Still reeling from the blowback over my sixth-grade Witch Trials of Salem term paper, I attempt another project.
The sixties were a time of rapid change. The hippie movement brought Eastern spirituality to the mainstream. Previously marginalized practices like witchcraft, tarot reading, and astrology were becoming popular.
But not that popular.
Most people were still fairly conservative, including most children. I already stood out. And when the word got out that I’d written a paper railing against the Salem witch trials, I stood out even more.
This wasn’t what I wanted.
I wanted to be just like the other sixth-graders. I wanted it so badly, I changed my handwriting to copy the penmanship of one of the popular girls in my class.
To this day, I can still write in two completely different hands: one neat and boxy, the other a scrawl.
But as much as I wanted to be like other kids, I wasn’t. And there was a project we did that same year that speaks to that.
The assignment was to paint an oversized, full-color mural to accompany a nature talk. The teacher gave us long sheets of butcher paper and told us we would give a presentation based on what we’d painted.
We did our work at home and carried the rolled-up artwork to school a week or two later. I remember watching my classmates give their presentations. There were bears and bunnies and flowers and interesting factoids about habitat and animal behavior.
While there was nothing wrong with those presentations, I was drawn to a different kind of story.
Instead of butterflies or bunnies, I had painted hordes of newborn sea turtles on a desperate race to the sea. Just above them, large black birds swooped down to carry the helpless babies away through a blood-streaked sky.
I knew I'd made a mistake the moment I unrolled my mural. Already anxious about speaking in front of others, knowing I'd got the project wrong made it worse.
The lights felt like an interrogation. Sweat beaded on my upper lip. My voice shook as I explained my painting and what it said about natural selection to a silent audience. Not even the teacher had a comment.
I berated myself all the way home, asking myself the kind of questions that had now become common.
Why did you do that? What were you thinking? How could you be so stupid?
I didn’t have an answer then, but I do now.
Like the knight’s quest I’d drawn years earlier, I was trying to express something I couldn’t communicate directly.
I felt vulnerable. Survival was painful. And not everyone was equipped for it.
Years would pass before I realized that the collective race wasn’t mine to win. Then, in that last year of grade school, all I knew was that I was losing. I’d been trying at hard as I could for what seemed like a long time and that realization took a toll.
This was my first episode of burnout. As is common in autistic burnout, my sensitivities and capacities took a downturn. The lights were so bright they confused me. I felt queasy and dizzy every single day. I broke out in hives.
But I took comfort where I could find it.
I came home after every difficult day and made myself a big bowl of buttered Minute Rice. Then I watched Dark Shadows in the shadowy safety of our wood-paneled recreation room.
The school year ended. I put one foot in front of the other and left elementary school behind.
But my reality had shifted, and the world was so dark I remember all of seventh grade as overcast.
The Spirit Dream | A memoir about dreams, creative writing and AuDHD. A new installment posts every other Thursday.
🔔 UPDATE JULY 26, 2026: The first draft of the memoir is finished so I’m now posting new scenes once a month as I edit!
© 2026 Barbara Graver. All rights reserved. This is an original creative work. Do not reproduce or redistribute without the written permission of the author.
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