The Taste of Being Me

The coffee machine lets out its first soft hiss, and something inside me loosens. That sound is my morning anchor. The pan warms beside it, radiating a quiet heat I can almost feel from across the room. It`s waiting for me, waiting to turn my toast into the perfect kind of crunch, the one my brain trusts.

A spoonful of butter first. Always. I watch it melt into a slow golden pool, spreading the way it`s supposed to. These steps aren`t habits; they`re a map. If I follow them, everything tastes right. Everything feels right.

That familiar sequence is what gives me dopamine, more than any surprise ever could - the aligment of textures, the safety of flavors I know won`t overwhelm me, the peace that comes from predictable pleasure.

Because when you`re autistic, food is never just food, it becomes a sensory language, one the world doesn`t always speak, but one I experience every day. And if you`ll sit with me, yes, you, my neurotypical reader, I`ll show you what that world feels like from the inside.

But first, I have to find my favorite porcelain cup. It`s a beautiful white Kåhler cup, the one with sunflowers opening across the sides and a tiny hummingbird painted so delicately it looks like it might flutter away if I breathe too hard.

I pour the coffee, there it is, that sounds; my real wake-up call. The soft stream filling my special cup, the cup that feels perfect in my hands every single day.

Do you know why this cup is so perfect ?

My beloved Morfar gave it to me for my 40th birthday. I miss him more than mornings usually allow. But this cup... this sound...

Sometimes the hummingbirds painted wings almost sound like his voice drifting through a Sunday morning.

Soft.

Warm.

Calling me back to his living room with just a single sip of my coffee.

But that coffee also tastes like half of my life, my culture, my country.

My little Venice. Venezuela.

The country I have to explain to strangers every time they ask where I`m from, because they look at my pale skin, my red hair, the freckles scattered across my face, and they can`t imagine they all come from that corner of the Caribbean Sea.

But what they don`t understand, what I still don`t understand, is how they can drink this same coffee and not feel its texture the way I do. How they can`t taste the sweat of the Latin American farmers who grew it. How they can’t hear the laughter of a Yanomami child in every warm breath of steam.

How their feet don`t twitch, even a little, to the rhythm of a mambo, with every sip they take.

“Smell the coffee, Gaby… smell it.”

Smell the earth of my continent.

Smell the fight of my people for gain freedom.

And beneath that, I can smell the history my ancestors left behind the land they took, the land they claimed as theirs, the land that was stripped from those who deserved it more.

The land whose rightful guardians were almost erased in the name of power.

One sip, and I feel the injustice.

Another sip, and I remember why some people don’t associate my genotype with those lands, why they look at my pale skin and freckles and forget that history doesn’t always match the face it leaves behind.

This coffee tastes like social conscience.

It wakes me up in more ways than one.

It reminds me that the land I love is not the land I belong to, and that my ancestors took it without mercy.

I realize it only after the second sip, the coffee has already gone cold by the time I lift it for the third. That’s the thing… When you drink and feel the way I do, time works differently.

It stretches and folds itself inside the tongue and the throat of an autistic coffee lover, lingering in every flavor, every memory, every truth it carries.

Oh, the smell of almost burning butter pulls me back. It reminds me that I still need to take my ADHD medication, and that my toast is waiting for me before it turns into charcoal.

Fun fact, my neurotypical reader, humans have been eating bread for more than ten thousand years. Ten thousand years of faces and cultures, of wars and celebrations, of grief shared and peace found; all carried through a single bite of warm, simple bread.

My freckles remind me of cinnamon powder, those tiny warm specks. Mmmm… French toast. I love French toast with that sweet cinnamon taste. And it always makes me laugh that it`s called French toast, even though it was invented in Rome in the 4th century.

Maybe I belong more to the cinnamon than to the coffee.

Maybe I`m closer to French toast than to the coffee beans themselves.

Maybe I`m a no – man`s – land , but also everywhere, scattered gently across the world like a bite of bread shared between strangers.

Coffee… bread… hummingbirds … cinnamon… and Rome.

Focus Gaby. Don’t let the French toast distract you, especially the French toast that isn’t even French. Now my brain has suddenly started singing Edith Piaf while I`m buttering bread. Non, je ne regrette rien.

Of course not, Edith. I don’t regret eating this “French” toast whose roots trace back to the Colosseum, now sizzling in a pan in Denmark, about to be devoured by a Latin American woman with a wandering mind.

Sorry, reader, my brain goes everywhere if I don’t eat my breakfast. No, that’s not true. My brain always goes everywhere.

And that’s exactly why drinking or eating anything becomes an incredible sensory journey for me.

Egg, yes, now I need an egg. Let’s find that little reproductive cell from a chicken who, in fact, is just a modern- day dinosaur. Rawrr. A tiny Trex egg, just like the silly claw hands I make when I walk without even noticing.

I always joke with my friends and family, “I don’t even look autistic, right?”

As if looking autistic were something you could see in my freckles or my red hair or the way I butter toast.

Please, Diogenes, don’t wander into my kitchen holding a plucked chicken and yelling at me like I’m Plato, “Behold, a man!”

No, no behold a Trex. Like my hands when I walk. Rawrr.

The toast is ready.

The egg doesn’t look very dinosaur like after all, but it smells delicious. It smells like those Sundays I spent at my aunt`s house, where the only things she knew how to make were fried eggs and chicken nuggets.

Mmm… dinosaurs were always there, weren’t they?

What an autistic cliché, finding patterns, connections , little loops of meaning everywhere.

But honestly? It`s comforting after all, how even the strangest little patterns can feel like home.

Coffee, check. Actually, I need more coffee.

Toast, French, sorry – check hahaha.

Egg, status not alive anymore, rawrr check.

And what am I missing? Mmmm… cheese.

Of course. I love cheese.

My grandmother used to say I was like a little mouse, always nibbling on cheese every day. And she was right. Cheese always makes me feel safe, even when the world is falling apart around me, even when neurotypical social rules back me into a corner or force me into masking just to survive.

Cheese reminds me that I’m a little (maybe weird) neurodivergent mouse. And somehow, that feels like home.

Okay, now it`s time for my favorite thing:

Let´s play the game “What does Gabriella`s brain want to drink today?”

The roulette of choosing my safe drink for the next month, only to discover that maybe, the moment I taste it again, I`ll hate it because my brain gets tired of flavors so quickly. Then I`ll hunt for a new one, get obsessed, and start the whole process all over again.

Just like learning to love myself.

Just like embracing my neurodivergent brain.

Just like collecting diagnoses as if they were Pokémon’s hahaha.

Coffee? That’s my autistic card.

French toast? That’s my ADHD badge.

Egg? That’s my “high intellect” diagnosis.

And honestly, the egg is the hardest one of all.

Because it makes me get bored of simple things so fast.

People see that and think I’m arrogant, or distant, or too much.

So, I retreat, into my head, into my thoughts, into silence.

Yes… that egg is hard one to crack.

Orange juice.

Yes, today I want orange juice.

That bright flavor brought to us from the Asian continent, now pouring into my glass with the most perfect sound. Yes, yes… that’s the one. I want that fresh spark in my mouth, the one that wakes up every corner of my brain.

And with that first sip, something settles inside me.

Because maybe, just maybe, it`s okay to be a hard egg to crack after all.

Come, sit with me at my kitchen table, my neurotypical reader.

And why only neurotypical? The answer is simple… this sensory eating journey doesn’t need to be explained to another neurodivergent soul. We come from the same planet, we travel through smells, textures and flavors every single day.

But for you, my neurotypical friend?

Sometimes a toast is just a toast.

An egg is just an egg.

A cup of coffee is just a morning routine with no deeper logic behind it.

And a glass of orange juice is simply something you bought at the nearest supermarket.

Okay, Okay, too much social interaction for one day.

Too many stimuli, too many smells, too many memories and flavors.

Dinosaurs, coffee, and an egg… can you please get out of my head? … Sorry, sorry, I mean my house my neurotypical guest.