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.

"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.