April Salzano

Welcome to Our World For the first time, my teenage son with autism and I are ahead of everyone else. We have already developed a skill that the rest of the world is having trouble acquiring. Who would have thought coronavirus would be so…novel? Long before stay at home orders, before shelter in place became a thing, we were killing it. Why? Because we have been socially distant for fourteen years. When we go out in public, it is nearly effortless to stay six feet from everyone else. In fact, our fellow humans make it easy. They stay at least six feet from us . Picture us in line at Starbucks, Thomas making a sound I can only describe as barking, a sound so loud my ears ring, and just like that, our perimeter is vacant. Thomas’s hands reach out to grope strangers who have moved against the wall in the Mobile Pick-Up area. It’s as if our fellow patrons read our personal autism rule book. Rule #456: do not reinforce a negative behavior. As a bonus, we are simultaneously worki...