Musical Memories

Last night my husband and I got to go out on a date to the Seattle Symphony. It was glorious music of Purcell, Handel, Bach, and Vivaldi. Incredible healing music after the week we'd had with our son's school and just trying to make decisions and the hectic life of work this week. We were both so tired, but sat there soaking in the sumptuous sounds surrounding us. I can go on and on about the skill of this world class symphony that we have in Seattle, but there was much more that stood out to me.

Sense memory is a powerful thing and mixed with the beauty was recognition of where I was when I first heard some of that music. The Bach took me back to me slipping on my headphones after class at boarding school to lie down for a nap. I'd often listen to Handel or Bach as they would support my flagging energy into a deeper comforting sleep. Don't get me wrong, I loved the music, but I was very ill at the time and in a lot of pain with a stomach ulcer and so feeling isolated---it was comfort and renewed my energy to hear that music.

The Vivaldi was a surprise as my oldest brother David's face popped into my head as soon as the music began. I didn't associate this piece with him, but should have as I realized I first heard it when he was in college singing with his college choir. He was so happy after that performance and during it singing away in the tenor section. He talked about how fun it was to sing the "Gloria". As I was listening last night, my subconscious recognized it first as small tears leaked out of the corners of my eyes and down my face. I could see him in my minds eye being happy and it made the music so much sweeter.

One of the Vivaldi pieces, a duet by the glorious soprano and alto soloists, "Laudamus te" was sung at our wedding also. That was a wonderful reminder how music can bring you to a time of remembering those beginnings that set you up in life. I leaned into Martin as he smiled at me with the recognition of enjoying this moment together.

I'm still thinking about that music as I get  ready for bed tonight. Thinking about what we are singing at church tomorrow. What does that mean week after week? Where does it take my spirit? I look to lean into the sound and support of the music to bring me to a renewed space---a place of comfort.

"Highest renew your goodness
every morning from now on....
He will increase in us
what he has promised us out of grace,
so that we trust fast in Him,
abandon ourselves completely to Him,
rely on Him within our hearts,
so that our heart, will, and mind
depend strongly on HIm:
therefore we sing at this time:
Amen, we shall succeed, if we
believe from the depths of our hearts.
Alleluia!"

----Bach : Cantata No. 51, "Jauchzett Gott in allen Landen!" BWV 51 (Sung by a bird-like soprano beautifully---Ms. Amanda Forsythe---I applaud you!)

If only chickens could be assistant animals....

Yesterday was focused on one thing, the meeting at school to reinstate our son. Now, if you have a kiddo who isn’t in Special Ed, you might be thinking that we met with one or two people. Oh no, there were seven adults plus Martin and I around that table. It was tense just listening to the carefully laid out meeting and account of exactly what happened last week. It is hard to listen to missteps and new information and not feel ambushed by this information.

What was the upshot of the meeting? That we put yet another new plan in place to try to help the boy know what the plan is ahead of time so he doesn’t get surprised at how people react when things go awry. This time the plan is of a specific script that is followed, like a flow chart, for him to know what will be his only two choices each step of the way. Plus, they are talking about having a safe place for him that is a sensory soothing tent (one of the ideas floated) that he can go to escape and cool down. This plan sounds good. It really does, but it was all the talk around it that gave us pause.

I sat there listening feeling heavy about the way we all talk about my son. I was so glad we had gotten a hold of a babysitter and that he was far away from this room. I know he has always heard us and others speak right in front of him as this is the nature of therapy, school, and daily encounters with the world around us. One therapist encourages me not to put too much adult thinking upon him as she points out he had the emotional thinking of a toddler most of time, especially in moments of stress. However, it is his moments of deep insight that tells me so much more is going on in his mind then I can even guess and it drags his intense emotions along with it when he strikes at an idea often.

He talked to me about his worries the night before the meeting. Right before bed he was just lying with his face down in his bean bag chair not saying a word. I always know to check on him when he is super quiet.

ME: Are you listening to the chicks?
(He rolls over and looks at me and then into the chick’s box then flops back down into the bag.)
ME: Their soft peeps are nice, huh? Relaxing.
BOY: Yeah. Yeah…you…you…you know chicks are relaxing. No chicks at school.
ME: Yes, but you can come home and relax with them.
(He rolls away and puts his face back into the bean bag)
ME: Can I ask you something?
BOY: Yes.
ME: Are you worried about school? You seem worried.
BOY: Mama, I am worried.
ME: About school?
BOY: Do chicks go to school?
ME: No, they grow and learn by living and God made them a certain way and they just know it. They know what to do naturally. They have pretty tiny brains. Do you know why you go to school?
BOY: I don’t know.
ME: We’ve talked about it before, but okay, it is for you to learn things you might not learn on your own---to stretch your mind and hopefully make friends. And you train to have a job one day.

BOY: Does…does everyone have to have a job? What happens if you don’t work?
ME: Well, not everyone has a job, but those that don’t have to be taken care of somehow. People have jobs to have money for one thing.
BOY: What is money?
ME: You know what money is. It is the currency that we use to pay for things we need or want, but hopefully mostly needs.
BOY: Does everyone have money?
ME: No, not everyone has money, but we all have to live somehow. We pay for this house with money we earn from our jobs. We pay for the food we eat and what the chicks eat. We pay for electricity to run the computers, radio, and things like these lights. That all takes money which we get from our work that we get paid to do and we went to school to learn what to do for our jobs.
BOY: What…what if…if…if I don’t get a job?
ME: I think you can get one if you want to. I believe you are capable of doing anything you set your mind to doing including going to school and getting a job.
BOY: I don’t know.
ME: I believe you’ll have a job one day when you are ready and I know whatever it is you’ll be good at your job. Very good!
BOY: What is a job?
Then we talked about all the possibilities of career paths and what he is studying at school that possibly relates to meteorologist, video game composer, or historian plus several variants of this. Then he brought it back to the chicks.
BOY: Mama, I can’t have a rooster unless I am on a farm. What would happen, if I were a farmer?
ME: Then I know you’d have a few roosters around.
BOY: What happens 21 days after a rooster is there?
ME: Chicks!
(At this he smiled and I got him to start on his bedtime routine).

As I was putting him to bed, he asked me about the meeting and why he had to have a babysitter. I told him I didn’t want him to feel horrible about us talking about him and him hearing all of that. I told him we would talk about what happened the other day and what to do about him getting through fourth grade. I told him he could come and in the near future he probably would participate in these meetings. He decided he didn’t want to come after all.

In our meeting I was surprised that the principal said that he hadn’t seen behavior like this from a child in the fourteen years he had been at this school. Other “experts” in the room also expressed similar statements saying how our son is redefining what is needed in place for the district. This comment had a harder edge to it then I was used to hearing. It is not something you want to hear about your child.

It sent me down the path of if they talk this way about him in general, what do his peers think? How does this prejudice other teachers or aids that don’t know him well, but encounter him occasionally? At this point they were batting around the idea of not reinstating him until they had an all staff meeting essentially to talk about how to handle him. (Remember, there are only five weeks left in the school year). They were talking one, two, maybe three weeks out---then school would be essentially over.

This really made me queasy and I wanted to shout, “He’s one little boy! He’s not toxic waste that you need to have disposal procedures in place! You sound like you’re ready to throw him away!” But, I didn’t and someone sensible squashed the idea of this all staff meeting. Instead a memo will go out with who to call to help if it looks like there is situation with him and a few words about not engaging him. That still felt….ugh….just ugh….

These conversations made me feel the weight of his worries settle in from the surrounding school walls. It felt closed off not open to life and light that I would expect in this setting. I understood where his thoughts of jail come from now---to be imprisoned by what others believe about you.

It gave me a real “aha” moment about autism in general and what are the indescribable barriers that many who are autistic adults talk about such feelings. Many analyze their young adulthood and look back on what it is to grow up autistic—where everyone talks about you. Many express great anger about it and decry the feelings of “less than”. I see what that must feel like.

My tears never came though, I felt like crying, walking out of that room. My grief felt dry and hot---fueled by anger at everything I felt at what I’d heard. I could hear my son saying, “That’s not right! That’s not fair!” So many times I’ve asked him, “What’s not fair?” And he would just make sounds because he had no words to answer. I had a tiny rain drop of understanding that it all isn’t fair in that the world works in a certain way and the only way he can see to go is not even part of this path, so he thinks. He’s right; I can see how that seems unjust. 

They are going to try to put everything in place that he can get back to school in the next two weeks. The autism district experts are trying hard to get it by middle of next week as they know as time marches on him wanting to return at all also fades with time and it is at a pale sliver right now. At least they are helping us shape how to hold onto any progress he makes over the summer.

 I just hope we can get all this theory to possibly work for my boy's sake. In the meantime, he'll continue having what lessons we can get done together while holding chicks on our laps and listening to those soft quiet peeps we love so much.

The Last One for Poetry Month….NaPoWriMo #38 & #39

Well it was April 30^th when I wrote the first one, but in a flash I had to write the second one and I’ll be posting now just after midnight….oh well. It was a good month! Here is a super simple poem to end on and then one of my signature rambles in the moment. The month always goes so fast chronicling it this way in poetry. I write a lot even when it isn’t April, I just don’t post them all.

We went to the UW Planetarium tonight for a presentation on the stars and planets. It was nice as it was a special night where families with autistic children could come in for free and hear this presentation and it was supported by the Autism Center there. So it was noisy and had a lot more little ones than I expected, but most of the kiddos were into it and that was fun to see.

I wish I’d had paper with me as I was thinking of doing a poem on the planets, but it had melted away by the time I arrived at home. Instead, I just wrote what I see at night here on a really great star night and then a bit of observation during our "Night Event Under the Stars".

Seeing Stars

When I look into the night sky

I see slurry of cumulus

Blurring out the moon

And all that might be hidden there

I stare intently searching the heavens

For a light or glimmer of life forms

That could be starring back at me

There is a small break

And as one that spake

A new creature tongue

There tenderly hung

Is one tiny particle of light

Shining so bright

Against the odds

Of obscuring obsoleteness

In it I pin my wish

Of another point of light

Laser beaming through the blackness

And coming up for air

That I might too

It happens like the dawn

Slowly the clouds pull

Away the magic curtain

Revealing a most grand treasure

Spread as King Midas might do

Extravagantly scattered pearls

Lining a vast ocean floor

I swim in the richness

Filling up my soul

Pouring over them

From my small spot

But feeling so gigantic

With the universe

And all the galaxies

Mapped out before me

It Happens Under His Stars

Dark eyes and tiny face

Looking up into a projection of space

You cry when they move

And when it stops, you are mesmerized

My son is leaning on me

Hearing the noise of little babies and toddler screeches

He digs into my shoulder

Squeezing my hand

Straining to hear what

Is being presented about Jupiter

I stroke his smooth, soft locks

Hoping my heartbeat will drown out

The sea of tension rising in his body

As the running little boy and sobbing babe

Peak in intensity

He hunkers down against me

Indeed finding my steady beat

This seems to defeat the cacophony

And he sits up ready to comment on Uranus

But Pluto is the one he has questions about

As the knowledgeable grad student

Called it once a planet and then not

My son gravitated towards

“What is the criterion please for a planet?”

The student didn’t really have a good answer

This made my son squirm

like there were ants literally in his pants

He wanted more facts to the matter

Hard as the planet’s surface

To chase the uncertainty of this place away

To paint a sure picture of what is in space

And tune out the other noises

That crumble his inside structure

Facts hold it all up

Like steel girders that

Are the bones of the building

Are inside his brain

But run all the way to his toes

There was another little boy

That was competing for knowing

All the facts by the naming the planets

And what they were composed of

The other little professor complained

That my boy was too quick to answer

So my boy stopped answering

And pulled my arm tighter around him

As he bit his left index finger knuckle hard

As if to say, “I can’t help it, sorry.”

I didn’t want him to be quiet

I wanted him to keep going and going

Like when it is just the three of us

And he is telling us parents

Every single thing he knows about

The universe, history, weather, or video games

It is his to dispense

With a sense of himself

He can feel himself in space this way

It helps him to know he is really here

And that his opinion and knowledge matters

No labels, no barriers, and no one else to tell him differently

He can see it all at once

The big, huge, gigantic picture

His universe on the inside

That tumbles out daily

In facts, figures, and fitful flights of fancy

It is freedom of the highest order

His vast galaxy