Object Lesson

The Jehovah's Witnesses came to our door last week. At least that's who Kim says they were (she's good at discerning sects). I spied them first from our upstairs bedroom window. I got pretty excited about it.

They came at a moment when I felt like I was running out of Mommy #2 material. And then here they were, two women striding toward us in beige trench coats. Heaven sent.

I knew the moment their sedan drove up, and when they got out with those heavy leather satchels… well that cinched it.

Kim has a history of delighting me with how she handles people witnessing at our door. "Witnessing" is a term I didn't know before I met her. (It's the act of working to "save" someone and make them "born again.")

As a child, Kim had quotas to fill. Taught to use wordless books, she saved people at malls with four solid-color pages—gold for the streets of Heaven, black for sin and damnation, red for the blood of Christ, and white for salvation. At school and in town, she found easy targets to bring home for Wednesday night Bible study. It makes her wince now to talk about those "soft marks"—the vulnerable kids who craved attention and accepted it from anyone for any purpose. "Give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the man…" say the Jesuits, confident in the power of early indoctrination. But, alas, by eight Kim reports she was just going through the motions. (To bide time, however, she did manage to save her math teacher.)

At the door, a matronly Jehovah's Witness beamed with confidence. "This is the season where people talk of peace and goodwill among men!" she began, tightening her coat belt. "Isn't that something you'd like to see?"

Kim smiled buoyantly, "Why yes, yes it is!"

Once in college and released from the church, Kim self-imposed her own form of atonement: directing the campus Big Brother/Big Sister program. Later she volunteered with a women's crisis hotline (and met me, her true-love). Today her field is rural youth development.

"I'm just not sure your peacemakers are willing to sit at the same table as my peacemakers," she continued.

Watching her, I started to feel giddy. I recalled the time when, fifteen years earlier, we'd put our house up for rent and attracted an array of colorful applicants. Everyone from hemp activists to a fundamentalist looking to "plant" a church came by for a tour. The hemp people complained our property lacked "canopy" for their growing operation; the fundamentalist admired our wild peppermint—admired it with a particular fervor.

"It was an object lesson!" Kim explained.

"A what?" I had no idea what she was talking about.

"An object lesson! He picked a mint leaf and started in on how intricate, beautiful, even miraculous it was! You know, as in WHO could have created such a thing?!'"

She was giggling then, and wiping her eyes with pleasure. In a few weeks we would be moving to Boston so she could attend graduate school in public policy. I was cooking dinner and had missed this exchange outside with the church planter, and now I sorely regretted it because I knew how it had ended. She loved to reel them in. She'd let them go a long, long time, let them get really hopeful, and then reply, "Why yes indeed I HAVE found true happiness… ever since coming out as a lesbian!"

Okay, admittedly, this was her strategy when we were much younger, in our twenties, still flush with new-adult autonomy and gay liberation. Now, at 43, she has less time, patience, or need to say more than "no thanks." Indeed, unless there's a youngster at our door, a 'tween or young adult, she turns them away as she would any invasive telemarketer. Last year, however, the Jehovah's Witnesses included a young man in an ill-fitting dark suit. I don’t know exactly what she said, but I've learned her new priorities: to make eye-contact and let the young ones know there is life after all of this, a life worth living, and right here on earth.

And so I shouldn't have been surprised when, this past September, we were in Santa Fe and at the same moment that I found myself agreeing to shake some Palm fronds and repeat Hebrew for a Lubavitcher who'd guessed I was Jewish (I was with Anakin and it seemed like a nice opportunity to learn about Sukkot), that Kim was on the other side of the Plaza advising two proselytizing Catholic children on how best to rid themselves of their pamphlets. "Tell them you went into restaurants" she recommended. "Tell them you went table to table and so now they're all gone."

As she tells it, the ten-year-old boy gave her his rapt attention. "But don’t actually go into restaurants?" he clarified, somewhat breathless.

"Right," she confirmed (her look undoubtedly conveying her personal experience with the matter). "Give me the rest of your stuff and you're off the hook!" (Which they did without hesitation.)

So last week, before the Jehovah's Witnesses actually reached for our door knob, desperate for this material, I begged Kim, "Oh, do make it good!" And she smiled at me. After all, the holidays were upon us; she'd been mixing cookies; she was feeling relaxed, playful even.

But there was no awkward teenager among them. And the two women at our door exuded confidence and energy.

And so did Kim.

In hindsight, I have no regrets. If it had gone on, I see now it would have been a collision of super powers. Because, pivoting with the moment, with the information fed her senses by their vocabulary, their manners, their dress, she was not headed for the "gay reveal." They came out swinging, asking if we felt our community and world were headed for Joy and Good Tidings.

This was headed for politics.

Just then, however, I spied our holiday cards recently printed with our family picture taken on a ridge above Santa Fe. Acting on impulse, I grabbed one and pushed by Kim to pass it out our snowy screen door. "Please take it," I said. "Happy holidays. This is our family. We are very proud."

Awkward pleasantries ensued, and then the women were gone. I stood flush with pleasure, tail wagging, only to find Kim's smile deflated.

She shook her head slowly, her eyes saying it all ("light weight!") Aloud she leveled me, "Congrats. Nice going. We're spending the year pinned to their wall getting prayed for. All three of us. On their wall. All year."

Drooping, I swallowed. Hard. "I don’t care," I retorted, weakly.

But I saw that her moment had been lost. How I had invited her to be my knight-in-shining-armor only to come galloping in on my own three-legged donkey.

Then, with the wisdom of the innocent, I pointed out, "We're on their wall reminding them of a happy gay family who turned them on their heels."

Her hands went slack. Her jaw and eyes softened.

"Next time," I reassured her, "I swear, they're all yours."

God Bless the Child...

"God bless the child that's got his own," Billie Holiday liked to sing about money. And I couldn't agree more. Anakin is up to $91.00 and he's very proud. He's saved it from his allowance ($1.50/week), from a few extra chores (very few), and from gifts from family and friends. As a parent, I find his having his own money fabulous. Now when he wants something, we remind him he can buy it himself, and it’s helping him parse his priorities.

"The thing is," he tells me breathlessly in the grocery store, after pointing longingly at the $5.99 Penguin Club access card: "I just can't spare it right now."

Holiday is singing about money with this line, but somehow I've always heard that chorus differently; I've heard it along the lines of Sweet Honey and the Rock's "Your children are not your children. They are the sons and the daughters of life's longing for itself" (which they borrowed from Kahlil Gibran).  Indeed, I've always heard it as, "God bless the child that's got his own thing going, his own way of being."

The line hums through my mind during Ani's play dates with his classmate, Oscar. Oscar was a maple tree last Halloween, complete with sap bucket. His mother made him his costume. And the last time he was in our living room he informed Ani that he's not allowed to play with toy guns, that his mother won't let him because guns hurt and kill people (and my guilt did floweth over).

Now you might read this and feel bad for Oscar: the victim of a peacenik mother who will surely doom him socially. Or you might want to make her your champion. But here's the thing; it turns out Oscar's mom has never once told him no toy guns or sword play. Indeed, she's wondered if she shouldn't initiate it so he may get along better with others (!). Oscar, meanwhile, gravitates toward magic tricks and Ani's toy kitchen.

Yes, God bless the child that's got his own.

Our First June Wedding! (I think...)

Dear readers, friends, and family: I thought I'd mention that Kim and I got married last weekend. Yes, again. No, you were not invited. (Admit it, you're glad.) For those wondering why we bagged our fourth wedding, I say, "It's a gay thing."

We did, however, call the Secretary of State's office to find out if #4 was really necessary.

"Last year we got legally married in Massachusetts," I explained [see “Gay Marriage—Take 3” for why]. "Will Vermont now just recognize that one?"

Brittany--in the Secretary's Office--said she didn't know. She said she’d call me back in 20 minutes. After 20 minutes she called back and said she still didn't know, but, well, it had been 20 minutes (gotta love Vermont). Finally she called to report, "I have an answer for you. The attorney says it is customary for states to honor each other’s marriage certificates… but in your case it would be best to contact your own private attorney."

Rather than do that ($$$$), this post was born:

How to have a Low-key, Fourth Gay Wedding to the Same Person, in Vermont, on a Budget

1. First: do not feel guilty for doing this on the cheap. It is not your responsibility to bolster the gasping economies of each and every state that passes gay marriage legislation--even if they did
assure voters what a boost it would be to their local economies.

2. Second: overcome minor technicalities: a pesky screening question on the VT marriage license application reads: "Have you ever been married before?" Sheepishly, our Town Clerk brought
it up. I assured her, "This means 'To A Different Person.'" Still she wasn't sure. After a little gay-driven research, she called me back triumphant, "Get ready for a wedding!" Cost to file for the license: $45.00.

3. Third: Register a Temporary Officiate: if you don't know someone who can legally marry you (clergy member, Justice of the Peace), and don't feel like explaining why you are doing this for a fourth time (or any other gay-extenuating circumstance) pay the $100 to the Secretary of State's office to temporarily empower a friend to be your wedding officiate. You are supposed to file this within 10 days of the ceremony to assure turn-around. Brittany felt bad about the private attorney thing, however, and assured me she'd keep an eye out for our officiate’s registration (!)

4. Fourth: carefully consider who, if anyone, you invite. Have your prospective guests already attended one of your other weddings? Will they be pleasantly humored by the necessity to repeat this ritual and can you provide them with an attractive venue? (Or will this feel like you are asking for that one toast too many?)

5. Fifth: remember that classy doesn't have to be costly! Consider those little cucumber sandwiches with their crusts trimmed (think fine creamery butter with sea salt, thinly sliced fresh cucumber…), and chilled white wine. (Our '98 "Commitment Ceremony" was a full catered affair. In 2001 we served our Civil Union witnesses pie.) Cost of sandwiches: under $10.00. Wine: your discretion. Add toothpicks with cellophane curls if budget allows.

6. Sign, stamp, and deliver. Congratulations!

Again.

All I Want for Christmas...

We were sick over Thanksgiving this year. It came on two days after Thanksgiving, actually. We had the stomach flu, all three of us, and all at the same time.

In his living memory Anakin had never been sick like that. Indeed, up 'til then, he'd looked fondly on opportunities to be sick. Mostly they involved a fever, missing school, watching a lot of television, and enjoying popsicles and ginger ale. Generally, getting sick meant a good time.

Back in 2007, when Ani was four, we'd had the flu over Christmas. Ani'd had it first, and then Kim and I came down with it while he was on the mend. We warned our friends to stay away, and a neighbor dropped a care package on our porch of homemade food and bread, and about a dozen Disney videos. It was during the dark time before we had Netflix-on-demand (and we don't buy television).

Ani looks back on it now as the best Christmas ever.

This Thanksgiving we were sick at my father's house, colonizing his bedroom, Anakin lying on a futon next to the bed with Kim and me.

"Mommy my back hurts!" he writhed.

"I know, Honey," I answered (Kim rendered mute from nausea).

"No it really, really hurts! I can't stand it!"

"I'm sorry, Ani. I know just how you feel. Mine hurts too."

"Ow! Ow! OW!"

"I wish I could make it better, Love. Unfortunately, this is what getting sick can be. It's awful, isn't it?" I reached down for his hand and found it hot and eager for attention.

It was after eleven o'clock at night and a few moments later Ani suddenly sat up to vomit, soaking his bedclothes with a bright raspberry ectoplasm. That's when Kim and I learned that parents who are acutely ill can--with a shot of helpful adrenaline--rally to strip a bed, stuff a washer, and collapse again to see stars.

Ani lay back down. In the morning he would feel remarkably better, rebounding far faster than his mommies, well enough to abandon us and thunder downstairs to Grandpa's DirectTV.

For now, however, he lay beside me, his writhing temporarily quelled, his red fingers curling around mine. He grew quiet, even contemplative.

"Wow. A day ago, Mommy, I wanted Lego Hogwart's Castle for Christmas."

"Yes, Honey, I know. You've told us. Many times." Indeed, the catalog lay dog-eared next to his futon. Star Wars Legos, Harry Potter Legos, all endlessly studied.

"Yes, but now…. All I want is to feel better."

The way he said it made me smile. There was humor there, wonder even.

He let go my hand, and I thought how hard we work as parents to keep our children from suffering. Indeed, we want them utterly spoiled (and if we are successful, we are lucky indeed!) Now here lay my seven-year-old, getting a taste of it (no pun intended), and I felt oddly relieved. Thoughtfully, Anakin appeared to be taking it in stride.

He rolled towards me, exhaled, and shut his eyes.

Now, I thought, he has an inkling of what others go through. He is closer to the true human condition, to the awareness that no matter who we are, our pleasures, our appetites, our ambitions, are all bound by our physical selves. How health, in short, is everything.

Anakin was quiet another moment, and then continued. "Mommy?"

"Yes, Hon?" I strained to hear him through the drumming in my head.

"Actually… I still do really want Hogwarts Castle."

©2010 Eliza J. Anderson

Candy Land

Our seven-year-old’s teeth are falling out. “Too much candy,” I tell him. Ani rewards me with a vampire grin.

He is always careful to ask permission to have candy. He gets a little each night if he eats a vegetable. It's a strategy that has worked well for more than a year now. "You have to give me permission" he says, "otherwise I would just keep eating it and eating it wouldn't I?" He says this with love—for me and for candy.

I'm proud of this strategy. I didn't land on it right away. First I saw he'd never eat a vegetable if it didn't make it to his plate. So I made a rule: 10 cents of his allowance each week for letting vegetables cohabitate with other food (I’m cheap). 5 cents more for trying one, and a bonus if he liked it (I don't remember the terms). The upshot was they were tasted, but never eaten.

Then one evening, under pressure to serve dessert, I explained how much happier I'd be about sugar if he’d eat a vegetable. Finally, I told him directly, “When it comes to veggies, Buddy, sometimes you just have to choke ‘em down!”

The tooth fairy is no help. She just gives him cash that in one instance he used for sugary gum (‘though mostly he saves for Legos).

The post office is no help either. Randy gives him a Tootsie pop every time he sets foot in there. Even if it’s 10 a.m.

Worse, still, is this time of year: Sugar Season. First it's my birthday (cake!), then Halloween (candy!), then Thanksgiving (pie!), and next Hanukkah gelt and Christmas cookies (we are Judeo-Christians). Practically a quarter of the year is given over to it. Ani's candy bowl is an ever-replenishing stash.

The problem is there’s just more candy in the ether than anyone knows what to do with anymore. We can’t even give it all away. At Halloween, neighbors thrust fistfuls at us, desperate to not get stuck with the surplus. At the 4th of July, the library float tosses enough candy to sink a ship.

The worst was last January, in Bangor, Maine, where the sugar proved unrelenting. I remember I had just steered Ani away from a bowl of free candy canes in the Children’s Museum, when, at the parking garage, came the attendant’s hand pushing a bucket toward my window in the dark. Bleary and tired, I thought at first it held biscuits for our dog (popular with booth attendants in Vermont). But of course it was candy. “Uh, no thanks,” I croaked, glancing nervously at our over-exhausted boy in the back seat.

I confessed the scene the following evening at dinner. We were at Kim’s folks where fruit is served in a bed of Cream Whip. Ani listened intently. “That was candy, Mommy? I thought it was money!”

“Money!?” I nearly choked. “Honey,” I assured him, “if it had been money, I guarantee I would have had both fists in there and removed my shoes like Curious George!”

Which is something he can really relate to, actually. Because his grandparents gave him money soap that Christmas, a bar of green gelatin with a bill rolled so tightly there was no way to make out the denomination. A cute gift if your kid isn’t 6 and ready to pin all his Lego hopes and dreams on that long shot. I saw the danger and promptly warned him that it was likely just a buck.

“YOU DON”T KNOW THAT!” he screamed at his Mommy Kill Joy.

So after we were home, and the rash broke out on his chin, and my own cheeks went red, we decided to dig into that soap so we could throw the rest of it in the trash. Working to get into the spirit of things, I told Ani this was our Charlie and the Chocolate Factory moment; would we have a golden ticket? Upbeat, I sliced the bar lengthwise with my Swiss Army knife, babbling how I hoped we’d find a $50 bill and how I hoped he would buy Legos because then I could build with them too, and how much we like doing that together, and then out it came and….

Of course, it was a buck.

And at first he seemed really okay about it. He took it in stride. He nodded and smiled and got busy with something else until we found him face down on the back of the couch, silent, immobile, and utterly inconsolable. He’d worked so hard to be big about it. But there it was, days of anticipation, days of soaking in the finer points of the Lego catalog, all coming to nothing. And now what to live for, really? Christmas had just passed. His Y Wing Fighter was already built. On Monday school would be back in session. Kim, his other mom, would soon leave on a work trip. You could feel the world draining of color….

Thank goodness Valentine’s Day was right around the corner.

©2010 Eliza J. Anderson

Two-Mommy Moments

First play date:
Matthew (age four): "Anakin! Look how lucky you are! You got two moms doin' stuff for you!"

At a birthday party:
Another mom: "So this is how it works then? You BOTH go to birthdays?"
-long pause-
Bitterly: "Probably you both do dishes and laundry too!"

To our (Catholic) daycare provider:
Me, sheepish: "With you, it's like Anakin has three mommies."
Michelle, smiling at her four-year-old daughter: "Actually, it's more like four."

After school on the playground:
Eric (age six): "Whaddya mean you got two moms? You can't have two moms!"
Eric's dad (exposing missing teeth): "Sure ya can Eric! Don't you got two dads? Me and your step-dad."

Riding in the car with a friend:
Anakin (age seven): "Kisses are disgusting!"
Shayla (also seven): "Yeah, they are."
Anakin: "Disgusting."
-long pause-
"Unless they're from your moms."
Shayla: "Yeah, that's true. Unless they're from your moms."
-long pause-
Absently, Shayla: "Or your dad..."

©2010 Eliza J. Anderson

What Kind of Baby?

"Every day, everywhere babies are born," begins a favorite baby book. "Fat babies, thin babies, small babies, tall babies […]" (Everywhere Babies, by Susan Meyers).

Can you guess what kind we had?

Last weekend I came across this baby gate stored in our barn. It made me do a double-take and then show it to my friend Jessica.

It's the gate we couldn't re-sell.

Jessica looked it over and laughed as I suspected she would. Her daughter goes through new jeans in a single day and believes socks should be dispensed from a Kleenex box. Yes, I clarified, that's clapboard I nailed on as a lower extension. And nylon netting wrapped around the bars.

Dear reader, I share this with you because I suspect there are other artifacts out there like this one or at least good stories to tell.

As for the gate, the back story is this: Anakin would drop from a crawl to a swim, and breast-stroke his diapered butt to freedom (our lethal open staircase his goal). On the day I nailed the extension, he confronted it with his scalp and broke into an all-out rage. We watched then, both laughing and crying, as he shimmied up against the wall, standing to slip out sideways (or so he'd hoped). The netting came about when he started working on heaving himself up and over.

Dear reader, if your baby sat demurely playing with a buckle for forty-five minutes, sorry, this post is not for you.

To the rest of us: what can you share?

© Eliza J. Anderson

School Etiquette and the New "ism"—Autism

Last week at drop off, I spied Nate showing his 1st grade classmates what he'd brought for "sharing" (formerly known as show-and-tell).

Nate is adorable with curly blond hair and a toddler tummy despite his full 6 years. He is chatty and usually smiling. In town or at school I see him with his curly-headed mom. She smiles too, listening to her son, looking thoroughly amused by whatever he has to say.

On the first day of school, I was surprised when Nate showed up for Anakin's combined 1st/2nd grade class. I had thought he was younger. Our town is quite small, however, and soon I heard Nate is on the autism spectrum, which explains a little bit about the ways he seems different.

At the start of the year, Ani came home every day with a story about him. Nate brought toddler Legos to sharing!  Nate repeats the same thing over and over. Nate is always talking to me! He's worse than Liam was last year!

Ani is a gentle and kind boy, especially at school, and he is sometimes sought out by less popular children. Last year, Liam--who comes from a large and low-income family--wooed him with a Star Wars figurine. Ani brought the toy home, clearly conflicted. He knew that this boy wanted his friendship. But still, he admitted, he didn't want to play with him.

First grade was a lot about social ordering for Anakin. And the toys were important. He learned that cool-boy status could be achieved, easily enough, with a few Star Wars minifigs. He was impressed and confused by Liam's spot-on gift.

I sympathized with Anakin about Liam. In class Liam talked to Ani when he should have been quiet. Ani didn't want to end up in "time out" the way Liam always did.

Still I told Ani that I thought it would be wonderful if he could be a friend to Liam, and also to Michael, a boy who had started the year with a behavioral aid. Michael had huge tantrums at school, and was tall for his age: two traits with which Ani could identify (though Ani's scenes were always at home). I was proud when Ani spoke up to an older child that these tantrums were not who Michael "really is." The older child had called Michael a freak, but Ani had said, "No, he just does this sometimes. He has trouble staying in control."

My son is pulled between wanting acceptance from the cool kids and wanting to do what is right. I won't pressure him to be friends with anyone, however, because I don’t think pressure works. In the third grade I was sent on a play date with Laxmi, a new-to-this-country Indian girl.  Sent off like an emissary of our school by eager adults with imploring eyes, I tried to be friendly, but didn't really know the girl and could find nothing in common with her. For the rest of that school year I felt draped in a heavy cloak of guilt.

I’ve told Ani this story, to show him I understand that I cannot choose his friends. Still, on this morning it’s hard to see his eyebrows go up at Nate’s “sharing,” which is another toddler toy—a pretend radio with a big knob that plays music with "real" batteries. Nate tells everyone about it again and again.

I caught Ani smiling by his cubby. Ani spends a long time thinking of the perfect thing to bring for sharing, and I could tell he judged Nate's to be far off the mark.

When I kissed him goodbye I told him I knew he would be kind and not laugh, and he assured me that he would.

----

Once home, I tripped across a WIRED interview with President Obama's new appointee to the National Council on Disability. Ari Ne'eman is just 22 years old, powerfully articulate, and has Asperger's syndrome (a "high-functioning" form of autism). In a side bar, the article mentions what it was like for Ne'eman in school growing up.

It turns out the front lines for "help" for individuals with autism may be in schools across the country, in dynamics that begin with what I had just muddled through in Anakin's class. Ne'eman was frequently bullied for not fitting in socially. He ended up segregated in a school for students with special needs.  "Many of the bad things that autistic people struggle with are things that happen to us," he notes, "rather than things that are bad about being autistic."

Recently there's been a deluge of media stories about school bullying and suicide, stories about gay kids, and kids perceived to be gay, taunted to the point of taking their own lives.  Most of the stories have centered on boys whose behavior or mannerisms differed enough from heterosexual "norms" to make them targets. As a lesbian mom of a sensitive son, I feel downright righteous about these issues.

But what about the kids with autism?

"As a society," Ne'eman points out, "our approach to autism is still primarily 'How do we make autistic people behave more normally? How do we get them to increase eye contact and make small talk while suppressing hand-flapping and other stims?'”

Indeed, Ne'eman himself draws the analogy between attitudes toward autism and heterosexism. And it's an analogy, he notes, that's historically grounded. It seems that the father of a form of behavioral intervention for autism, Dr. Ivar Lovaas, also tried making “effeminate” boys “normal.” "It was a silly idea around homosexuality," Ne'eman asserts, "and it’s a silly idea around autism."

Like a Stonewall activist, and like so many of the voices in the media this week, Ne'eman is advocating for tolerance and civil rights. "Day-to-day life in a world built for neurotypical people," he asserts, "can be like walking through a minefield. There are a lot of social rules that we don’t understand, and tremendous consequences inflicted on us for violating them."

It's why, upon graduating from "special needs" high school, he founded the Autistic Self-Advocacy Network.

"It's necessary," he says, "to have access to a culture in which we can socialize with others on terms that make sense to us free of rules of conduct like having to make frequent eye contact or indulge in small talk. Having access to our own culture makes it easier for us to go out into an often very hostile world and face it with more confidence, with the knowledge that our differences and challenges are not things that make us wrong, just different. Much of our time in the broader world is lived with a certain amount of fear."

Gay readers: now doesn't this sound just a little familiar?

But the fact is the desire to be accepted is something everyone can appreciate.

In  "Autism Etiquette," a post at the blog, Water, No Ice, Nandini Minocha provides a "little primer" of advice for people wishing to be supportive of parents (like her) who have a child with autism.  A few particularly powerful points:

1.    "[…] never ignore or pretend the child doesn’t exist. That’s the default mode that we all employ and think we’re being tolerant. "
2.    "Don’t talk down to a special needs child under the assumption that just because he is behaving like a two year old, he thinks like one too. [....] Communicate at an age appropriate level even if you don’t receive feedback to validate it."
3.     "[...children] take their cues from us as adults. If we take things in our stride, don’t over react, treat people with respect in spite of their differences, then so will they."

I'm grateful Anakin is at a school where, so far, he is yet to be bullied for having two moms; and where his new buddy, Oscar, can say he wants to be a flower for Halloween; and where second-grader, Hillary, can unhesitatingly declare that she is a boy for going on three years now.

Autism, which affects 1 in 150 children, affects individuals differently. To understand a child with autism, we have to get to know the child. As for Nate, next week I'm going to be sure to take a minute, kneel down, and ask questions about any plastic radio he chooses to share.

Perhaps then Anakin will join me.

Are you neurotypical? For a mind-blowing introduction to the neurodiversity tolerance movement, check out Amanda Baggs' You Tube video (gone viral and closing in on 1 million views):  In My Language.

©2010 Eliza J. Anderson

Silence!

We are practicing for Nepal. Yesterday we hiked four miles to a rock outcropping above Santa Fe. It was the last day of our week-long trip to New Mexico and we were sad, but the aspens were beautiful with their yellows highlighted against dark pine and stone. We consoled ourselves with talk of our next great adventure, this one planned for April to the Himalayas.

Anakin, our seven-year-old, is a great hiker. And thanks to Mommy Kim's job we've been taking him on trails in New Mexico since he was three.  That first year, while Kim ran her conference, I was determined to get in a daily hike. I knew he'd love it once I broke through his stormy crust. Each day I'd haul him off and at first he'd wail, but after ten minutes on my back he'd grow bored and commence wriggling to get down and run ahead.

These days Ani knows he likes hiking. But it doesn't mean it's always easy. Yesterday he whined to keep his iPod (he'd been listening to an audio book in the car). We said no. In Nepal, I told him, we'd hike every day and he would get to listen some. But, no, not here.

For us it's about learning to be with yourself in the woods. This is tough for Ani. He loves hiking, but he's always done it with sticks for guns, phantom enemies, and stories from his mommies. Yesterday he kept pushing rocks and dirt down the steep sides of the trail; "I'm starting an avalanche!" he'd yell. And when our largest water bottle was empty, he fitted it with small stones to shake like a drum. It shattered the stillness far longer than I thought even he could stand.

I have been telling him that I'd like him to learn to enjoy moments of quiet, particularly in the woods, but also in the car. Like when we are on a ten minute drive. No, you don't need the iPod, I tell him, it's a short drive. "I'm bored!" he declares, sullen. I find myself babbling about how important it is to learn to be your own best company. Sometimes I strike what feels like the right loving tone about it. More often I sound frustrated and sarcastic. Asking Ani to be quiet is like asking the sky to change color. "What do I do now?" he demands the moment his audio story goes dead, as though gasping for air. "Well," I retort, "you could spend some time in your own head!"

On our way up through the aspen Ani declares he needs to go "number two," which means we're off into the woods to turn over a big rock (instant hole!) Over the summer we did this several times: once on an island in Maine, another time near a gorge in Vermont, and again on a hike. Each time I tell him we're practicing for Nepal. I tell him how in Asia there are these squat toilets and people grow up developing great thigh muscles. (I don't yet have the courage to tell him about wiping with your hand and washing with a spigot.) Above the trail, over his hole, he balances holding onto my hands. It's good practice, I tell him, because in Nepal he won't want to touch the floor.

Back on the trail I realize Kim and I have been working toward this Nepal trip with Anakin for a long time. In 2008 we took him to Thailand which helped him master airline travel, but that trip was only imaginable because we had gone on our own trek in the Himalayas years before we'd ever had Anakin. Digging deeper, I could see, too, how that adventure was built on mental scaffolding I'd laid for myself when I'd traveled solo to Guatemala. Each journey, it seems, wore a path to the next.

Above Santa Fe, Kim entertained Ani with one of her Max and Gulliver tales. Max is a mole and Gulliver is a chipmunk. They come along on each of our adventures and get into a bunch of mischief. She teased out the story, nursing plot points for as many footsteps as she could muster.

I half-listened aware that I was up next. "Tell me a story from your childhood," he'd soon demand. But my childhood wasn't where I wanted to be. The sky was deep blue, the air cool and dry and lit by the golden afternoon light. So when Kim finished, I got ahead of him, "Why don't we try being silent for a whole minute?" I suggested. "Let's find out what we can hear. Let's listen as deep into the woods as possible and see what we notice!" I tried hard to sound upbeat and like I thought he could do it, or even want to. I tried to mask the futility I really felt about these efforts. We tell ourselves that we are helping him toward a kind of emotional intelligence, helping wear a trail for another kind of journey. But can our leopard change his spots?

Ani shrugged and I saw the back of Kim's shoulders stiffen, bracing for his protests. Still she obliged, timing us with her watch. "Ok, starting now!" she declared. I smiled with exaggerated gazes into the trees, and listened to Ani's steps grow leaden.

When the minute was up I told of the footsteps and bird calls I'd been aware of and asked Ani what he'd made out.

"The wind," he said kicking a rock. "And nothing."

Still it was a fine hike. When we reached the ridge, Ani took off ahead to climb to the highest point, spreading his arms wide as if to hug the sky. The view was endless, the whole planet seemed bigger, and looked translucent like the ocean. We snapped pictures and picnicked on crackers, cheese, and apples. 

On the descent, Ani returned a sweatshirt left behind by another hiker, patted ascending dogs, and complained that I looked grumpy.

"Actually," I told him, "I'm getting a pounding headache."

"Well we're almost as high as we'll be in Kagbeni," Kim noted, referring to a high-altitude village in Nepal.  Sure enough my headache dissipated as we dropped below tree line.  And thankfully it was fully gone by the time Ani rediscovered that noisy water bottle.

For the next mile and a half, above the din, Kim and I attempted to discuss our plans for the rest of the day.  We were still a mile from the car when Ani yelled,

"Stop!"

Startled, we sputtered midsentence, whipping around to look at him. His drum was suddenly quiet; his eyes rimmed a tired red.

"Stop talking!" he yelled at us. "I'm trying to spend time in my own head!"

Looking at each other, it took us a moment to understand what he was asking.

"Ok, sure," I answered and then said nothing. Indeed we were all quiet, save for the crunch of our footsteps.

In my state of disbelief, I reached for Kim's hand and squeezed. Then a moment later I felt Ani's slide into my only open palm. And we walked that way, the three of us, listening to just the wind and the birds for the rest of the mile to the car.

Utterly speechless.

©2010 Eliza J. Anderson

Charitable Giving

Like most everywhere, the recession is hitting our town hard. Last year it made the gluttony of the holidays challenging to embrace, and indeed our school gave up altogether. After canceling Halloween activities due to the H1N1 outbreak, it became easy to cancel holiday parties as well. The newsletter asked us to instead focus our energies and resources on the town’s food shelf… specifically a drive for toiletries.

Anakin found that word very funny. “What are TOILETRIES?!” he asked, gleefully grinning ear to ear.

“Toilet paper,” I responded. “And toilet brushes, and toilet cleaner, and everything everyone needs for the proper care, feeding, and polishing of their toilet.”

“Noooo!!” he giggled.

It’s why he loves me.

Kim was far more sober. She explained that toothbrushes, soap, toothpaste, and the like are expensive for people, and that food stamps don’t pay for them, and what food stamps are, and how important it is that we all help out this year. She gained steam as she talked, as is her way with such things. We were at the kitchen table and he was perched listening on his red stool until, wordlessly, he climbed down, and by the time she was discussing the community service projects she thought we should do as a family, he was kneeling on top of the kitchen counter with one arm digging feverishly through his plastic pumpkin of leftover Halloween candy.

 “Can I have this?” he demanded, thrusting a blue Tootsie Pop in our direction. “I ate all of my pear.”

“There are lots of families that don’t have what we have,” she elaborated. And turning to me, “It’s something my family did. We’d do a chore for another household and get paid with a donation for the food shelf.”

Anakin, eyes downcast, wrapped his mouth around the pop and began working it with ferocious intensity. That morning he’d been lobbying us for play dates with boys he knew to have buckets of Star Wars Legos at home (top on his Christmas list). Without question he was attuned to that which he did NOT have.

“Could you at least look like you’ve heard a word I’ve said?” Kim asked him. And he erupted, then, with proclamations of how he didn’t want to do chores for toothbrushes, and how we couldn’t make him. He ran out of the room and stomped up the stairs. It’s his new strategy for not turning into a tornado (and we are very proud).

Kim was undaunted. “Well, that’s pretty much how I’d felt, too. But when we’d actually do it, it made me feel really good about my family.”

I listened with fascination. On Halloween my Dad would have us turn out all the lights and hide from the door bell. (Plus it’s always intriguing when Kim finds something to emulate from her religious fundamentalist childhood.)

“Also, Will and Beth think it’s a great idea. They’re gonna call us with chore options for Anakin.”

Wow! She'd already lined up our next door neighbors for our civics lesson.

“Plus,” she went on, now laughing, “they’re eager to help because they had to turn away an eighth grader last week.” It seems they’d been caught in their doorway on a Friday afternoon with martini glasses in hand, but no canned goods to share, having just cleaned house for their own schools' efforts. (The boy’s father, a friend, was incredulous, “Waddya mean you don’t have a single can in there?!”)

With a start I realized Anakin was back in the kitchen. He’d been listening behind us, somberly chewing his Tootsie Pop’s white cardboard stick. When Kim went to answer the phone, Ani came over, put his hand on my arm, and lifted his eyes to mine. “Mommy” he began, searching me. “What is it that YOU want for Christmas? We haven’t talked about you at all.”

© 2010 Eliza J. Anderson