Sunday, January 21, 2007

The Parable of the Portable Son I walked into the bathroom, last night, as I sometimes do, and I had to pause and reflect for a moment. I had to do other things too, but pausing and reflecting moved right up the list. My son is a special needs person with upwardly mobile aspirations, the operative word being "mobile."  I suspect he gets comfort from hauling what aspects of his life he can around with him.  And in this house, where one parent works at home and the other is gone a lot, and there is no automatic "family time" when everyone relaxes and roasts marshmallows and plays Uno, John tends to redecorate. And we let him.  We gave up a long time ago, and now what boundaries we set have to do mostly with certain minimum safety requirements and not blocking the refrigerator door.  Other than that, it's pretty flexible around here. See, he doesn't like to be alone.  He might be doing alone stuff but he wants company, and he'll find it.  And then he'll look for the nearest electrical outlet and all is well. His iMac is great for this.  It's not a laptop but it might as well be, so have mouse will travel.  You never know where you'll run across him, tapping away: Could be the living room, could be the dining room, could be the hallway.  Could be next to you when you wake up.  One of the benefits of being the parent of an autistic child is that what in other situations we might call indulgence is accepted (at least by us) as just coping mechanisms, both his and ours.  So this Christmas, after a couple of years of watching him carry a 27-inch television from room to room to play video games on, depending on his mood and who was available, we got him a nice 19-inch LCD flat screen. It's now part of the floating John world, along with various chairs and tables (and bedspreads and empty boxes of croutons and dirty dishes and lots and lots of nearly but not completely used Dr. Pepper bottles).  It's kind of like getting a home makeover every day.  We leave lights on when we sleep. But last night, I walked into the bathroom, which is not a very big bathroom, and there was a piano bench in there, and I just had to ruminate a bit on what an odd family we have. I mean, you can go your whole life without seeing something like that. 5:53:14 PM    comment []

Ten Days and Counting "How could I have grown so old without once swinging on a vine?" -- Rod McKuen I'm not sure when January 31 started to become just another day, a calendar blip, an afterthought.  Maybe it was 1980, when Jimmy Carter called the holiday "unserious" and a good part of the nation ducked their heads (do you remember the "I'm With Unserious" T-shirts?). Or maybe it was just getting older, having kids and credit cards and a couple of weed whackers, that led me to slide right into February every year without so much as a knuckle grazing the floor. And, of course, it's just so commercial now.  They take down the Christmas trees one day and the next morning the masks go up on the wall, not to mention the "George of the Jungle" marathons and the Chiquita Parade.  Sigh. Still, I'm a traditional kind of guy, and as winter settles in and baseball season seems a distant dream, I can't help but remember my childhood and the end of January, when hearts were light and hair was everywhere, and if you concentrated you could smell something different in the air. Hey.  It wasn't me.       4:41:17 PM    comment []

© Copyright 2007 Chuck Sigars.