of Gary Numan’s singles.

The distractions weren’t enough to ward off intrusive thoughts of being sacked before the end of the trip and having to pay for a flight home early. I’m pants at office politics, and pants at seeing and conforming to the unspoken hierarchies between peers. In general, I’m pants at holding down jobs, even though I’m nearly always punctual, have not had a day off that wasn’t annual leave in years, and have never been guilty of genuine misconduct.

I’m different in a way people are uncomfortable with.

When people are uncomfortable with someone who is ‘different’ in a way they cannot tolerate or perhaps leads them to feel insecure in their conformity, they try to eliminate them.

In childhood, I’d only been abroad as a baby and a three-year-old. Family holidays were most usually taken in the West Country of England, where our extremely overbearing father terrorised the local hotels and bed & breakfasts with his restaurant critic-entitled attitude, storming into the kitchens to inspect them before deciding whether to stay or not. I recall him, one time, telling hotel reception staff they were peasants for having jovial plaques on the reception’s wall.

He’d often end the holiday early. I’m not sure if it was because he couldn’t control all the other guests or because he was bored with not driving in his London taxi-cab. Perhaps it was so he could save money. Perhaps it was all these.

Thankfully for the restaurant and hotel industry, cabbing was his bread & butter; while his restaurant critique was a part-time endeavour.

Even as an adult, I’d had very few trips abroad up until this. I had few friends to go away with, not to mention a low income.

With this trip, I felt like an adult as I was being trusted with the responsibility of getting a new office up and running.

But I was still terrified of being exposed as dysfunctional.

I thought about how I was treated as though I was the younger of my brother and me, when I’m 3 years older. Oh, and a half! What is it about me, I wanted to know, that brings this out in my family and from people in general, especially when my peers would say I’m very sensible?

Because I manually learn human behaviour and social mores and have a socially analytical and curious mind, I have an insane tendency to overthink things to work them out. You’ll likely notice this, but please bear with me!

My sensitivity to stimuli and to feeling misunderstood can intensify these traits.

Anyway, let’s get back to America!

‘I know Americans call bags purses, so what do they call a purse’? asked Bearsac of the woman who had been sitting in the seat on the other side of the aisle. This startled her. She had been asleep for much of the flight and hadn’t become accustomed to a talking teddy bear like the man next to us had done.

‘Coin purse’, interjected a woman, from the row behind us, as we all fought to get our hand luggage from the overhead bins.

‘Why are you talking through your teddy bear’? the woman who had been startled into silence by Bearsac’s question, asked of me.

‘I’m not talking through him; he’s talking through me. I’m allowing him to use me as a medium of communication’, I replied. The woman grew creases on her forehead.

‘Why, what does it mean that an adult pretends her stuffed bear talks’?

I was too busy fighting with my hand luggage to answer and risk an actual fight. I just smiled. At least I think it was a smile.

My boss picked me up from Baltimore Airport. Despite him being the only person in the waiting area, I walked right past him! I’d seen him but didn’t recognise him and was already thinking of phoning the London office because I didn’t even have the address of the condo. He had said I didn’t need the address because he would pick me up: he couldn’t see any reason for my needing it.

My colleagues considered him to be like Mr Bean but void of personality. And although I was a little defensive of him when they gossiped behind his back, I could see he was a little off-kilter. I might be naïve and a little eccentric, but he pumped both volumes several notches higher. Yet none of us could put a finger on what about him was off.

When we did role-play telesales calls as part of my training, I’d pretend to be someone who was annoyed at receiving a cold call and would respond rudely. The boss would get annoyed, saying that people wouldn’t ever be like that. He seemed to assume everyone would be open to a cold call. He’d end up telling me what to say as the person receiving the cold call, rather than letting me play my role!

He’d studied astrology and based many decisions on it. It was a near obsession for him. An astrologer had told him to set up the business and open a branch in the USA. He even told him which star-signs his employees should be. Aries was one — lucky for me!

However, he did have his own mind in some ways. He decided my being Jewish (gleaned, I assume, from my surname) would mean I’m honest and hard-working. I am, but it has sod all to do with my ethnicity! The funny thing about his positive prejudice was, he isn’t Jewish himself.

Anyway, with a good basic salary and a reasonable commission rate, I could not afford to take offence; Principles don’t pay my rent. I wasn’t going to be dictated by society’s expectation (assumed, rightly or wrongly, on my part) that I should leave because of his ignorance!

My colleague, who had come with the boss to meet me, approached me with his arms open in ‘long lost friend’ greeting stance. I’d only seen him a few days ago and was unsure whether to take on the hug. Was he serious or joking? Awkwardly, I mirrored his gesture and gave a light hug. Was I also meant to do that silly kiss on each cheek thing we’ve now adopted in the UK to help us feel cosmopolitan? My colleague didn’t, so I didn’t. Was my relief at this well enough disguised by my fake reciprocation and attempt to appear normal?

When I caught up with my boss back in the tiny arrivals room I’d walked through, he said he’d seen a woman carrying a suitcase with a teddy bear on it and thought of me! Was he even worse with faces than I am?

Driving to the condo-cum-office (home and workplace for two weeks), Bearsac was disappointed.

‘There’s none of that stuff we see in American films: no tattooed bikers in headscarves; no surgically enhanced guys or broads waving from open-top cars; not even any mirrored skyscrapers along palm-treed avenues’! –– This was the route to Annapolis.

However, at traffic lights, the hire car stood beside an enormous Mack truck with shiny pipes. ‘Now I know I’m in America’, enthused Bearsac.

The sight of the driver on his C.B. radio took my mind back a few years earlier when I’d spend hours in a bedsit on my C.B. radio. That was before I had Bearsac. If I’d had him then, he’d have spoken on it like Choc- Ice often did.

The rumble of the truck’s engine shook me from my reverie. We were off down the near-empty carriageway.

About 5am the first morning, just as daylight was opening its eyes, I crept out with Bearsac to the waterfront and admired the boats which held the bells I had lain listening to most of the night. The boats gentle bobbing created shimmering ripples of silver-blue on the water. The sun was rising, a calm and reassuring scene. The surrounding quiet left me feeling I was the sole human on earth; content to simply sit and take it in with Bearsac beside me.

‘That patch of mould here on the bench resembles the shape of the UK’, said Bearsac’. I sat him on it to put the UK out of my mind.

Back on my feet, I walked out of the tree-lined condo complex, birdsong filling my ears quite beautifully. I found us on a road gently dotted with small wooden houses, each with the quintessentially American porch and customary rocking chair. Squirrels darting erratically around; scurried into trees as Bearsac greeted them. Squirrels are mad.

A weird, almost quacking sound from above stopped me. I looked towards the sound, turning up Bearsac’s head at the same time; both of us scanning the tree for a duck. How had a duck gotten so high in a tree? I saw no duck, but Bearsac pointed out a squirrel. This demented furry organism was performing repetitive circular acrobatics around the same three branches and was making the sound that had stopped me: whirrrrr wuack whirr wuack.

I’d neither noticed nor thought about the sound squirrels make. Have you?

‘It really is the most peculiar sound of any creature on the planet’, remarked Bearsac.

I became a little intrigued with squirrels thereafter and would bore and annoy people by impersonating them. I was reminded of a cuddly toy I once had, who I thought looked like a tailless squirrel. I had him handcuffed to my bag a few years before I had Bearsac, but I lost him at a Gary Numan concert when the handcuffs broke.

A small stand-alone shop caught my eye; it had a faded Pepsi-Cola sign outside which added to its oddly desolate presence on the pretty residential street. Surprised this grocery and liquor shop was open so early, I stepped inside. The shop descended into silence, its shop worker and three customers talking with her stared at me, looked at each other and back at me: ‘Good morning,’ I chimed with a smile.

The employee nodded slowly, and four pairs of eyes cautiously penetrated my back as I looked around, picking up and smelling items I’d seen in American films, such as Oreo biscuits and Hershey bars. Not that I expected to smell much through the wrapping, but I tend to sniff at things anyway. I opened a small brown paper bag with a deliberate flick, to break the deafening silence.

For the entire three or four minutes I was there, not a word was spoken other than by myself and the shop worker, who routinely told me the price of my purchase. I paid and put the bag inside Bearsac’s tummy (he’s a rucksack) and continued along the road.

I passed what looked like a social-housing estate and went into a laundrette to check what coins it took. At the time, I didn’t realise my condo complex had its own laundry facilities. Again, chat silenced as I walked in and all activity ceased.

There were several people eyeing me. It wasn’t clear which coins the machines took, so I enquired, to no one person in particular. During the long silence which followed, which I thought would never be broken, I realised I was the only White person in there and I had been in the shop too. Maybe I wasn’t meant to be there!

Informed at last of what coins to use, I thanked my informer, bid good day to everyone, and laughed gently to myself once outside. Is finding this funny ‘White privilege?’ Or is it simply the privilege of being an individual-that-isn’t-affected-enough-to-give-a-toss, whatever their race? It reminded me of scenes in films where the White person walks into a Black club or Black person in a White one and the record scratches off!

Perhaps the confused looks I was getting were somewhere along the lines of ‘what’s this skinny-assed White girl doing here’?!

Of course, it could have simply been that I was a stranger, and I’d have got the same responses had I been Black.

Farther down, the road came to an end and a whistling Black man returned my good morning with a look I took to be confusion but could’ve been gas. ‘Good morning,’ he eventually said. ‘We don’t get many of your folks around these parts’.

I laughed and told him why I was in Annapolis and of my company’s cyberspace exhibition.

‘I don’t get all this cyberspace stuff; it’s a bit too space-age for an old man like me; I can just about use the microwave’.

With that, he bid me good-day and walked off, picking up in his whistling where he’d left off.

A small wooded area looked peaceful; by now I was in dire need to poo. With a quick check no-one was around, I squatted between bushes, made like a bear, and shat in the woods. I took pride in the thought there would be a part of me still in America once the rest of me was back home in the UK. I thought of my poo as fertiliser and wondered if anything would grow from it. Smiling on this thought, I walked back to the condo, swinging Bearsac by his straps.

After awkward breakfast conversing –– on both my and Boss-man’s part –– and the painful permeation on the air of the boss’ and colleague’s coffee, I sat in the fitted wardrobe for about ten minutes to calm down, reminding myself it was a closet, as I was in America. The smell of wood and coat hangers in the darkness of the closet took me within myself and soothed me, as this type of environment usually does. The dark closes off visual stimuli, and the compact atmosphere both intensifies the smell of the wood and hugs my aura.

Calm, I was alert again and ready to go out computer and stationery shopping with the boss. I knew I had to attempt a sincere smile as Boss-man enthused about the ins and outs of the construction of the car, oblivious to my lack of interest. I hoped I was smiling correctly. Subtle sounds became noises as the anxiety gnawed my nerves.

In the town centre, most people said ‘Hi’ to us, and lots of people made a fuss of Bearsac, stroking him, tickling him or speaking to him. A man began speaking to Bearsac as though he were human. He then offered me $50 for him.

‘I’m not a commodity’, said Bearsac, indignantly.

‘I’m most apologetic if I have offended you Bearsac’, replied the man.

The main street in Annapolis is rather red, with little red-brick shops on red- pathed pavements beside red roads. At the top of this red town, and visible from most red roads, is the red-brick State Capitol Building, which is the oldest state capital building in sustained use in the USA.

‘Don’t you think Annapolis looks like that small town in ‘Back to The Future’, during the scenes in the 1950s, asks Bearsac’? I saw what he meant but didn’t reply; I was taking too many photographs of water hydrants, road signs, and overhead cables which web the town and suspended traffic lights in my enthusiasm to record anything showing any difference from the UK.

Annapolis may be famous for sailing but is infamous for the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. Slavery in the state of Maryland dated back to at least 1642, when it was a British colony, and enslaved people from Africa arrived in St Mary’s City. Annapolis itself, is known for slavery from later, because of one man. In 1767, ‘the Lord Ligonier’, (a British built ship) sailed into Annapolis City Harbour with Gambians brought over to be sold as slaves. Included was Kunta Kinte, an ancestor of Alex Haley (the man who wrote Roots). At the dock is a life-size bronze sculpture of Alex Haley reading to eager children.

The sculptor was Ed Dwight, the first Black astronaut trainee. He certainly had a varied career. Amongst other things, he was an air force test pilot, restaurateur, and construction entrepreneur. In the mid-1970s he took on an artistic career and has carved many sculptures, including ones of Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Charlie Parker and Miles Davis. Clearly, he is a huge fan of these icons, as am I.

Germ-ridden, dirty brass and its stench tore my brain. I have to wash it off, I need to breathe again. Why I follow my urge to touch it in the first place I’ll never know.

It was easier to work without the boss once he’d gone back to London, but overenthusiastic thunder and torrential rain turned our road to river within less than a minute. It made it hard for me to concentrate and threatened to spoil our free time after work. Thankfully, it was short-lived, and the water soon evaporated back to whence it came. Within minutes the roads were dry. All was quiet once more.

Sunset saw me and Bearsac sit on the dock at a little crabbery, eating small soft crabs and a larger hard-shelled crab. Soft crabs are eaten whole. Both types oozed with freshness. Why Bearsac spoke to a dead crab, I really don’t know. I do wonder, at times, where he gets his weirdness from.

‘Why are you making your stuffed bear talk to a crab’, asked a teenage boy in a small group, all wearing sporting gear. ‘I’m choosing to talk to the crab’, said Bearsac. ‘But it’s dead’, sneered the boy.

‘That’s no reason not to talk to it’, Bearsac responded.

The boy’s friends laughed, but I don’t think the boy was too happy about it. They were laughing with me rather than at me. Was he hoping to raise his standing within the group by making an adult feel and look small?

I heard him whispering about me and what it means that I pretend a stuffed bear speaks. I could have asked him how he’d like to be referred to as a stuffed human. But I thought it best not to, for fear of me being arrested for threatening minors.

After returning from the crabbery, I started reading a book entitled Chesapeake, left by my boss. Not that I’ve much of an attention span for reading, but I was happier to be in my room than spend hours sitting with my colleague watching American TV, making awkward small talk or conversing about things of no interest to me. Used to living alone and in control of some sounds within my environment, my sense of self felt invaded by the TV and cohabitation with a human entity. The precious solitude permitted me to cocoon with my thoughts and two favourite teddies.

The book transported me back some 400 years, featuring the lives of several fictional men and families living along or exploring the bay, from 1583 until the late 1970s. My attention waned as it approached the late 1800s. The book was 1000 and a half pages long. Why the extra half page, I wondered when I turned to the end of this doorstop to see how many pages it was. The complete unevenness of the extra half page after such a round number as 1000 annoyed me. I tossed the book aside.

One day, when I’d got my photos from the printers and was taking more, a White man came over from his condo nearby and suggested a vantage point for a photo. I showed him the ones I’d had printed at the photoshop. His neighbour, an old White woman, invited me into her condo to see her pride and joy, a framed photo she had taken at Cape Cod.

She’d caught the quiet, isolated energy of a building, at a special moment in time and light. It could’ve been in a gallery but would’ve been wasted –– many people would afford it only a few seconds. Simple yet esoteric, minus the pretension. It didn’t deserve a walk-by or ostentatious ponderings by twits in tweed suits, peering over half-moon spectacles with thumbs and forefingers on chins.

When they saw my photo of the shop with the Pepsi sign, the man said it was the only place he didn’t recognise. The old woman slurred through the side of her mouth: ‘That’s the coloureds’ storrrrrre’. The man almost shot out of his chair and left without a word, and the old woman went quiet. It was then that it dawned on me fully that there was an unspoken apartheid in town, and race was a taboo area of conversation. I didn’t know how to take the way she spoke, or her neighbour’s sudden departure, which I don’t think was down to his finding offence at her.

However, I was too wary I might have misunderstood her intonation and the strange atmosphere which seemed to clothe the residential part of this town to say anything. Indirect comments, especially in accents I’m a stranger to, confuse me. In England, race –– although not a comfortable or honestly discussed topic of conversation –– isn’t quite such a taboo subject. I doubt all of America is like Annapolis. However, it did come across like the way the