The Autistic Joy Found in Collecting Related Things

Autistic people of any age will often collect related things.

Collecting things is not a special interest. Autistic special interests comprise an entirely different (and very interesting) topic, one worthy of its own, separate write-up. Here I’m only describing the practice of collecting related things, and a bit of the autistic joy that can come from doing so. Mostly, I want the reader to know that collecting related things is common, soothing, and can often bring much joy.

For me? I heart tiny things!

I have always, always, always felt an affinity for tiny things, or the smallest version of a thing that there is. Think: realistic models that are as small as they can be made.

Tiny Sports Car

Back in 1988 when I was dreaming of my ideal first car, as kids do, the car I wanted was the Pontiac Fiero.

For those of a different generation than I, the Fiero was a sports car. It was not especially fast, safe, durable or even popular. I dreamt of having it because it was small.

Tiny Tourist Trinket

When I was in the military, I wanted to collect something from every somewhere. While the challenge might not be evident to today’s reader, this was in 1994, before the internet was what it is in the modern era.

I thought about it, and I decided that keychains were the smallest thing one could easily acquire from every somewhere while traveling or meeting new friends from different places. I then saw my first bottle-opener keychain and decided the collection had to be bottle opener keychains.

… I was drawn to the consistency in size, shape, materials and, of course, purpose. I only wanted the acrylic, rectangle-style ones although, as a backup I would accept the round kind. I really did not like the rogue-styled, original or artistic ones at all.

What made them wonderful was that they were so similar except that they were from all over the world. I loved them almost like friends at times… I wrote stories in my head of all the places reflected on the bottle-opener keychains, and each trinket represented the lifetime of the story from that somewhere.

And these were the smallest version of tourist goods that occurred to me. I had so much fun collecting them as I travelled and asking my friends to send them to me. My old friend, Dan, was on a polar icebreaker and he sent me the best bottle-opener keychains, from such exotic places that I will never see. Oh but I loved receiving the keychains.

In order to convey how much those bottle-opener keychains meant to me, let me bring it full circle into the present. I’m 50 years old as of my next birthday. I’ve been homeless during two separate periods of time after my military years, and I have moved many, many times.

I still have every single one of them with me today.

Does that sound strange to you, dear reader, that I love those keychains that much? I would have loved a Fiero too, if I wasn’t poor. Actually, if you want me to smile today, a photo of a Fiero will probably do it. Spoiler: they stopped making them in 1988, for valid reasons, but I will always love the tiny sports car.

Tiny Notebook

When I got my first master’s degree in 2002 and “took notes” in classes, that all happened in a small, Korean notebook made for toddlers learning Hangul. The entirety of all my notes were in this booklet, comprised initially of (I believe) six pages of empty little squares.

Yes, some who are reading this know there are some jokes about my inability to take notes. My notebook from seminary was similarly sparse, if not more creatively filled. It was also done by writing tiny notes in the same booklet-style children’s notebook. If I ever were to again attempt to take notes, I would add to this collection.

Tiny Artwork

Speaking of seminary, back in 2003 I was invited to contribute a painting to an art show. I painted a detailed sunset scene from memory, in acrylic, an image I recalled from 1995 in Condado, San Juan, Puerto Rico.

However, I painted the entire scene on a tile that was 0.75” x 2” (1.9cm x 5cm). The absolute best part of this story, in my opinion, is that Joy, who curated the whole art show, hung my painting properly. I wish I had a picture other than what’s in my memory, but trust me that postage stamp-sized sunset in acrylic was showing as any other work of art in the show. So cool.

For the rest of my nine years in seminary, all of my paintings were done the same way: I painted with sewing needles, acrylic paints, and I painted nature scenes from memory, in detail, on little tiles. I absolutely loved their uniformity, and I loved that they were the smallest in form that I could create. People have made much more small paintings, but these were the smallest that I could do.

Tiny Snowman

When we lived in New Hampshire and it snowed a lot, our neighbors would make a big snow person, and I would only, and always, for my version, make a very tiny snowman, the smallest version that would stay together.

 

Tiny Dala Horse

My beloved late Gram (my best buddy) was all Swedish and all awesome. She loved Dala horses just as the simple children’s toy they were intended to be, and I loved that. Nobody outside Sweden knew what the Dala horse was until the 1939 World’s Fair in New York. After that, they became tourist goods…

 

They were more than that to Gram. They had value as little wooden toys. Anyway, I have exactly one Dala horse from my Gram, and it’s the only one that I would have wanted. It’s about 3cm tall (1.2 in), the tiniest Dala horse she had.

Tiny Toast?!

And just today, on my grand field trip out into the world with Rachael, at Whole Foods, I encountered: tiny toast. How have I lived all of these years without anyone telling me about the tiny toast?

 

From reading the present write-up, you can see that I find great joy in the smallest versions of things. This here is tiny toast. It’s just beautiful. But that’s not all, because for me right now? It’s very much functional.

Since I have had gastroparesis since at least September 2022, I can only ever eat small portions now. I’m kinda slowly starving to death (medical year-in-review post is coming soon – later this week, and will be linked in here).

Literally everything that I eat or drink is now, well, tiny! And due to the combination of things going on, simple toast is an ideal food for me. (Prior to discovering this delicacy, saltine crackers were a staple in my day similarly.)

 

But these tiny toasts taste fancy. They are imported, so that makes them special, and they taste great. I can eat a tiny portion along with my correspondingly tiny portion of a protein, and enjoy! There is a TINY TOAST and it’s fancy and it cost only around US$3 and it just about made my week because what we have here is an intersection of something in its smallest form, a quality I love in general, and enjoyably meeting basic needs.

Most foods I eat don’t taste great. The main thing I eat is the prescribed Ensure shake.

This, my friends, is a treat that also brings autistic joy. Let’s hear it for tiny things!

Fellow autistics, do you collect something or a category of things?

 

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