How to Begin Again?

I know that I am not the only Blogger who has experienced a writing lapse but when life comes down hard and fast and provides so much fodder for a personal blog that one is literally drowning in it, how can a Blogger abandon her post(s)?!
However, I really don't know where and how to begin...again.
This summer has really socked home what seems to be a most unpredictable, unprecedented, and unreal life. My life.
Right now I am still trying to process it all and I feel the mental gears grinding in my cranium as I write this.
I may need some more time.
I am grateful for this blog.
I am humbled by people's ability to adapt.
I am confused by each individual's response to crisis.
And I am still happy to be a part of all of this mess.
More later.

Buddha has left the building

I can't help but notice that much of my time seems to be spent in search mode.
Searching for tupperware lids, searching for the mate of a sock, searching for something to put into my kids' lunch bags.
But I am also searching for answers. I scan website after website looking for information on the latest research about Autism, medication options, inspiring stories, and new treatments.
Lately though, I have been feeling a strong pull towards my bedroom alter which has been gathering dust and various, unrelated objects. Ever in search of more space with which to put all of the crap that we accumulate in our day-to-day existence, books, highlighter pens, paper clips, geocache toys and unopened bills all find their way onto the shelf that holds my sacred objects. These talismans of the mundane are not intended as offerings, rather their presence seems to mock my floundering practice. I am reminded how easily a spacious mind and spirit can become cluttered. This is not to say that sacred trumps ordinary. They cannot be separated for they both constitute important aspects of our human experience. However, I feel the need to carve out a place of purity where I can be reminded of stillness, constancy, and presence of mind to learn the answers that already exist.
I am really searching for truth and the more I look for it, the more it is always out of reach. It's a feverish pace that I set.
My alter reminds me to stop and wait. To clear and connect. To sit rather than search.
And when I do, I hear the screen door of my psyche creak open and a long shadow is cast on the threshold.
Buddha's back and he's brought cleaning supplies...

Head banging....(heavy metal music not included)

I have heard it a few times now.
I am always in another room when the repetitive, dull thud arrests my attention. My ears prick up with the same intensity as when I'm trying to identify a bird call, only curiosity is replaced by a sick feeling in my gut.
When he becomes very upset, Little Fish has taken to hitting the back of his head against whatever hard surface is closest, usually the floor or the wall. Nothing can describe the powerfully protective and angry emotions that sweep over a mother when she knows that her child is being hurt. It's a very conflicted feeling however, when you know that your child is inflicting pain on himself. Unfortunately, the stronger and more knee-jerk my reaction, the more he screams and continues.
I have no other words for now.
This too shall pass...?

My Friends in 2D

I am a pretty social person but I also have a reticent, shy streak in me. This is what makes me hang back in large groups and assess the dynamic rather than charging forward with my hand thrust out and a smile plastered on my face. I like to know who I am dealing with and how I fit in.
This is why I have always found great comfort in books and the characters contained therein. I either find myself identifying so much with a character that I feel I have become him or her, or I adopt the character into my life as a trusted friend and companion. They feel real, sometimes more real than real people.
For example, in Grade 8, one of our required readings was The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton. For the days and weeks during and after reading this book, I actually felt like I was Ponyboy. I floated around in a daze behaving as I imagined he would in any given situation. I'm not sure what snapped me out of it, but eventually I found myself again. In the mirror, reflected in my friend's and family's eyes, I was slowly brought back to reality.
I have lately been reading a book that I received as a gift for Mother's Day entitled, Gravity Pulls You In . It's a collection of essays and poems written by parents of children on the Autism Spectrum who, through their writing, struggle to make sense of their lives. I felt an immediate kinship with these people of course, as I saw my own life reflected in their stories.
I have longed to find a community of friends through the Autism networks in my city. I have attended the monthly meetings and social events but always walk away feeling more lonely than ever. They are real people with real children who struggle with the same real issues that I do. But perhaps that is why I find it so hard to relate. When I look into their eyes, I not only want to see myself reflected there but I also want to see hope, faith, courage and peace because that is so often what I am lacking. The rub is, they also feel this acute sense of lack.
So, sitting there in a circle of tightly placed chairs in a coffee-stained church basement with all the other parents, I quietly observe each of us scanning the room, trying to make a connection, hoping to find something greater then ourselves in that collective sorrow.
But each of us comes up short. The intensity of the present situation makes it hard to see anything but desperation, striving and a longing to escape. It is too real to be the reality we want to face.
It used to make me sad and a little bit angry.
Lately though, I have accepted that these essays and the stories that they tell, however hard and sad and true, can replace those real connections. I can delve at my own pace. I can put the book down and cry when I read about one mother's struggle to place her teenage son in a group home, or laugh out loud when I hear about the lengths one father goes to to try and maintain intimacy with a daughter who can't bear human touch. I can let my mask of bravery and determination and forced optimism dissolve and allow myself a sense of connection that feels more real and human in 2D than any church basement could provide.
Perhaps I will "become the change I want to see in the world" but for now, this pace and these friends in 2D suit me just fine.

This is your Loaf

Eventually I knew that I would have to write a blog entry about celiac disease. After all, May is Celiac Awareness Month and I am an exclusive member of the celiac club, four years running.
I came upon this unfortunate autoimmune disease quite by accident and since that time have cursed it, fought it, denied it, and eventually come to accept it, although not necessarily in that order.
I really don't know how long I had the disease or how I came to get it in the first place but the realization that I would have to give up bread as I knew and loved it, left me feeling sad and forlorn...like the creeping awareness of the loss of childhood innocence.
Long before I came to learn about Buddhism or meditation, I found bread making to be a very soothing past-time. I didn't do it often but when I did, it was an event and a ritual that always left me peaceful and feeling connected to the present moment and to my past. Since I come from hearty, Mennonite stock, bread making is part of my DNA, an undeniable genetic imprint from my ancestry. I could scarcely resist its tantalizing pull. As I would calmly assemble the ingredients and equipment to begin the process, I could swear I heard approving words whispered from the cosmos. From the moment that the yeast begins to proof to the sensual and therapeutic kneading of the dough, to the rising and baking and finally the reward of sinking your teeth into the first warm slice slathered with real butter, I knew that this was pure magic and I was a High Priestess of Alchemy.
One of my most treasured gifts from my husband one Christmas, was a massive book entitled, The Complete Book of Breads. This was the bible of bread making and I pored over each word drinking in the descriptions of the process and marveling over the variability of the recipes. One of my favourite paragraphs:
"Baking is a relaxed art. There is no step in the process that cannot, in some way, be delayed or moved ahead just a bit, to make it more convenient to fit a busy schedule. If the dough you are shaping gets stubborn, pulls back, and refuses to be shaped (as is its nature), walk away from it for a few minutes. It will relax and so will you."
And I did relax, although I seldom needed to walk away. What really hurt was having to walk away from the whole of the art, and with it, the beauty of the end product. Bread is life and that life was over.
Now I know you may be thinking, "Pull up your boot-straps, Girl and stop feeling sorry for yourself! Get out there and tame that gluten-free beast!" And believe me, I have...muffins, cookies, cakes, even perogies have been owned by me. But, Bread! Oh, Bread...thou elusive trickster! I have yet to create a gluten-free counterpart worthy of that title.
So, this morning as with most other mornings, I pull a stump of GF "loaf" from the freezer, slap it in the toaster for not one, but two turns on high, and after spreading some highfalutin jam on it to mask its inferior texture, crunch my way through, joylessly. All the while, in my head, I am cooing to my small intestine, passive-aggressive phrases like,
"I do this because your health is more important to me than my taste buds."
"Thrive, undulate, and absorb, my precious cilia!"

Forsaken but never forgotten, the subtle and satisfying art of wheat flour bread making.
This post is my cathartic tribute.

Mid-Length Crisis

"I'ts all in my head..." I keep telling myself. Actually, It is what's ON my head that concerns me.
Perhaps this last haircut isn't as bad as I imagine it; everyone assures me that it's really just fine. And it is only hair, after all. It grows. I can pull it back, or highlight it or wear a hat. People are starving all over the world and have no hair due to malnutrition. Why is this one haircut creating so much angst?
The desire to do something different, make a change, shake it up...it's about my fear of inertia and stagnation. Or delving deeper still, it's about my fear of death.
When I gaze in the mirror at my reflection and curse the layers, colour and length, I realize that trying to affect a change that I hoped would inject some vitality into my life did little more than simply shorten my bangs. I still feel the same and I blame my haircut for the unease and dissatisfaction.
This is universal, isn't it? At some point in our late 30's, we look in the mirror and wonder who is looking back. How do I identify myself? How do I want to identify myself?
For now I think it may be time to put the mirror away and look inside. And let my hair grow.

"Sunny Weather, Rainy Weather..."

This is a song that Little Fish has been singing for weeks. I am assuming that it's a song used in school to identify weather conditions outside when they do their circle/calendar time.
The last line of the song, "...when the wind blows, we all get together" is my favourite part, mostly because I like the way that he says "tuhgezzer" but also because it implies that he is part of a community of friends. In his classroom there are 5 other students all with similar profiles. They are mostly non-verbal, very stimmy, and pretty anti-social. His teachers do their best to engage the kids and get them to interact with one another. If there is any connection or attachment, it is usually between a student and a particular teacher, not really fellow students.
The word "community" is often used in his school to refer to this specialized setting amidst all the other typical students.
It is a community, just not one where membership is voluntary. I struggle to understand if Little Fish is happy to be part of this community. He really would rather not be at school. Yet he wants to engage and connect. So as I sit at the computer, trying to hammer out this post with two fingers, I hear his annoyed sounds escalating and rising to a grating pitch. I have kept him from school again. Mostly because I just can't bear to hear how he took his clothes off in gym, or threw his thermos at lunch or tried to claw the teacher's face at music. I also know that none of the children in his class are his friends. He has no friends.
Instead, I imagine that we will spend a lovely day tugezzer with or without the wind, discovering and playing, smiling, laughing and embracing this strange perspective on the passing of the day through the lens of Autism....always the romantic idealist I am.
Instead, he whines and gripes at me as his way of trying to communicate while I try to connect with myself through my words because I feel like a such a failure trying to connect with him.
Sunny weather, rainy weather, day in, day out the same pattern repeats itself and although we are tuhgezzer, we both feel quite alone.

Do Not Ask Who I Am, and Do Not Ask Me To Remain the Same.

Change is a funny thing. It scares some of us, intrigues others and can be the cause of great frustration for most. Change that is unexpected usually causes so much upheaval that eventually you find yourself on a totally foreign path; a trajectory so different that at some point you may forget where you even started. On the other hand, deliberate change often seems to result in upheaval that eventually lands you in the same place that you started, only with a different hair colour, apartment, or boyfriend.
It makes me think of the Robert Munsch story, Thomas' Snowsuit.

There can be no doubt that all of us will experience change, for better or for worse. Whether you fight it or embrace it, the end result is often the same. The big difference is the level of joy or misery that you experience during the process and of course, that emotional imprint is what resides and gets re-activated when next you are faced with change.

I have been trying to figure out what change means to my youngest son, who for this blog I have chosen to name Little Fish, or L.F. for short.
According to the wisdom of the Autism experts, people on the Spectrum don't like change. It is too unpredictable, and therefore frightening and unwelcome. Yet, out of all the human beings on this earth, I would guess that Auties experience change more often and are expected to adapt to it on such a regular basis, the rest of us could not even comprehend how seamlessly this occurs several times in a day. Most of us have the ability to exert control over our environment and others with our words and influence. People on the Spectrum however, especially children, having no status, money, and in some cases powers of speech, must continually bend to the wishes and will of those who can choose.
As a parent of an autistic child, I can somewhat relate to this lack of control. Although I have more influence than my son, I feel the fever of searching for answers, connection, acceptance, and aid and find myself exhausted, confused and adrift in a lonely place. Living in the world of Autism is like being inside a kaleidoscope. It is strange and beautiful sometimes, full of constantly changing colours and angles. The mirrors reflect tiny pieces of the real world outside of the narrow scope but they move and get obscured so quickly in the blur of rotating shapes that knowing which is real and which is not becomes impossible.
So the patterns of change become the constant, no matter to which direction the kaleidoscope points. Sometimes, the only way to effect change upon what is in constant flux, is to stop and shut down or keep moving at the same speed and rhythm.
Change may then become same or the whole concept of change becomes irrelevant.

The Passenger

This morning as I fought traffic and snowy conditions to take my boys to their respective schools, I looked back at my youngest as we merged onto the overpass above the city's river.

He sat peacefully, gazing out his window, head cocked to one side and resting against the glass. The intensity of his focus on this route that we take almost every day of the week made me realize how time gets suspended in each, present moment for him. I also thought about how much of his life is spent as a passenger, being ferried from one place to the next.

Then Iggy Pop started singing in my head.

I'm not sure sometimes if he understands what all these routines and schedules are about. When I see how calmly he looks out the window I can't help but realize that when we are driving, these are some of the few moments in his day when he is truly content. It is a state of being that is timeless, when he is neither here nor there, nothing is expected of him and he can just be.

I often feel in those moments of quiet observation that I am in the presence of a small spiritual leader and I am entrusted with the honour of transporting him to his various engagements.

The people that he meets may not understand what he is trying to teach them, they may even be afraid of him sometimes. Quite often, he doesn't even speak the same language.

But he is a passenger just like the rest of us and for him, the destination is of little importance.

Thrift Store Junkie

I have noticed that there are certain times in a month when I desire to acquire strange and fantastic items for a fraction of what they would be worth brand new.
No, it has nothing to do with those brief but annoying monthly visits from Aunt Flo,(although there may be future blogs about that...stay tuned!).
I seem to particularly want to spend money when I have none to spend.
There is always a period of deficit every few weeks when allocated money has been spent on food, gas, bills and other necessities. I usually have little more than $10 which should be preciously tucked into my wallet for those in-between paycheck emergencies like when my oldest has 'special lunch' at school or we have run out of milk.
Instead, that small bit of cash generates a magnetic pull to the nearest thrift store where it will be used to purchase such things as an out-of-print book about vermiculture, or a furry, emerald green, riding cap from the 1960's.
There is something so uplifting yet at the same time slightly guilt-inducing about this practice. It doesn't feel clean and wholesome to raid the family coffers for such frivolity. But that's also why I like it. I find great satisfaction in using my superhero-like eye for detail to scan the store and unearth the treasures. I demonstrate the ultimate, post-modern, hunter-gatherer aptitude.
So, in a twisted way, I am providing for my family, if only because it makes me happy and I always come home with a bounty of gifts to bestow upon them.

People Get Ready

I have always wanted to do this.

I dipped my toes in with Facebook notes and then decided that I really am narcissistic enough to want entire pages dedicated to my ramblings.

I know I am not the only one who wonders if anyone else gives a fig, but I go forth into this vast arena armed with only my best intentions and maybe a few amusing anecdotes.

I named this blog after an event from my childhood from which I have forever been identified.

At the age of 3, I was climbing the stairs from the basement, just a few steps behind my Mom. As she distractedly switched off the light at the top of stairs I exclaimed, "Somebody is not afraid" while rushing up the last few stairs before the darkness could bite my heels.

I have taken on this type of attitude in most of my life's adventures. I try to look and sound brave while I do things that I am not totally sure I can. I am convincing myself even more than I try to convince others.