Welcome to another Tuesday with TED. This week we have Elizabeth Gilbert, the author of Committed and Eat, Pray, Love, as well as other fiction and nonfiction books, who speaks about “Your Elusive Creative Genius.”
And guess what? She thinks all of us have a genius.
So what do you think of Elizabeth’s concept of genius?
Until next time,
Cynthia Patton
I’m always surprised when people tell me that they’ve never heard of TED — Ideas Worth Spreading. But for whatever reason, many people have never heard of the organization that hosts a variety of conferences, speakers, and events. Maybe it’s my endlessly curious mind, but I love the variety and scope of these talks.
Starting today, I’m going to post a favorite TED talk every Tuesday to share with you, my readers. Most of the time these videos will have to do with creativity, but not always. Maybe only some of the time. I’m going to play it by ear, and see what happens. It’s taken me almost 50 years, but I have finally learned that I don’t always have to have things figured out in advance.
But this first video is definitely about creativity. It’s also about disability and limitations. This is Phil Hansen and “Embrace the Shake.”
Oh, and because I will be posting Tuesdays with TED (on Tuesdays, of course), I’ll be moving what most of you have come to think of as my “blog”–the story piece of it, anyway–over to Thursdays. So don’t panic tomorrow. The story will be there, just a day later.
Remember, change is good. And let me know what you think of Phil’s ideas on limitations and creativity. Do you think constraints help foster creativity?
Until next time,
Cynthia Patton
A friend with young children recently ranted a bit about how parents who don’t invite ALL the kindergarteners to their child’s birthday party are mean, crappy human beings. Now admittedly, I may have a different perspective than the average parent, but my first thought was: Is she crazy? Who wants a party with 25 to 30 screaming five-year-olds?
My second thought was this: Get used to it. Special needs kids, even ones who are fully mainstreamed, don’t get invited to parties. Or play dates. Or sleepovers. The day may come when you don’t even get invited to family functions.
Do I think this is fair? Hell no. But I know it happens. I’ve heard it again and again from other special needs parents, and I know the struggles I’ve had with my own family. No one likes to admit it, but exclusion of special kids often happens at the hands of the people who know us best, the people who should find it easiest to practice full inclusion.
Let’s use my family as an example. One of my sisters planned a “family” camping trip a few years ago and didn’t invite Katie and me. When I learned, after the fact, about the trip and complained, my mother defended this very intentional act by saying that Katie couldn’t handle camping. This may or may not have been true at the time for my autistic daughter, but I felt I should have been the one to make that decision, not someone with limited knowledge of Katie’s specific abilities.
I told my siblings I was hurt. Nevertheless, the annual “family” camping trips continue—without us—but now my three siblings do a better job of keeping them secret. The problem is, my mother eventually slips, and I end up feeling hurt, sad, and resentful over our exclusion. Eventually Katie will too.
Even worse, the exclusion feels like punishment for something neither Katie nor I had any control over. Would you punish a child for having cancer? I doubt it. So why punish a child for having autism?
The fact that my siblings continue to exclude us from the annual camping trip makes me wonder how many birthday parties and other activities Katie and I are excluded from in the misguided attempt to “make things easier.” The problem with this assumption is that neither Katie nor I want easy. We may not have asked for autism, but it’s here, and we’re determined to overcome it to the maximum extent possible. We want challenges—the bigger, the better. Is it too much to ask that my family support us in this effort?
More and more I think the people who want to “make things easier” are the people who already have it pretty easy in my book. They don’t want the hassle of altering their plans to accommodate someone with differing needs. They say it’s all about me and my child, but really it’s all about them: their inability to change, their fear of the unknown, their need for control, their unwillingness to see things from a different perspective. Yet study after study has shown that people who live or attend school with disabled children are more compassionate, more tolerant, more flexible, and better able to think outside the box. These are skills we should all want, not only for ourselves but also for our kids.
So while I’m still not sure about a birthday party with 30 screaming kids, maybe my friend has a point. The next time you feel the urge to exclude someone because it would “make things easier,” remember this: inclusion benefits all of us, not just the disabled.
Until next time,
Cynthia Patton
It’s summer break and Katie only gets one week off before summer school begins. So we are taking the week off to relax and enjoy some fun activities, like the Alameda County Fair. I am probably begging for mercy as you read this, having been subjected to one too many spinning rides at the Fair.
Wherever you are, enjoy the beautiful summer weather and I will be back next week with more tales from my unplanned life.
Until next time,
Cynthia Patton
This has been an exciting week for me! In addition to producing and hosting my first Storied Nights: An Evening of Spoken Word as part of the City’s Art Happens program, I learned that one of my stories has been accepted for publication. My submission, “Waiting, Still Waiting for Words,” will be published in a yet-to-be-named anthology for mothers of children with special needs.
InWords Press has agreed to publish the anthology which is the vision of Darolyn Jones and Liz Whiteacre, who are mothers, writers, disability advocates, professors, and now editors. InWords Press is a small, independent publisher affiliated with the nonprofit Indiana Writers Center (IWC) whose mission is to nurture a diverse writing community, support established and emerging writers, improve written and verbal communication, and cultivate an audience for literature in Indiana. Any royalties made from the project will return to the Memoir Project at IWC to give other writers, often marginalized ones, a voice.
As always, it is an honor to have my work selected for publication, but I especially love that this anthology will help not only special needs moms but also other memoir writers. A big thanks to Darolyn Jones and Liz Whiteacre for spearheading the project and to InWords Press for agreeing to publish and market the book.
I’ll keep you posted as the project develops.
Until next time,
Cynthia Patton
People can say some really insensitive things when confronted with autism. At first these comments offended me, but over time I’ve begun to see the humor in them. So I started a collection, along with the sarcastic responses that I wish I could make aloud.
This is the fifth in a series. You can find the first list here, the second one here, the third list here, and the fourth list here.
Enjoy!
Until next time,
Cynthia Patton
Just when I thought there was more than enough change at work in my life, another opportunity arises, bringing with it still more change.
Two weeks ago, the Chair of the Livermore Commission for the Arts asked me to host a monthly event called Storied Nights: An Evening of Spoken Word. Sponsored by the Livermore Valley Performing Arts Center and Peet’s Coffee and Tea, the new literary series occurs on the second Thursday of each month as part of the City’s Art Happens program.
Although I enjoy sharing my writing and reading my work aloud, I had never considered creating or organizing a literary event such as this. That was something my friend Karen Hogan did. But Karen and her husband Tom Darter are in the process of selling their home and starting a new chapter of their lives in Sequim, Washington. I’ve known Karen and Tom for nine years, and while I’m happy for them, I’m sad for me and my daughter Katie. For nine years their home—along with their office, known as the Fourth Street Studio—has been our home too. I’m incredibly grateful for the time I’ve spent with them. Their departure leaves a huge hole, and they will be missed.
So the task of hosting Storied Nights has fallen to me. I’m excited, thrilled, and maybe just a little overwhelmed. I had a week to schedule the first batch of featured readers, two weeks to wrap my head around the idea. I’ve been scrambling to assemble a mailing list and promotional materials, develop a submission process, and decide on programming. With determination and a little luck, things are falling into place.
But in the frenzy of ramping up for Storied Nights, I haven’t devoted as much time as I would like to my law firm launch. I began to worry: was this the right opportunity for me? I asked friends and the members of my business mentoring group if I was making a mistake. Everyone felt I should proceed. I found a wonderful co-host, Marilyn Kammelgarn, to help me with the workload of this volunteer position, and still I wondered how would I pull this off? How would I juggle this new project along with everything else I had on my plate?
The epiphany I came to was this. When I originally practiced law, I dreamed of being a writer. When I was a writer, I missed practicing law. Throughout it all, I squeezed in nonprofit work because as I said in my last post, I’m a nonprofit girl at heart. The truth is, I need all three—Author, Attorney, and (Nonprofit) Advocate—in order to be truly happy and fulfilled. This might not work for you, but it’s what I want and need.
It’s taken me thirty years of adult life and a whole lot of changes to understand this about myself.
It’s also what I’ve been moving towards, ever so slowly, since Katie was born and I became a parent, since my marriage floundered and came to an end, since I met Karen and Tom in the quirky house that was Fourth Street Studio. I’ve been moving towards it, and now, at long last, it’s here.
Do I know how I will balance these competing demands? Hell no. Do I think it will be easy? Probably not. But whatever happens, I plan to embrace these pieces in all their messy and glorious complexity. Which explains why, when all is said and done, I’m happy to be launching a spoken word event along with an autism nonprofit and a special needs law firm.
My task now is to figure out how to make it all work.
____________
Storied Nights: An Evening of Spoken Word takes place on the second Thursday of the month from 7:30 to 9:00 p.m. at Peet’s Coffee and Tea in downtown Livermore, California. You can find it on Facebook at http://facebook.com/StoriedNights
Until next time,
Cynthia Patton
Last week I announced that I was gearing up to launch my own special needs law firm, something I never thought I would do. In that post, I mentioned that I was also launching a nonprofit. As many of you know, nonprofit organizations are nothing new to me. For nearly thirty years I’ve given my time, money, and passion to a variety of charitable organizations. Simply put, I’m a nonprofit girl at heart. I’ve joined nonprofits, volunteered at nonprofits, worked for nonprofits, and chaired nonprofits. I’ve founded several subgroups within a larger organization. But until now, I have never started a nonprofit organization from scratch.
As my friend Jennifer Simpson recently said: never say never.
Within months of Katie’s diagnosis, when the initial shock had subsided and I was combing the internet for information, I began to dream of a nonprofit organization that would provide resources and support to families grappling with autism spectrum disorder. In the San Francisco Bay Area, there is a tremendous need for such organizations. Southern California and Sacramento each have vibrant parent-created autism nonprofits, but for some reason nothing similar developed in the Bay Area. There are several county-based support networks, but the economic downturn and budget cuts have limited their scope.
I’ve always been a woman who likes to start things, so my natural inclination was to dive in and start an autism group. But I was distracted by my divorce, my career crisis, and the ongoing IEP drama with my school district. Twice another autism mom and I tried to start a Bay Area chapter of TACA (Talk About Curing Autism). For whatever reason, the stars did not align. Then I began talking with one of Katie’s former therapists about starting a nonprofit of our own. Slowly our dream began to take shape.
In 2012, I incorporated Autism A to Z, a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing resources, solutions, and support for celebrating life on the spectrum. It took me almost a year to locate potential board members and to flesh out my vision. Ironically, my for-profit law firm was a crucial piece of the plan. Once the Law Offices of Cynthia J. Patton & Associates, PC is up and running, I intend to donate a portion of my profits to nonprofit organizations that assist the disabled such as Community Alliance for Special Education and Autism A to Z. The law firm and the nonprofit will be the ying and yang of my new career.
Until now much of the work of Autism A to Z has been behind the scenes: developing a mission statement, networking, planning, and assembling our IRS application for 501(c)(3) status. We received our first grant from the Hindu Community and Cultural Center in Livermore, California to create an Autism 101 video. Now we are gearing up to take our dream live. Soon there will be a website, a parent support group, family activities, workshops, and facilitated playgroups. We are planning our first fundraiser. It’s an exciting time, and I couldn’t be happier.
It’s my hope that Autism A to Z will expand opportunities and enrich lives. I know it is already enriching mine.
Until next time,
Cynthia Patton
I’ve been thinking about how to write this post for a long time. I couldn’t find the words to explain what I wanted to express, and that’s not always an easy thing for a writer to admit.
Then last week my daughter Katie and I were cooking Chicken Enchilada Casserole—which Katie sometimes hilariously calls Chicken Angela Casserole—while listening to music. I heard Pink singing “Glitter in the Air,” and suddenly I knew exactly how I wanted to do this post.
Lots of people have never heard of Pink. If you haven’t, she’s a singer, or maybe I should call her a performer. I can’t tell you her genre because Pink is difficult to classify.
Back in 2010, Pink performed at the Grammy Awards. Perform doesn’t quite capture what she did. Take a look at this video and see for yourself.
Go ahead. I’ll wait.
Incredible, isn’t it? I don’t know how she did that, let alone sing at the same time. Spinning. Upside-down.
Watch it again if you want. I might join you….
I’m sharing this video because it seemed like the best way to announce that I’m launching my own law firm. I never, ever thought I’d be “hanging out a shingle.” In fact, for years I was certain that I would never practice law again. And if I did, well, it would definitely be environmental law. I mean, the environment was the only reason I attended law school in the first place. I was sure of that.
Wasn’t I?
That was before autism entered my life and everything—and I mean everything—changed.
Now I’m doing all sorts of things I never thought I’d do. I’m cleaning gutters, online dating, learning to shoot video, and launching both a law firm and a nonprofit (more on this soon). It’s exciting, but it also feels like I’m in Pink’s video—hanging upside-down above you all, half naked and dripping wet, wondering if I can pull off this crazy stunt.
Except this isn’t a stunt. It’s my new career.
The Law Offices of Cynthia J. Patton & Associates, PC will be a comprehensive special needs advocacy center. Or as I like to say, a law firm with heart. My vision is to have a boutique firm that caters to the unique needs of exceptional children and their families and combines the best of a traditional legal practice with forward-thinking and flexible social entrepreneurship. I want to make the legal process as simple, painless, and affordable as I can.
The official launch will be in a few weeks. I’ve got a lot of details to take care of between now and then, including printing business cards and polishing my new website, but I wanted you to know what was happening in my life because this feels HUGE. Almost as big as adopting a baby.
My legal website should be up and running soon. I’ll post the link here when it’s ready. Drop over when you have a chance and check it out. Watch me twirl in the air. I promise not to get you wet. 
Until next time,
Cynthia Patton
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A Picture Is Worth a Thousand Words
Happy Independence Day! I’ve been thinking a lot about inclusion the past couple of weeks and the main reason has to do with a photo, a photo that isn’t of me, or my daughter Katie, or even of a child I know. It’s this photo. Maybe you’ve seen it on the internet or facebook.
This is a standard class photo, the kind taken at the beginning of the year in every grade school across the United States. The fact that the photo includes a boy in a wheelchair isn’t what makes it controversial. What made the photograph go viral is that the boy is seated off to the side, in his wheelchair rather than on the bleachers with the other kids, leaning over to get closer to his classmates. His presence seems to say: I’m part of the class—sort of.
The other reason the photo went viral is because the parents spoke up. I’m not sure either the school or the photography company understood why the parents were upset. But I do.
Inclusion is about so much more than placing a child in the classroom or extending an invitation to a birthday party. It’s about creating a welcoming environment. The composition of this photograph does not do that. It shouts exclusion. No, it’s far more subtle than that. It whispers exclusion. It says we will include you in the photo, but you are not really part of the group.
They say that a picture is worth a thousand words, and never has that been more true than as I struggle to explain what bothers me about this photo. The boy is included, and yet he’s not.
We need to do more, so much more, for these exceptional kids.
I have no idea what happens in the classroom, what verbal cues the school staff are giving these children about the boy in the wheelchair. I hope the teacher is amazing and this photo merely the unfortunate result of a lack of imagination on the part of the photographer. Regardless, anyone looking at this photo receives the subtle, yet unavoidable message that there are twenty-two “normal” children and one who is not. One who is different. One who must be kept apart. One who is “the other.”
This is not the message I want my autistic daughter to receive. I want her to view her disability as a difference that makes her unique, not something to be feared or a reason to be excluded. We all need to work to erase these messages. Differences are not inherently bad. Wouldn’t it be a beautiful thing if everyone believed that?
What can you do to help eliminate these forms of subtle exclusion?
Until next time,
Cynthia Patton