A Journey of Language, Growth, and Autism Perspectives: Stephen’s Evolution

Finding Wonder in Unusual and Unexplored Places

• Stephen McHugh • Episode 55

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Most people expect vehicles to stick to tarmac and concrete roads. However, for as long as I can remember, I've been drawn to those moments when tyres press into softer ground, sometimes leaving their marks behind. What others dismissed as an unusual obsession actually opened doorways to understanding soil mechanics, physics principles, and even linguistic connections. 

"Interests are like tyre marks on grass. Unexpected but full of meaning, while others stick to the tarmac. Some of us explore softer ground." 

For me, this metaphor captures something which I see interesting about my autistic experience. It's to do with finding meaning and beauty in unexpected places that others might otherwise overlook. Through personal stories about school memories, park run parking dilemmas, and scientific observations, I share how this fascination helped me understand not just the physical world, but more about my own neurodivergent mind.

My journey explores how seemingly quirky interests should be seen as pathways to deeper understanding and unique perspectives. When I notice the different sounds of driving on varied surfaces or observe how heavy vehicles leave different marks on clay versus sandy soil, I'm engaging with the world in a different way, a way that's unique to me. These explorations off the beaten path – metaphorically stepping off the tarmac, from what I now understand, can lead to one developing innovative thinking, problem-solving skills, and perhaps even contributions that benefit everyone. They were, in the words of my diagnostician in a letter to my primary school headteacher one time, "major preoccupations of a psychological nature which will not go away with bullying".

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Artwork produced by Elena Designe
Music composed by Nela Ruiz

Stephen McHugh:

Hi there and welcome back to another episode of the Stephen's Evolution podcast. I'm Stephen McHugh, your host, and it is in this podcast where I talk about my lived experiences with autism, by aiming to bring them to life through metaphors. In this episode, I want to talk about some of the ways in which I see the world, including certain details, textures, unexpected things that I may notice, that others may otherwise overlook. One unexpected thing, and it is an interest that I've had for pretty much all my life. When I was young, I would develop an interest in vehicles and grassed surfaces. It may sound unusual to you. To me, what stood out was something about them, their pressing into the earth, the tyre tracks in the softer ground. That is what caught my attention. To me, it seemed somehow meaningful. The metaphor that I refer to here is 'Unusual interests are like tyre marks on grass, unexpected but full of meaning. While others stick to the tarmac, some of us explore softer ground. It takes care, but it can be where curiosity grows, and strength quietly returns. In this episode, I'm going to go into that interest, not for what it is, but for what it may represent for me. It can be the values of noticing freedom in gentle deviation ,and finding out a bit more about what can make some of us different, and embracing those differences.

Stephen McHugh:

Now, how did it all start? For me, I always thought that cars and vehicles would always be on roads, tarmacked surfaces, and of course, roads are designed and maintained for that very purpose. The way I saw grassed surfaces, and other nature-based environments, and subjects for me they were places to be otherwise protected and preserved. What stood out for me here was the interactions of vehicles on different, and especially softer surfaces. One time it was in a park, and I couldn't help notice muddy tyre tracks on the grassed surfaces in the parking area. Others would notice and I would hear the word like obsession being mentioned. People would naturally wonder why I'd be interested in such things. On another occasion at primary school, during one lunchtime, I would notice a lorry arriving to clear soil from an area which was having a house being built on it, and one of the dinner ladies, I remember her words along the lines "mad made a right mess of the field."

Stephen McHugh:

Plus the word the annual school barbecues as well, and I remember also being told all of us, in fact, including my peers to tell our parents to park on the school playing field. Naturally, this made me a bit apprehensive Apprehensive about the impact of the parking on the field, the impact of the parking on the field. When we decided, as a family, to walk to the barbecue we just happened to live within walking distance of the school I felt some kind of relief as we'd be reducing our impact on the playing fields for me.

Stephen McHugh:

And now I'd like to talk about it in terms of car parking convenience. At the time of recording this, I've been doing park runs myself for over a year. Whenever I've driven there, on the entrance to the park there's like a long road that leads up to a car that's That's quite a way up. However, immediately on the left as you go in, there's an overflow area, a field. Every time I've driven there, like especially in the first few weeks and months doing it, I would feel a bit apprehensive, admittedly, wondering where I'd have to park and if I'd have to park in that field ., And and last month I was forced into having to go into that area. At first I felt a bit uneasy. It kind of felt wrong for me in some ways.

Stephen McHugh:

For me, grass is vulnerable, fragile. The way I looked at it was it would be about striking some sort of balance with respect and impact. I would always be conscious about what the weather would be like in the days before, and on park run day, so that the ground wouldn't be too wet, or even saturated. After I'd done it once, I felt okay. My impact was minimal. I was lucky with the weather too, since it was completely dry. One thing I would observe was the impacts of other vehicles to assess suitability for parking in that field area. One thing that did that has stood out to me since I started going in that area for about a month now, the different sounds from driving on different surfaces. When I went into that overflow parking area I didn't get that sound of that solid sound, if you like, from being so used to driving on solid surfaces for 25 years of being a licence holder. The observations of other vehicles helped me to see and reassure me, that I'd be fine even when the weather was damp and wet on one occasion. It actually felt like an out worldly experience in the first time in my whole driving my time as a licence holder.

Stephen McHugh:

If all of us involved in the park run were to park in residential streets, the way I see it would be, local residents may not be too keen on it, as it may create safety issues for people wanting to cross roads, along with the possibility of residents also having their driveways blocked, and thus being inconvenienced. So, the first time I did it, it was because the other car park was full and, together with the potential impact on street parking, impact on the overflow area, the grassed area was unavoidable from my point of view. So I just had to make sure that my impact would be minimal. My impact would be minimal,

Stephen McHugh:

And now, tracks as a metaphor. To me, it can be compared to going off the beaten track, exploring softer ground, like, in other words, going off the tarmac. I'm talking about this metaphorically by exploring softer ground. Useful discoveries and ideas can emerge from doing these things, and sometimes I wonder about whether people who came up with ideas for things like grass protection mesh to limit damage from vehicles, I wonder, would they have been interested in the same ways that I was. I don't know for sure, but I think they are intriguing possibilities, like having unusual interests. Geologists, scientists and engineers may well have come up with such good ideas by having unusual interests, like the one I'm talking about in this episode.

Stephen McHugh:

Another event from secondary school days was from a time at lunchtime. It was an event involving a skip truck which had arrived to take away a skip load of rubbish from work that was going on around an all-weather pitch surrounded by fields. I think the works involved the installation of a new fence. What I couldn't help notice was the tyre marks and the ruts that were left behind by the truck itself. I pointed this out to a dinner lady on duty at the time and one thing she mentioned to me was it being a heavy lorry. So yes, the weight then stood out to me there. That's what made sense to me about it.

Stephen McHugh:

Thinking back to it now, there were muddy tracks left by it on entrance, and on another area of grass it left ruts, but the non-muddy type ones. So yes, looking back, there were differences in the way in which the same vehicle interacted with two kind of different surfaces. There were likely differences in the soil composition, the one with ruts that that were not muddy. The soil type for me, based on my understanding, that is of the sand type, doesn't retain water more easily. The area where I saw the muddy tracks were likely more of the clay type, since clay type soil retains water much better than sand type soil. This gave me an insight into soil mechanics. Clay particles are more tightly packed together, stopping water from being lost from clay soil too quickly.

Stephen McHugh:

I didn't really understand it at the time. Back in my teenage years. I had language and speech development delays, which meant it would take me longer to understand and apply new knowledge. However, I've somehow managed to retain and can still picture the scene. I now understand how to apply the knowledge about which was the clay-type soil, and which was likely the sand-type soil. Where it was clay-based soil, the way I understand it now was that clay-type soil can be compressed more easily under weight than sand-type soil. Thinking back now again, it got me asking more questions about how nature has this ability to recover from the impact of human interaction, and even prolonged periods without rain.

Stephen McHugh:

In addition, I had, and still do have a fascination with extremely large numbers, and would naturally wonder how to calculate the number of blades of grass on a field. It also reminds me of a scientific formula, force divided by area, whereby spreading out weight over a larger area reduces the pressure on the surface, thus reducing its overall impact. By comparing grass protection mesh with tyres, grass protection mesh will have a larger surface area to help spread out weight and when you see its design, the design of such a mesh can help with tyre grip, thus reducing the impact of vehicles further, thus reducing damage. It is also why lorries and other large vehicles have more than one wheel at certain points on the vehicle, so they might have two wheels on either side to help spread their weights over a larger surface area, thus enabling them to access areas where they may need to like in construction areas, where there's likely to be softer ground, reducing their chances of getting stuck. I'm talking about lorries here.

Stephen McHugh:

As well as being connected to my interests in science and mathematics, such unusual interests, I find, can be linked to my interests in foreign languages, especially French, as I see that as one of my stronger foreign languages to learn. I imagined if a car was stuck in a field in, let's say, France. I felt compelled to look up French verbs, that I would imagine, to be useful in be useful in such circumstances. They would be, s'enliser and s'embourber, both of which can refer to being getting stuck in soft ground. An example of a sentence I can think of here is la voiture s'est embourbée, both of which can refer to a car being stuck in soft ground. In addition, it helped me to understand how tractors got so-called their wider tyres along with their treads, their design, which I understand, to help with grip, along with spreading their weight over a larger surface area, to get better traction traction in softer areas.

Stephen McHugh:

And now, as I conclude this episode, maybe it can be about spaces we may come across and choose to explore, like the ones some of you out there might see yourselves and don't give any more thought to. Those little things that can catch our attention once we've explored them further. And then we find they can matter more than we may realise. Tyre tracks from vehicles might look out of place to some of you. However, for some of us, they can be part of who we are and show where we've gone, and how we've moved via different paths through the world, and seen it in a different light, and still leave our own marks. They can open new doors, spark new questions in us and have something to develop our curiosity even more.

Stephen McHugh:

Thanks for listening and for stepping off the tarmac with me. I mean this metaphorically, of course. If you've got your own soft grounds or spaces, give them your own quiet curiosity. And if you've got a friend or a loved one who's got their own soft ground or space, encourage them to do the same. For me, that's where curiosity grows, and strength quietly returns. It can be also where new ideas emerge that can potentially even make useful contributions to society, along with also developing new problem-solving skills.

Stephen McHugh:

If you've got your own unusual interests or have interests that may have been considered unusual, or you may be exploring your own soft ground, feel free to share it with me. I'm always on the lookout for your questions and comments to respond to. If you wish to receive news of newly released episodes or other podcast related news, you can subscribe via a link towards the footer of the homepage of my website, towards the footer of the homepage of my website, stephensevolution. com. Goodbye for now. Take care and tread gently.