Sword-swallower, centrefold, balls & babes

A month later, Autism camp continues to give rise to memories and insights. Perhaps these memories remain so vivid and insistent because autism is such an ongoing part of my necessarily intertwined personal and professional life. This past weekend, almost a month to the day since camp ended, I facilitated a workshop  on Movement Education and Autism, an achievement of sorts, since I've been beating the movement education drum for 15 years .... now, it seems, administrators, policy makers, therapists, specialists, EA's, PSW's, and other decision makers have "discovered" the value of meaningful movement experiences for kids, youth and adults with autism.
Perhaps they should come to camp and see first hand these kids, youth and young adults in action....

I want to tell you about two such young men.... Alexander and Billy. Take a quick glance up at the title, and read on.
Alexander is 17 this year.  Tall, dark and handsome; incredible eyes,  a long history of self injury  and anxiety; mostly non verbal but  an immensely effective communicator. Even though he is over 6 feet tall, he frolics and cavorts around like a 5 year old. He loves jumping on any surface that has even a hint of  springiness to it,  and  he loves the water. We swim at a gorgeous pool that has wonderful extras... water slide,  warm jets,  sprays, an incline entry for wheelchair users or anyone with mobility challenges, loads of water toys....   the pool is surrounded by glass and it's easy to see everything that is going on from the lobby. Alexander gets in and swims, floats, bobs, his eyes the only thing visible except for his occasional head lift to pull in a breath. He can be in the water for hours and is usually easy to coax out  with little fanfare or drama..... and then there are days when  he is ready not only to be out but also to be done.... one such day he gave the spectators in the lobby quite the show. He gets out,  goes to his towel, whips down his trunks and displays himself in all his glorious manhood. Lots of wide eyes in the lobby. Lifeguards and camp workers rush to assist him with his towel, but he is in noooo hurry as he does a leisurely  turn to and fro.We eventually get him  mummied in a towel and then he skips off the deck, chuckling,  supremely contented. What a great swim! This same young man has the most insatiable thirst ... he frequently goes scavenging for water bottles, his own and any one else's in reach. On our week two trip to the amusement park, he went through the picnic area grabbing and draining water bottles until we were able to chase him down and give him  his own quite large  bottle of water.  He chugs that and while we are congratulating ourselves on this feat of re-hydration, he manages to get into The Hungry Bear restaurant , grab a lady's beer right off the table and chug that down as well.... we are quite used to running interference for our campers and we offer to buy the nice lady a beer to replace the one she just lost. She graciously accepts and gives Alexander a high five... "he's a natural" she says, admiringly. Alex has a big grin.
Billy, on the other hand, is more subtle. Also an older teenager, 18 this year, another kid who is non verbal but who has no trouble at all with communicating,  all arms and legs, two monster prosthetics on his huge feet, blond,  with a dreamy expression on his face since he became a teenager  and figured out that gorgeous young women dominate the field  in disability services. He has a goofy laugh and big arm gestures that accompany that laugh. His favourite trick; convincing the girls who work with him that it is their job to go and get the ball when he throws it, or his version of fetch..... and it is usually a cute girl in tight jean  shorts, and the shorter the better. The shorts I mean, not the girls. Billy throws the ball... cute girl goes to get it , cute girl bends over and picks up the ball, Billy does the goofy laugh and the big gestures. I give him  the eye. He laughs even more. He knows that I know what he's doing.  I shake my head, Billy, you are so busted.... but I am trying not to smile..... what's up here I ask .... he likes it, says cute girl. No shit,  I think. As gently as I can while preserving both their dignity I explain to her what is likely going on.....she looks at Billy and decides that maybe he ought to be the one doing the running and bending..... he shrugs. Ya can't blame a guy for trying.
Camp is a place where we can participate in meaningful movement, something that everyone needs and deserves. And, it's a place  where meaningful things happen between people who care about each other. Till next summer.

Life line

Any teacher will tell you this.... the first few weeks back, everyone gets sick. It's all those kids with their sweaty snotty sneezing and breathing and mauling swarming around together; no way not to get sick amidst all those bodily fluids. My level of teaching is not so different, same swarm, different age.  So it's no surprise that I am sitting hunched and huddled in a dark room at midnight wrapped around a steamy mug of hot lemon. The house is so quiet that I can hear all its machinery creaking and wheezing; I am quiet, miserable, achy... a strange twin of the house, creaking and wheezing myself. It's one of those wild moments .... you know, when you're thrown back to all the other moments just like this one, some karmic rabbit hole slide to another universe of the mind... my posture calls me to other such hunched over hot mugs quietude, hot toddies as a kid, a forbidden soothing swallow, more potent than all the vicks  vapour rub in the world, the searing comfort pulling me down into a dreamy sleepiness better even  than sleep, more of them as an adult, with my own unregulated proportions of medicinal ingredients, and later, when the rum and whisky could no longer be counted on to provide anything other than  numbed slumber, the move to less enjoyable concoctions.... but always the heat, the hunch.... I wonder if I ever drank one of those knowing that I would not be getting right back at whatever it was that was waiting for me after I got up.... and there was no doubt that I would be getting up. How did I learn to deny the call of necessary rest.... I wonder... how can that surrender  to the solace of hot lemon not carry me on to day of rest, to taking a break.... it's unthinkable... funny how that memory works, that unthinkable ....
funny how that all came back just sitting here, hunched over the comfort drink,  with its promise of  respite, which is all I can get my head around right now; which is enough...
it is.

Orpheus

first, a necessary wound

pain's intimate clarity

finds its mark

hurts

like hell

no where to hide

imagine instead 

rushing & crunching 

through pile after pile of fallen leaves

soft amber swirling

floating...

then, one long, soaring moment

pours strange benevolence into a necessary scar

imagine its sweet resilience

cradling every treachery 

released into soft amber

swirling

floating...

M.I.A.

Nothing like one's partner having  major surgery to keep one compassionately occupied for a whole string of days.
The worst is over..... back home soon and with perspective on the continuing saga of health care... or are those two words becoming an oxymoron?

Looking forward to writing my way out of .... and into .. . the highs and lows of this experience.

Hope y'all are your usual subversively creative and intriguing selves. 

Back to the regular workplace

When I know myself, I know others

When I master myself, I do not need to master others 

Tao Te Ching

Chapter 33

Son

Did you know 

you were born

before

dawn

after

a night of wondering about

your 

next 

ocean

you began 

wondering

again

Would you rather.....

Boys (and, sometimes, girls), of a particular age play " would you rather", a game of word play, a game of awful choices, all the while trying to out- gross each other with progressively disgusting  leaps of imaginative comparison. I have heard the exchanges for the past two weeks at our autism camp. Here are a few examples:
"would you rather eat the gum off the sole of my shoe, or eat boogers out of your brother's nose?"
"would you rather pick up a dead squirrel or kiss a boy on the mouth?" ( I should point out that homophobia  runs hot and high among the 8-13 year old boys at camp).
"would you rather drink snot or drool?"

You get the gist , I'm sure.

I 've also heard some other versions of "would you rather" over the past two weeks, choices impossible and necessary, choices that have made me laugh and made me cry. Here are a few examples:
Kimmi is a 6 year old Romanian adoptee at our camp. She has autism, but is  in most ways anyone would notice a typical little girl who likes to swim and play and have friends, who is afraid of bees and loud noises,  who perhaps cries  more readily and more intensely than might be comfortable for some, and who perhaps has more focused interest in the minute details of every situation. Kimmi 's mom tells me that Kimmi  will miss the last day of camp. She hates to do this, but Kimmi has received a play date invitation and it happens so seldom that mom feels that she can't say no. Would you rather have your daughter miss the last day of a camp she enjoys more than anything else she does during the year or miss a play date that hardly ever happens?
Bowling is a new activity for camp. Our first foray into bowling was last year with only half the campers going. This summer, we take the whole pack of them..... yup, 55 campers week one and 60 campers week two. Manager of bowling alley week one tells me the kids cannot bring their lunch into the establishment. I tell him they will inhale their lunch in 10 minutes and will be up for their shoes and bowling within five minutes of said inhalation of lunch. He had that look of non-negotiation on his face. I say,  if these kids don't eat their lunch NOW,  you will experience a catastrophe beyond your wildest imaginings. He and I engage in a brief, yet meaningful, staring contest. He says, fine, they can eat. Would you rather let 55  kids and young adults with autism carry out their scheduled lunch or have them move into their respective demonstrations of profound confusion and anxiety?
Dimitri is a genius inhabiting the body of a 7 year old, who looks like a 5 year old,  who thinks everyone at camp is stupid except him. He needs a predictable schedule  and  will tantrum at the slightest variation. He is a drama king, a true virtuoso. One of his tactics is the flop and wail  while protesting the gross injustices of the universe. I ask, do you want to walk or be carried? He wants to tell me that of all the stupid people at camp, I am the stupidest. Maybe so, I agree, but I am not laying on the floor crying like a baby. This is what is known as redirection. Something that gets his mind off his distress. He stops and considers the scenario I have just presented ..... his little forehead scrunching up in concentration. Do you want to walk or be carried? Would you rather get yourself under control or choose to get some help with that?
This summer is the 15th year of this camp. Would I rather be on vacation, or here, with these oft-times complicated, most times delightful kids and young people who want nothing more than to be treated like they have a right to belong?
No contest.