Unknown Seeds

One of the questions that I am asked by people who have read the “advanced review copies” of Marcelo in the Real World is what inspired me to write about a young man like Marcelo. I am not sure that we are ever able to accurately pinpoint the origins of an idea. We carry a seed within us. It came to us when we were a child perhaps. Then one day something happens and the seed presents itself to our consciousness and we water it with attention and we make it grow. When I was a boy growing up in Mexico, I would buy every Sunday a comic book called “Vidas Ilustres” or “Illustrious Lives”. The comic book presented each week the life of a different saint. I collected hundreds of these and the lives of saints filled me with visions of heroism and sacrifice. Was this the seed that forty-five years later turned into the story of a pure, saint-like young man who spends his time reading the holy books? During my senior year at Spring Hill College I lived in a L’Arche community, a Christian community where people with developmental disabilities and “normal” staff lived together with as few barriers between them as possible. Was this the seed that thirty-eight years later turned into the story of a young man diagnosed as having Asperger’s Syndrome? I can try to answer as best I can what inspired me to write Marcelo in the Real World – but my answer in the end will be a guess. The wind blows where it wills. We carry within us seeds placed there by the life we lead. And then one day the seeds present themselves to us gently or forcefully and will us to make them grow with life.