Close calls and the Clash

People have asked me about my summer holiday. I don't think of steeple chases as being holidays. This year's Victoria visit ended in the same tempo as the previous five weeks, that is, manufactured calm stretched over panic.

Having packed on the afternoon of the day before my departure, I noticed an email alert from Air Canada, warning of severe thunderstorms forecast for Toronto and Hades -- my exact route home.  Sitting in Demeter's dining room, I was hit by an avalanche of flashbacks from August 2003.

That was the year the Resident Fan Boy returned to Hades before us, because we'd begun the trip visiting the RFB's cousins in Alberta.  So, on that fateful August morning,  I arrived at Victoria International airport, marshalling eleven-year-old elder daughter and seven-year-old younger daughter, and thinking for three.  The check-in agent offered to switch our tickets from a route through Toronto to a transfer at Vancouver to a direct flight to Ottawa, which would land us in Hades a full hour earlier.  I considered my Virgo husband, all set to meet us at the airport, and refused.

After the long flight to Toronto, I comforted myself and younger daughter with the prospect of seeing the RFB in an hour or so.  Our flight to Hades was scheduled to leave at 4:10 pm, and we boarded at 3:50 pm, so we didn't see the lights go out.

The first indication that we had a problem was when the pilot told us we were unable to disconnect from the boarding tunnel.  The next was when the flight attendants started handing out ice cream bars.  A lady with a cell phone across the aisle informed us that it was the whole American north-east, plus Ontario.  After over an hour, we were told to get out, reclaim our luggage, and re-book.  We descended the escalator into hell.  (My grandmother always said that hell would be like an airport.)

Crowds of flustered people pressed up against dimly-lit luggage carousels.  Backed-up toilets (electronic flushers).  Rows of locked luggage trolleys (electronic release mechanisms).  Piles of pet-carriers containing yelping and dehydrated animals.  Huge line-ups to pay phones, because in 2003, not that many people had cell phones.

I didn't know where to go first.  Where would I take the girls for the night?  How could I explain this to younger daughter, who was begging to be taken "home to Ottawa, to see Daddy"?

It became increasingly clear that our luggage was not going to appear, especially when the generator for the carousel broke down after a couple of hours.  A young man showed me how to use my credit card in the pay phone, and a lady, noticing younger daughter's distress, let me in the line ahead of her.  I called the RFB, but he was waiting for us at the airport in Ottawa, and our answering machine, being electric, didn't work.

Fortunately, I had my address book with me and desperately put a call through to friends in Etobicoke.  Unfortunately, their elder daughter was home.  A nice girl, but not that swift on the uptake:
"Oh hi!  We're having a black-out!"
"Yes, I know.  We're at the airport..."
"Yeah?  Where ya going?"
My heart sank.
"Nowhere.  The planes are grounded."
"Man!  I hadn't thought of that!"
I'll bet, I thought, glancing at the long line-up behind me.  I could hear her father asking who it was.  He was there in twenty minutes, even with no working traffic lights, by which time an announcement informed us that ticketed luggage would be forwarded to the appropriate airport.  This left us in the clothes in which we were standing, but with the books, tapes and toys in our carry-on luggage.  In those days before liquid restrictions, I also had cosmetics and saline solution for my contact lenses.

Younger daughter was beside herself. She clutched my hand from the rear seat of the van, nearly twisting my arm out of its socket.  However, as we entered the dimly-lit hall of our friends' condo building, she turned and asked:  "Are we into Toronto?"  (We had stayed here for a visit during March Break the year before.)  One bowl of melted strawberry short-cake ice cream, and she was much better!

Later, as my exhausted daughters slept, I opened the blinds, got back into bed, and gazed out at a pitch-black city, listening to CBC radio on the headphones of my Walkman, trying not to fret about how I would get the girls home.  The voices on the radio were describing how clear the stars were, but all I could see were clouds of mosquitoes just beyond the screens.

The next morning, I tried to reach the bus depot, and the phone was answered by an agent in Alberta. I tried to reach my travel agent and Air Canada -- nothing but voice mail and busy signals.  I finally phoned Via Rail, let it ring more than two minutes, then got through to book train tickets.  I learned the Resident Fan Boy had managed to book plane tickets.  I thought of the hell we'd left the night before - nothing in the news reports indicated that anything had changed - and decided to chance the train.

Our hosts, who had given up their bed to us, tried to convince us to stay, but I had the overwhelming feeling that I had to get younger daughter home somehow.  They relented and packed an enormous care package of cookies, fruit, peanut butter sandwiches, several cartons of apple juice, and bottles of water.  I wondered how on earth I'd manage to cart this along with our carry-on luggage.

At 11 am, Union Station in downtown Toronto was steamy and crowded.  The line-up at our gate turned out to be for the 9:30 am train.  They told me to expect the 12:35 train at 1:45.  Then 2 pm.  Then 2:30.  Elder daughter had assumed the task of checking the notice board, walking the length of the station and reporting back.

I rationed out food to the girls with each delay, buying myself time and giving silent and fervent thanks for the heavy bag of goodies as it became lighter and lighter. I used my new credit card skill to phone the RFB every couple of hours, as my hopes dwindled.  With each passing hour, I wondered desperately if I should find a bus to the airport.  Which would get us home quicker?  Staying here as the trains were steadily delayed, or setting up camp at the airport where, the radio told me, the computers had completely broken down?

"I have a Clash song playing in my head," I told a fellow mum, who was attempting to shepherd half a dozen teenagers back to Windsor. She grinned broadly and began to growl:  "Da-duh-duh, duh-duh, duh-duh DA!  Should I stay or should I go?"
"If I go, it could be trouble!"  I sang back.
"If I stay, it could be double!" We were both dancing now.  I think we embarrassed the teenagers.


At 3:30, they told us our train was cancelled, and that we would be hooked up with the next train to Ottawa. That's the closest I came to breaking down completely.

At 5 pm, I stumbled up the steps to the train platform and a guard said that this coach was for First Class. Maybe it was the sight of two bedraggled little girls that convinced him to allow us into the railcar -- air-conditioned, comfortable and spacious with, glory be, a food cart with reasonably fresh food.

The train took two hours to reach the Toronto city limits, ordinarily a twenty-minute trip, but rail switches had to be done by hand. Out the window, we saw Lake Ontario and lush fields with butterflies and dragonflies having no trouble keeping pace with the train.

During the seven-hour train ride (usually four hours), we did puzzles, listened to story tapes and the CBC, read books, ate, drank, and chatted with our neighbouring passengers, all from Toronto: an elderly lady determined to attend a wedding, and a mum and her two daughters who had decided to sweat the wait for a family visit to Carp -- I thought they were all very nice, but nuts, but didn't say so, of course!

Younger daughter dozed off, there was a blood-red moon on the horizon, and we stopped off-line to let a luxury American passenger train pass. We could see the fancy lamps in the sleeper cars.

The Resident Fan Boy was waiting for us at the station when we arrived after midnight, some forty hours after getting up to go to the Victoria airport. People jumped the tracks to head for the parking lot; the VIA employees wisely decided to overlook this. Younger daughter wrapped herself firmly around her dad, and we returned by taxi to our stuffy house. The power was back, but air-conditioning was forbidden.  The following day, Resident Fan Boy found our suitcases amongst the hundreds at the airport, because I'd tied gaily-coloured ribbons to the handles.  No one asked him for ID.

All this flashed through my skull in August 2016, prodding me to re-book my flight -- to a 6 am departure the next morning.  I said my goodbyes to Demeter before going to bed, rose at 2:45 am to finish last-minute packing and call a cab at 3:30 am to ensure arrival at Victoria airport at 4:30 am.  My cabbie grew up in Belleville, one of the towns we passed through on that slow train ride thirteen years ago.  He loves Victoria, has no desire to return to Ontario.

Sadly, neither did I.

Pat Bay Highway was like a country road at that hour and I arrived early.  The plane had been described as going to Ottawa, but had a stop in Toronto, descending through thunderheads.  I had to leave the plane, wait in the lobby and then queue with my ID and boarding pass to get back on.

The threatened thunderstorms never materialized.

Bacon burger

Little ducks lined up in a row, a photo by Madeleine_H on Flickr.

When we come to Victoria, there are boxes to tick. Some years ago, I made a little list of homesickness, things I dream about during the long winters, khaki springs, and oppressive summers of Ottawa.

Today, I led younger daughter through Beacon Hill Park, through the layers of memories that rest over Victoria for me, like February drifts when we have a snowy winter in Ottawa. I saw the ducks lined up on the old log, but didn't have my camera with me, so I've "borrowed" this photo by Madeleine Holland (who evidently had her camera last week). There was also quite a line-up of photographers catching the same image today.

I told younger daughter about having elder daughter on a harness, because she'd plunge towards the ducks, whatever the weather.

"You didn't care for the harness, did you?"
"No," she agreed gravely, and we went on past the flower-beds which I remember being empty during the drought of 2001, and how they were "planted" with lights for that one evening of Luminara that year. Luminara, alas, died two years ago, after a dozen years of music, dancing and home-made lanterns. Ironically, someone got inspired by the festival not long ago and brought it to Ottawa where it still thrives.

On the bridge over the lily pond, a trio of girls squirmed on their bellies with sticks trying to secure a water lily for themselves. We stepped around them and made our way past the enormous water kettle that replaced the grubby wading pool where I used to skin my toes when I was a girl.

We finally reached today's box to tick -- Beacon Drive-in, which has been serving soft ice cream to park wanderers since the dawn of time. Younger daughter tucked contentedly into chicken fingers while I had my first bacon burger in - oh - about twenty years, I should think. Younger daughter gazed in pleasure across the street, and when I asked what had made her smile, she replied: "Nothing. Just enjoying the day."

We got our soft ice cream cones and strolled back through the park by another path.

Variations on precarious

Ever had a song that has always meant one thing completely change its meaning in the course of events?

I've always enjoyed Blues Traveler's "Most Precarious", in spite of an unbelievably lame official video where a handsome young man pursues a dazzling young woman while the camera focuses on her exposed belly button.

However, I'd dropped Demeter off at the airport, and while there will be a certain relief in having our house back to our accustomed level of privacy, I was looking out the bus window, assailed by darker thoughts because when your mother reaches a certain age, you have to wonder which separation is the final one. (I hasten to add that Demeter is in excellent health.) To drive away my melancholy, I stuck in my ear-buds and hit "Song Shuffle" on my iPod. "Most Precarious" was among the songs cheering my soul. This lasted until I picked up younger daughter from her independent school (consisting of 25 students) and discovered that for the third time this week, her teachers have failed to look at her assignments and the notes I enclosed with them.

We're having a battle of wills with the two head teachers who, despite younger daughter's having been at the school for two years, are convinced that her inability to remember the different items required for each class (a big change from middle school to high school) is some sort of adolescent stone-walling and not a result of her memory deficits and autism. Apparently, they think refusing to help her retrieve what she needs from the cloakroom, including the homework assignments which have taken hours of family time, will teach her responsibility.

I came home unutterably depressed and close to tears. Younger daughter, of course, became convinced I was angry with her.

And all of a sudden, "Most Precarious" is not a song about taking a chance on romantic love; it's a song about struggling for a daughter's education.



Music & Lyrics: John Popper

Don't you give up don't allow disaster
Don't you give up don't you let her win
We're talking about a "forever after"
Don't you give up don't you dare give in
Don't you give up don't you dare give in

Doesn't it seem most precarious
Doesn't it seem such a chance to take?
Doesn't it seem most precarious
Why does it feel like a big mistake?

Please understand and hear what I'm saying
The time is now and you don't have long
She could be oceans away tomorrow
So soon your chance will have come and gone
So soon your chance will have come and gone

Doesn't it seem most precarious
Doesn't it seem such a chance to take?
Doesn't it seem most precarious
Why does it feel like a big mistake?

The tight-wire's strung and you're out in the middle
All eyes upon you no net below
Inches to go and you're almost home free
Feel the wires swaying to and fro
Feel the wires swaying to and fro

Doesn't it seem most precarious
Doesn't it seem such a chance to take?
Doesn't it seem most precarious
Why does it feel like it would be a damn shame?
Would be forever if it meant a day?
How stoically I exclaim
As she turns from me and walks away

The light in her eyes explanation escapes you
Longing to please and not feel alone
And she doesn't know it but really she loves you
Some day so soon you're gonna make it home
Some day so soon you're gonna make it home

Doesn't it seem most precarious
Doesn't it seem such a chance to take?
Doesn't it seem most precarious
Why does it feel like a big mistake?


We've left the school a stern voice message. Heaven help us...

West of Eden

I look out over the large garden that slopes down the hill below Lansdowne. It reminds me of a long-ago May, my first visit to London when I'd gaze out the back of a friend's house in Muswell Hill, south over the dipping garden and beyond to the red brick houses below. However, here, I see the Olympic Mountains rising in the distance on the far side of the Strait of Juan de Fuca. They've pulled up grey and white cloudy eiderdowns to their rocky chins, but the sky above us is clear and very blue.

Drifting through the clearing is younger daughter, hair cascading down her back to her waist. She's picked an apple from one of the surrounding trees and eats it dreamily, occasionally frowning to herself in the midst of her inner dialogue -- the only place where words come easily to her.

It's Eve, Eve in the morning, returned to Eden.

Write of Passage number fourteen: do I get my medal yet?

Conversation doesn't come easily to younger daughter. I spend two hours each day with her on the bus, but very few words are exchanged and if I try to introduce a topic, I'm usually met with an impatient "I know! I know that, Mum!" even if she doesn't know, because the underlying message is Please stop talking; I'm getting overwhelmed.

So the days when she does initiate a conversation are special indeed, and terrifying, because it means the topic is of vital importance and my answer can make or break her heart.

About a week before Hallowe'en, she sees something out the bus window which makes her shudder with delight.

"Hallowe'en is coming really soon!"
I agree.
She reaches across and touches my arm with one mitten. It's black and has reflective skeletal hand bones over the back. (Uh-oh. She's touching me to make sure I'm paying attention. This must be paramount. She rarely does this.)

"I do want to go trick-or-treating this year..."
"Really?" I say, gently quizzical. "Aren't you fourteen?"
"I know I'm fourteen, Mum!" She retreats back to her window and I watch her internal struggle throughout the long bus ride, punctuated by rebellious murmurs and flat declarations such as:
"Fine! I won't go trick-or-treating!"
Minutes pass, more muttering.
Finally: "I've changed my mind! I won't watch Meet Me in St Louis tonight!"
Meet Me in St Louis features a long segment about Hallowe'en. The previous evening, she watched ET which is set in the days around Hallowe'en.

As we get off the bus, she is clearly unhappy and strides ahead of me. I follow her sadly, considering the issue. The Resident Fan Boy and I both gave up trick-or-treating when we became teenagers. Things were a little more delineated then. At thirteen in British Columbia, you used to leave elementary school and enter junior high. These days, middle schools muddy the waters between childhood and adolescence. They can begin as early as Grade Six in some provinces. Furthermore in our long-vanished childhoods, there was considerable social pressure to stop trick-or=treating when one got older. One lady was so adamant that she refused treats to any kid who appeared to her to be over ten. Her windows got soaped and egged quite a bit...

When we came to Ottawa ten years ago, I was quite startled to see great hulking teenagers outnumber the little tikes who appeared on my porch with pillowcases at the ready. Nevertheless, older daughter decided on her own (with several veerings in the days before the festival) to stay home when she turned thirteen.

Near younger daughter's school, she falls back into step with me. (Another once-in-a-blue-moon occurrence.)

"I'll watch Enchanted tonight. I was just kidding about trick-or-treating."
My heart melts. "Some teenagers do trick-or-treating, but Daddy and I stopped when we were thirteen. So did your sister. Why don't you ask at school if they still trick-or-treat?"
Short silence.
"I think I will go trick-or-treating, but this will be the last time."
"That sounds like a good plan," I say gravely.
"And next year, I'll just stay home."
"Well, you can still wear a costume to school and we will still carve a pumpkin and you can hand out the treats."
"Yes. 'Cause I'm not a little kid."
"And the good thing about handing out the treats is that you can still eat them!"
"Good. I might get hungry on Hallowe'en."

Well, that was...interesting....

Now here's the odd thing. The handful of you who check in with me here know that my younger daughter lives with the label PDD-NOS, a developmental disorder on the autism spectrum. Today is Communication Shutdown Day (along with All Saints' Day and National Vegan Day, but never mind that), so the idea is to cut yourself off from the internet, or at least from Facebook and Twitter, so you can share that sense of isolation that someone on the autism spectrum faces every day.

I guess I'd have to be more addicted to Facebook than I am to experience a real sense of being cut off from humanity. I "tweet" about once a month and sadly, don't even get so many emails that I can't go without checking for a day. I'm also old enough to remember life when houses without PCs were the norm.

However, I do intend to NaBloPoMo this month for the fifth time, so participating in a computer-free day is a challenge. If I stayed up, I could simply post one stroke past midnight. NaBloPoMo is on Pacific Daylight Time, so my post would read "November 2nd" at my blog, and "November 1st" at NaBloPoMo.

Given that my constitution gave up on party hours years ago, though, I simply unplugged the computer at 9 pm last night and logged back on twenty-four hours later. That will have to do. Oh yes, and I did donate and "x"-ed out my profile picture at Facebook.

Did dropping out of the so-called social network teach me anything? Well, depressingly enough, I got a lot more done. Did it teach me more about the challenges of autism? Well, no. I live here with my daughter in the outskirts of Autismland (a suburb of Hades). Taking away the computer doesn't teach us more about rejection than we already knew.

Bred of an airy word

Logic tells me awful moments like these don't last forever, but when you're in them, time, like space, has a way of stretching vertically as well as horizontally into infinity.

And how did it begin, this civil brawl, bred of an airy word by me, o mummy? This morning as I pinned up younger daughter's hair in preparation for her swimming lesson, she groaned. "This is going to be a bad day." I was baffled, but in a bit of a hurry.

Nothing bad at swimming lesson. Younger daughter executed some admirable dolphin kicks, and did well treading water in preparation for her Red Cross Level Eight endurance requirement. She was excited that it was a water slide day and unhesitatingly zoomed down twice.

Afterward, she was withdrawn and tired, so I took my most recent tack and tactfully withdrew to read the paper in the lounge, leaving her to finish dressing. Unfortunately, younger daughter's change time has been slowly increasing over the summer. What used to take twenty-five minutes now takes thirty-five. As not one but two buses whizzed off downtown when we finally left the rec centre, I turned to her in mild exasperation and said: "You know, we'd have caught those buses, but you're taking a bit too long in the change-room."

Sigh. I forgot that I was talking to a premenstrual fourteen-year-old on the autistic spectrum. By the time we boarded the bus, she had advanced from indignant to furious, and about halfway through the long, long bus ride (because we'd missed those two other buses) she had graduated to heart-broken sobs. When this kind of thing happens, talking is of very little use. I've learned through hard experience that it simply feeds into the maelstrom of her injured feelings. So I sat there, feeling the gaze of our fellow passengers on the crowded bus (being packed with ESL students from the summer programmes at UVic, of course), and sensing the unspoken "Why aren't you doing something?".

Our plan had been to return items to the library, eat at her favourite restaurant, then do a bit of grocery-shopping. We got off the bus, and she stalked ahead of me to the corner. I had decided the quiet courtyard behind the coffee shop might be an opportunity for her to cool down, so waited by the entrance until she noticed I was not following her. I gestured her to follow me, and she dashed by me to the other end of the plaza where a passage by an optometrist leads back to the street. I sat down and waited for her to notice I was not behind her. Eventually I heard sobs and saw pedestrians exit the passage, looking over their shoulders. I got up and went to investigate, being joined at the same time by the woman from the optometrist's.

"Are you her mother?"
"Yes," I nodded.
"What's the matter?"
"She's upset," I replied, politely but concisely, hoping she'd take the hint. She stood by, while I talked to my daughter.
"How can we solve this?"
"I don't know!"
"You're stuck in your bad feelings?"
"Yes?"
"How long will you feel like this?"
"Forever!"
"Oh. That's a very long time."
"I know it's a long time, Mom!"
"Can you tell me why you're so upset?"
"I...I....I...... I miss Daddy!"
I felt something relax in our observer.
"Can I do anything to help?" (People say this. I'm not sure why. Because they can't think of anything else to say?)
I decided to focus this back to younger daughter: "The lady is asking whether you need help. Do you want to say 'Yes, please' or 'No, thank-you'?"

After the optometrist departed, we continued our stalemate. I told younger daughter we couldn't go to the library unless she calmed down. I stepped into Broughton Street and daughter headed east toward the library. I waited until she noticed I wasn't following. And there we were standing about ten yards apart. When I moved toward her, she retreated, and when I turned back toward Douglas Street, she gingerly followed. Every time I tried to speak, she turned her back and grimaced, rather like the Peanuts kids do in the animated Charlie Brown specials. Two Taurus at an impasse. It seem to be endless, but probably wasn't much more than five minutes.

Finally, I decided to walk toward the library. She carefully kept her distance and studied an exhibit while I sort the library items into the bins. When she entered the library, I followed her to the children's section and sort of non-directed her to the DVD section while I took a seat. After she stood irresolutely for some time, I ventured to ask her if she wanted help. Gradually, we eased into what passes for normality for us, and I felt brave enough to lead her through the planned itinerary.

Seated in the Dutch Bakery, her favourite diner, she murmured: "I'm sorry."
"Pardon?"
"I'm sorry; I did a terrible thing today."
"What was that?"
"I slept too late."
She had been up in plenty of time, but I had had to rush her a little through breakfast.
"Then I said rude things on the bus."
"You were very angry."
"Yes and you told me to leave you alone. Never say that to me again!"

I had, in my despair, mumbled, "Oh, Leave me alone," when her shouting and crying had made me want to leap off at the next bus stop and leave her there. But a person on the autistic spectrum takes things very literally, and although she's told me to leave her alone a hundred times, when I say it, it means abandonment and that I will never love her again. Even as she ordered her food, I could see her face still on that brink of crumpling into tears.

As we left the restaurant amicably, she was humming to herself and stimming slightly, and the little old ladies stared.

Seeing is grieving

We only knew we were in trouble when the bus came into view.

Yesterday, the bus failed to show up on the scheduled first day back at school for younger daughter after a two-week March Break. Now, a missing bus, in the delicate domino set-up that is the four-to-five-bus journey from home to school and back, throws off the morning's schedule and I had a medical appointment set up for ten, so I took the easy route, led younger daughter home through the rain, phoned the school to say we wouldn't be there, and took her along with me to the ophthalmologist. It's worked before. When younger daughter got up this morning, she seemed no worse than any other school morning, preparing quickly and even being ready ahead of time.

She first started wailing as the bus approached: "No! I don't want to go to school!" I guess she hoped that maybe the bus wouldn't show up this morning as well, and I would take her home again. By the time we'd taken our seats, she was crying openly, and I knew from past experience that any attempt to console her or even engage her would only exacerbate the situation. Finally, I asked her if I should sit with Daddy, and after a few more sobs, she told me to move.

She wept the rest of the long bus ride to Hurdman Station. I sat across the aisle from her, next to the Resident Fan Boy and watched our fellow passengers watching us, and particularly her. We got out to wait for our transfer and younger daughter resolutely moved away from us into a recess of the long shelter, facing the wall.

"What's the problem?"
A bearded gentleman whom I recognised from the previous bus was standing in front of me.
"I beg your pardon," I said, a little sharply.
"I only wanted to know if I could help."
"My daughter has pervasive developmental disorder and she doesn't want to go to school," I said, softening the edge to my voice, but keeping the answer short. You learn to sniff out quickly the holier-than-thous and busy-bodies. This guy wasn't one of them. I don't know what help he thought he could offer, but kind hearts shouldn't be booted around.
"It must be very hard," he said.
"It is. Thank-you."

He walked away. Part of me wanted to say: It isn't like this every day. It isn't. That's why people were noticing us today. They only notice us when something goes wrong. Remember what I said yesterday about being invisible? There are perks...

The Resident Fan Boy decided to accompany us all the way to school. He sat next to her on the second leg of the long journey alongside the barren early-spring fields of the Experimental Farm. I sat in silent misery behind.

We made our way up the suburban street toward the school, younger daughter trailing behind like Eurydice. Naturally, it took some minutes for someone to unlock the door.

"It will be okay," I said automatically.
"It's not okay! It's not okay, Mom," she declared. The classroom was locked; her teacher not yet arrived. Younger daughter stationed herself at the far end of the hall. We met her teacher at the door and gave her a quick rundown.

"She'll be fine," she said calmly. "It will take two or three minutes." If you go right now, she didn't say. I called a reassuring goodbye.

"I don't want it to be a long day...."

We left. The Resident Fan Boy took me to a Starbucks and we slid back into blessed invisibility. Oh God. Dear God.

Can you feel the same?
Yeah, ya gotta love the pain.
Ooh, it looks like rain again.
Ooh, feel it comin' in.
The mountains win again.

The sisterhood

Today, I feel a little more invisible than usual. It's time for my annual ophthalmology appointment, so I've left off the makeup and am wearing glasses. I could get depressed about looking less appealing than usual, but, heck, I'm over thirty-five. Nobody looks at me anyway. It's not all bad; I've discovered that I can cry in public -- no one notices.

Invisibility doesn't just come from failing to be young. Having a special needs child can make you vanish into the scenery more effectively than Harry Potter's magic cloak. I've discussed this with other "special needs mums". One of them described chatting with another mum while waiting outside the school for her son on the autism spectrum. A woman walked up to the other mum and arranged a play date between their respective children. It was as if my friend were not standing there. She tells me this is a regular occurrence. No one ever approaches to make a play date with her son.

I believe her. I'd been at that school for eight years: four with neuro-typical (albeit gifted) older daughter and four with PDD-NOS younger daughter. I was visible and included the first four; invisible and excluded the second four, even though I was at the school every day -- exactly like my daughters.

Actually, invisibility has its own blessings, because the only time you become visible with a special needs child is when there's a problem. One of our national papers here in Canada is The Globe and Mail which, for the past fifteen years or so, has had a feature called "Facts and Arguments", a daily essay submitted by a G&M reader. Not long ago, a heart-breaking piece appeared, written by a special needs mum who is on that still-hopeful-not-yet-exhausted opening edge of seeing her child through school. In an effort to help classmates and their parents understand about her son, who is living with Down's Syndrome, she wrote a letter and the teacher distributed it to the class families. She was approached by a parent who said she was "surprised at the letter" then asked (wait for it) why this mother had not had prenatal testing. This gentle mother managed a polite response, stumbled to her car and spent the rest of the morning crying:

What I should have asked the mom in the playground was, “What if your daughter was in a car accident tomorrow and had a brain injury? Would you love her any less?”

Oh, darlin', I've been there too, leaning unseen against a tree in the little park below the school, gasping and weeping. For myself, what I long to ask those other parents with neuro-typical children is this: "Do you really think that your child's strengths and gifts are your doing? Do you really think that my child's disabilities are my doing? Because, dear people, all it takes is an illness or an accident. Then you can be in my little club."

I have a secret name for my little club. I call it The Sisterhood. I realize that dads are in this too, but it's the mums that I encounter. Have you ever heard of "gaydar"? I'm reasonably certain that there's a similar sort of sense between special needs mums because ever since I came to Hades (mere months after younger daughter was first "identified"), the only true connections I seem to have made have been with others in The Sisterhood, and there's usually been an attraction of sorts, even before we learn about each other's children. Like any club, we have our own sort of competitions; a meeting over coffee includes support, sympathy, and the underlying gauging of whose life is more challenging and whose child is more, or less, challenged. I usually seem to lose in the first category and win in the second, and feel that the other Sister leaves thinking her child is making better progress than mine.

It's a service I provide.

We share our frustrations over therapy, teachers, bone-headed comments (see above), bullying....

Oh yes, bullying. Sometimes it seems our kids are invisible and that's when they fall through the cracks of the school system, but our kids are different, not a desirable thing in school culture and that makes them highly visible targets.

Not long ago, this article appeared in our local paper, about a boy from Alma, Québec, which is about 600 kilometres (a bit less than 400 miles) from Hades. He's been missing for over a year and the events leading up to his disappearance were uncomfortably familiar.

It was sadness for him and his mother (one of The Sisterhood) that had me riding in the bus, listening to Kate Rusby:
Winter comes around,
And he knows he is homeward bound,
His heartbeat is the only sound he's known,

He once lost his way,
He knows now that was yesterday,
He fell down on his knees to pray for home.

We'll sing to the morning,
We'll sing till the bells they sound,
We'll sing till the wandering soul is found.

He's found his way at last,
With each turn a new bond was cast,
His friends now hold him steady fast and true.

With peace in his eyes,
The fear now is a pain in the skies,
With friends near he sees only skies of blue

It's clearer every day,
He knows now he is here to stay,
He cares not why he went away so long.

He's found where he belongs,
He know he's been here all along,
He is smiling as he joins his friends in song.

We'll sing to the morning,
We'll sing till the bells they sound,
We'll sing till the wandering soul is found.

And there it is -- all our invisible hopes and dreams for these children who were sent to us. Pipe-dreams, perhaps, but it's what we hold on to.

Oh, my Sisters. This song is for you and them.

A Pinch of Salt

The Resident Fan Boy ordered a cappuccino for brunch at a fairly fancy restaurant which has recently opened down the block from us. I was having a very tart mango smoothie and he suggested that I also add a little sugar to it. So I did, a very little because the spoon that came with the bowl was so very tiny and the sugar was in minuscule crystallized blocks. The Resident Fan Boy took one sip and grimaced.
"It's salt," he announced. I pointed out the server to him.
"Where?"
"There," I said with just an edge of impatience. "He's just leaned down behind the counter."
Younger daughter, who is remarkably sensitive for someone on the spectrum, picked up my tone and protested.
"PLEASE don't be mad, Mom!"
"It's okay," I reassured her. "You don't have to shout."
"I'm not shouting!"
"Well, your voice is a little loud."
"I'M NOT SHOUTING, MOM!"
I watched an older group dressed in expensively casual clothes turn their heads. One woman got up slightly and leaned to get a good look at younger daughter.
The Resident Fan Boy returned from his conference with the server, and found me sitting in embarrassed silence and younger daughter looking somewhere between defiant and depressed.
"What's wrong?"
"It's fine."
"What happened?"
"Please. Just drop it."
Our server showed up minutes later with fresh drinks.
"You'd be surprised how often this happens." No, we wouldn't, I thought, as I surveyed the bowl of sugar which looked more like salt than the bowl of salt had.
That evening, younger daughter pulled on her boots as we prepared to go out to see the Boston Ballet at the National Arts Centre.
"Whew!" she said. "I'm glad I'm not angry anymore!"
Then she looked out the window.
"O-o-o-h! The moon is so beautiful!"
A full moon in Leo. That must be it.

♪There's a hole....there's a hole♫

For the past couple of weeks, the ice has retreated slowly, revealing khaki-coloured grass. Hesitantly, the grass has greened, and timid shoots, first of crocuses, then the leading edges of prospective daffodils and tulips, have poked through the muddy edges of the yard. So guess what happened yesterday? And continues today? Yes, my friends, I live in Ottawa where April really is the cruelest month, only to be followed by the unmitigated malice of May.

Outside, a cardinal is pipping hungrily, perching on the snow on the railing which is dripping with baby icicles. But the weather is not really the problem. The weather is not the true reason that I've been waking up each morning hearing a voice screaming as if down a deep well, a voice that I recognise as my own internal shrieking echoing from a hole in my soul that gapes indefinitely.

This morning is a field trip morning. (Oh gawd, not another one...) I lie in my bed, forcing my muscles to relax and mentally repeating affirmations: I am brave and courageous. I am wise and patient. Younger daughter is brave, intelligent and articulate.... I remind myself that I have laid both my and my daughter's clothes out for the day, that I have made her lunch and stashed it in the fridge, that I have written the time and place of the field trip in her calendar, and carefully explained to her that it is for the morning only and that she will be spending the afternoon at school.

And all goes well. Younger daughter is up early and delightedly clothing herself in a new skirt, complete with tights and pretty Mary-Janes, as this is a concert field trip at the National Arts Centre. We arrive at school and things go a little awry. First I realize I have failed to explain that there will be an hour of school before the field trip. Younger daughter wails: "There's no field trip???" While I'm attempting once again to explain the intricacies of time and space, and how an hour is not forever, I notice that on the kilometre walk up the hill, the lower "modesty" layer of younger daughter's skirt has bunched up under her snow jacket. I quickly draw her into the teacher's washroom to smooth the skirt down, but she protests: "But I like my skirt!" "Yes, darling, but you'll need to check it every now and then..." "But it's a beautiful skirt..." A brief wave of frustration and panic overtake me, and I hear myself say: "Please don't be like this!" and unconsciously turn away from her. "Fine!" she spits. "Go away and leave me!"

I manage to accompany her to her classroom, then retreat to the darkened office of the school library while the national anthem blares over the loudspeakers. There in the dark, for once, I don't have to stand at attention and sing. Feelings of failure and recrimination wash over me like tepid goo. I help the librarian sort books for three quarters of an hour, then surrender myself for field trip duty.

And it's fine, considering the bus is delayed, and there's the usual gang of kids who think singing several choruses of "This is the Song that Everybody Hates" is hilariously witty, and a Grade Five mum sits herself between Guardian Angel's mum and me and doesn't address a word to either of us. It's a supply teacher today who doesn't know that the time to tell the Grade Sixes to let the Grade Fives off the bus first is just before the bus comes to a halt, not after a third of the class has escaped. She's also trying to assign parents to smaller groups while the National Arts ushers are frantically trying to herd us to our seats in the amphitheatre while the orchestra strikes up Beethoven's Fifth.

However, we're seated in a row of Grade Sixes who chatter a little bit during the concert, but about the concert. The girls in front of us think it's very funny to conduct during one of the pieces, but I figure that means they're listening to the music, and I only have to give one meaningful glance at the boys to my left, who immediately pipe down. Elsewhere, I'm told afterward, the ushers had to hush the Grade Fives four times. Their teachers and accompanying parent volunteers are all sitting companionably together in the centre, oblivious to this. Later, the entire Grade Five class fails to show up at the bus. One of our parents and the supply teacher go off in search of them while we wait on the bus, watching the agitated body language of the driver. When they finally appear, the parents saunter up last.

On the way back to school, younger daughter tells me that two girls in the NAC washrooms told her how pretty her skirt was.

Tomorrow, she spends the entire day at one of the schools we're looking at for her next year. Then there's a so-called "Marsville" project which involves spending a whole day at the Museum of Science and Technology. Then a history fair which means another full day at the Museum of Civilization. All through cruel April and into the maliciousness of May....

Final NaBloPoMo post...for now

This morning, as I awoke into the half-light, I was beset by gremlins and remnants of dreams. I'd dreamt of endless bus rides, broken up by transfers in bleak corridors. As I tramped towards an overpass, I saw a man with young children who was a dead ringer for the Resident Fan Boy when he was younger and I descended to the platform to wait for the next bus, weeping for my lost youth.

Actually, very few of my dreams are so clearly about what is going on in my life. Most of them are confused, illogical, and just plain weird. Not unlike me, I suppose. I could write them down and apply Gestalt Therapy to them to determine their meaning, but that's so seventies...

This morning's dream doesn't really need any interpretation anyway. Obviously the uncertainty and worry of choosing a middle school for younger daughter is weighing on me. We've seen two private schools: one is attractive and easily accessible by transit, but it may not be a very good fit for younger daughter's particular blend of social and learning deficits. The other is a three-bus-commute that will take a two-hour bite out of younger daughter's day and a four-hour bite out of mine. It's rather grim and will cost twenty-five hundred dollars more than the other school, but seems to be aimed at students like younger daughter and is recommended by the developmental psychologist who has done two of her assessments, including the latest one. We can't really afford either, but we can't really afford to abandon younger daughter into the special hell that is the public middle school.

Anyway, this will be my last post with NaBloPoMo, at least for now. It's certainly been an interesting exercise in forcing me to write the equivalent of a short essay every day. My readership has gone up, although I harbour no delusions of grandeur about that. According to my site reader, most visitors stay less than a second. A depressing number of them are looking for that photo I posted of Princess Diana (with my fifth cousin India Hicks, name-drop, name-drop), let her go, girls..., and every winter, the Alice Munro short story "How I Met My Husband" is evidently a literature requirement in learning institutions across the eastern half of the United States. Others are really looking for Post-it Notes in various colours and shapes (including "rude-shaped"). Yesterday someone entered the search term "girlfriend wants to be tied to posts and gagged - youtube", but that's not exactly representative...

However, more and more, over the past six months most of the search terms have been variations on "post-it notes from hades", so dare I hope some people are searching for me? During this NaBloPoMo month, there have been more links to my blog and a few more regulars.

On the other hand, I'm not crazy about being a slave to my blog. It seems a good chunk of my time over the past four weeks has been spent planning and composing posts. I think my comfort level is about two posts per week. It's been instructive to push past that boundary for a while, but I need to get back to actual living and trying to accomplish things in a more tangible environment. The house is a mess, for one thing...

Will I try it again? Possibly. Hard to know when. Having tackled the shortest month, the logical next step would be one of the four "thirty days hath". April is birthday month madness; June is end-of-school insanity; September is beginning-of-school hysteria; and November is the beginning of the slippery slope to Christmas.

I'll think about it. In the meantime, I'll be checking at NaBloPoMo to see who's posting there.

Hello my baby frog

Yesterday's thaw melted layers of snow away and like an archeological dig took our front yard back in five weeks back in time. The needles left from the Christmas tree that waited forlornly for the chipper after Epiphany are now resting on top of the snow as if the beaten balsam was hauled away only yesterday, and a paper coffee cup that someone apparently tossed by our porch sometime before Christmas slowly emerged from the snow bank throughout the day. Today, the temperatures have plummeted back to -12 Celsius, and the streams of water leaking from underneath the drifts have frozen into hazardous C-shaped patches of ice across the sidewalks.

I've been traveling back in time too. Despite the pain of reliving past Februarys, (that's why they call it "nostalgia" - νόστος nostos "returning home", and άλγος algos "pain" ), I have been unable to resist following February from about 1989 to now. Some events I remember, some I have forgotten but the entries bring them back, and there are things I don't remember even though I made a note of them at the time, a shame because they are happy memories that I wrote down to preserve. One was of watching the Resident Fan Boy standing in a beam of afternoon sun streaming into our bedroom. I was sick, and he had taken elder daughter to the park and was enthusiastically regaling me with their adventures. Another was of returning home down the boulevard from a Shrove Tuesday dinner at Christchurch Cathedral in Victoria on a clear night under a sky brimming with stars. Elder daughter, about three or four at the time, was balancing along the walls and singing "Twinkle, twinkle, little star". Little gems of life that have been pushed completely from my mind, but they must have happened; I wrote them down. I watch myself moving sightlessly through the past towards my present. I can't help but feel compassion for her, my hopeful, clueless past self. She won't know what hit her.

Here's a memory I hadn't lost. To understand it, you may need to see this classic Warner Brothers cartoon from the 1950s:

It's a cold February afternoon without the slightest hint of melting, our first winter in Ottawa (I don't recall a Winterlude thaw that year). Younger daughter is four, and I'm still raw and wounded from the result of a team assessment by the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario the previous month. February means phone calls, forms, slipping into the basement to cover my weeping under the hum of the washing machine. And consultations. On this particular afternoon, the consultant is a Speech Language Pathologist, making a home visit to observe younger daughter. She turns up during lunch, and younger daughter is doing what she does best --- under-performing. One of the aches of having a special needs child is being forced to see the little person under your care through others' eyes, particularly professional, assessing eyes. Every beloved quirk becomes a symptom, every endearing idiosyncrasy becomes a note on a pad and later, a line in a report. My heart sinks as I hear younger daughter murmuring to herself in unintelligible syllables. At one point during lunch, the SLP remarks brightly, "That sounded like noodles!"

"She can say 'chicken noodle soup', I say as lightly as I can manage. But I know I'm Just-a-Mother-in-Denial. After lunch, the consultant pulls out her bag of tricks, and tries to guide younger daughter through some matching games involving animals and numbers. She also attempts to get younger daughter to join in the various verses of "Old McDonald's Farm". Finally, she packs up, smiles encouragingly at me and leaves with a few supportive comments and suggestions.

"May I have some chicken noodle soup?" asks younger daughter. That evening, she will inform her father that she "played wit' an'mals an' money", and, sitting on the stairs after an outing, launches into several verses of "Old McDonald's Farm" with all the animal noises. I shovel the walkway, singing under my breath: "Send me a kiss by wi-yah; Babee my heart's on fi-yaaaah..."

("Ribbet," says younger daughter. Everywhere a-ribbet, ribbet?)

The tenth day of Christmas (slip-sliding away)

Gift certificates are a mixed blessing for someone who hates to shop. I mean, it really is looking a gift horse in the mouth, but I don't much care being sent out to shop for myself (and by extension, the Resident Fan Boy and younger daughter who aren't shoppers either) in the post-holiday crowds of shoppers.

So yesterday, we all set off for the forty-five-minute slog into downtown. Our challenge this time was steady snow and pavements slick with slush. Not quite two steps forward, one step back, but it felt like it. The gift certificates in question were the annual Chapters certificates from the girls' generous godparents. (Chapters, for non-Canadians, is probably the equivalent of Borders in the States, and I dunno, Waterstones in Britain?)

Elder daughter made a beeline for The Dark Knight, y'know, that other Christian Bale/Heath Ledger flick. Chapters seems to have done away with the family shelf in their DVD section, but we mosied over to "Musicals". Younger daughter gave a little gasp, and made the same reaching-for-then-pulling-her-hand-back gesture that she makes when trying to decide on a book or video at home.
"Do you see something you want?"
"I don't know."
"It looks like you see something interesting. Can you tell me what it is?"
"I don't know."
"Can you point at it?"
"I'm scared."
"Of the movie?"
"No."
"What are you afraid will happen?"
"You might say no."
"Well, it's your gift certificate, so you can choose whatever you want."
Another little gasp and aborted reach.
"I won't say no."
With an anticipatory smile, she pulls down South Pacific. Oh, damn, damn, damn. It's still under the tree, set aside as her Twelfth Day of Christmas present. I try to explain. She stomps off across the shop. I call after her. She says: "NO!" I can't blame her; it's my poor planning, and she's done that most difficult thing of making a choice, and I've said "no", just as she feared. We manage to talk her into getting The King and I
and I leave the Resident Fan Boy and elder daughter to do the certificate negotiation, and hastily get younger daughter to a nearby TexMex restaurant to restore us both.

After a hearty lunch, the RFB and elder daughter set off for the drug store, and younger daughter and I begin the 45-minute trudge-trudge-slip home. We cut up York Street past some funky little shops and pause to admire a Christmas bird sanctuary that one of them has set up: Then we make our way through the beat-up streets of Lowertown, stepping aside to let the sidewalk snow-movers (which look like orange earwigs) mow past us. I note that they are not laying down gravel, so we still slide further east, past the ice rink at the Catholic school where boys of different hues play pick-up hockey, some managing to skate through the snow covering the ice, some making do in their boots.

At home, I surreptitiously sneak South Pacific from the Twelfth Day of Christmas gift bag into the Tenth Day of Christmas gift bag.

That night, I invite younger daughter to watch Oliver! which was in the Eighth Day of Christmas gift bag. We get to the intermission before it's time for her bath and she comes to kiss me good night:
"Oliver is so strange!"
"Don't you like it?"
"Yes, but it's better than Elmwood School!" (We saw a cut-down production of the musical at the swish private school for girls a few weeks ago.)
"There's a lot of dancing, isn't there? And I think you like the costumes?"
"Yes, and Oliver was only a little girl!" she says, shaking her head in wonder, remembering the all-girl production.
"Well, in the movie, they could have a boy for Oliver, couldn't they?"

This morning, the Resident Fan Boy offers to take her tobogganing, and she enthusiastically accepts ("That's a great idea!") and delightedly plans to watch South Pacific afterwards: "I missed South Pacific so much!"

For myself, I'm accompanying elder daughter to her hated clarinet lesson downtown, and am planning to finally read younger daughter's assessment report which I'd set aside over Christmas. I need to ration out my heartbreaks like Christmas gifts.

People Look East

People look east, the time is near
For the crowning of the year.
Make your house fair as you are able;
Trim the hearth and set the table.
People look east and sing today:
Love the Guest is on the way.

I used to love Christmas, and there's a part of me that still does. It's much harder when you have to grow up and be responsible for Christmas, particularly when suffering from homesickness in a place that really is supposed to be your home. It seems, though, to be the fashion these days to hate Christmas, and having never been cool nor fashionable, I can't bring myself to quite alienate myself from this festival. Besides, I have two young girls under my roof, and younger daughter in particular loves Christmas. Since December began, she has seemed to glow and vibrate from within.

Therefore, for the sake of my inner child and outer children, I have been doing what I can to redeem the days leading up to December 25th, and in particular, the twelve days following Christmas Day.

Advent traditionally has a mournful liturgical tinge to it, but I cling to the inherent hope associated with it, which I think reaches beyond Christian beliefs to anyone yearning for the promise of something better. That's why I love the words of the Advent carol People Look East, written by the same lady (Eleanor Farjeon) who wrote the lyrics for Morning Has Broken. Love the Guest can be Jesus, if you like, but surely Love by any other name is a welcome guest to any household.

Today, my Friend With Whom I Go For Coffee took me down to the Byward Market for the third year in a row to get a balsam fir to fill the house with the scent of evergreen, something I missed so much for the twenty years we had an artificial tree. The Resident Fan Boy put in his order for Cochrane's Dairy to deliver two glass bottles of egg nog with our weekly dairy order. (The supermarket stuff is rubbish.) He's also bought the first box of Mandarin oranges, another balm to my homesick heart. For our first few Christmases in Hades, we made do with Clementines, which seem to be what Ottawans think are Christmas oranges, seedy, sweeter and not smelling quite right. The scent of the Mandarins as the soft peel tears away mingling with the smell of the balsam and the creamy egg nog flowing under my tongue help bring snatches of remembered Christmases back, if only in tantalizing bits.

Furrows be glad, though earth is bare
One more seed is planted there.
Give up your strength the seed to nourish
That, in course, the flower may flourish.
People look east, and sing today:
Love the Rose is on the way.

The brown envelope containing younger daughter's latest assessment arrived yesterday, and I wonder when will be the best time to make myself read it. I know the gist, from our feedback interview which took place a couple of weeks after the Resident Fan Boy's accident. Assessments are never fun at the best of times, because they focus on what's wrong, and tests don't allow for hesitations or alternate interpretations. What the tests indicate are that younger daughter has dropped from the fifth percentile to the first percentile in expected performance for children her age. Whether this is due to developmental demands, the difference of testing a twelve-year-old versus the testing of a seven-year-old, the less-than-stellar results of trying to integrate her in her local school, the fact that the Resident Fan Boy was injured smack in the middle of the testing process, or a combination of any or all of the preceding, I'm in no position to judge. The fact is, comparing younger daughter with her so-called peers is never going to be a cheering prospect, although comparing her with herself over the past five years is rather more uplifting. I still feel squashed and smashed. I feel I have failed her.

But despair is a place I can only visit. I don't have the luxury of living there. This is another reason I'm not an atheist. As I reluctantly retreat to the kitchen for the extra cooking this season requires (I am an unenthusiastic chef, to say the least), I relieve the sting of the chore with audio books, this time, an old favourite, Alex Jennings' reading of The Dark is Rising. I first fell in love with this story, the second installment of a series of five books by Susan Cooper, when I was in my teens, and Alex Jennings' not overly dramatic rendering never gets in the way of the narrative. It's set in rural Buckinghamshire at Christmastime and is heavily immersed in British mythology. Two nights ago, the eleven-year-old hero learns of his status as the youngest of The Old Ones: If you were born with the gift, then you must serve it, and nothing in this world or out of it may stand in the way of that service, because that is why you were born and that is the Law. And these words strike home as I gaze fearfully and sightlessly into the coming year, because the gift of a child is much like the gift of a power or talent.

Stars, keep the watch. When night is dim,
One more light the bowl shall brim,
Shining beyond the frosty weather,
Bright as the sun and the moon together.
People, look east, and sing today:
Love the Star is on the way.

In the damp, ocean-soaked cold that is the winter in Victoria, I would gaze east and think of this verse. Now I gaze longingly west through the dry, frigid Eastern Ontario air. It seems I've always seen Christmas and summer as bright harbours at either end of the hurly-burly of the year. It's even more so as I try to help my younger daughter navigate the perilous seas of her school terms. I pray we may keep afloat. Whatever your beliefs (or even lack thereof, I hope Love finds its way, more permanent than a guest, longer lasting than a rose, brimming your bowl with light.

(Here's what People Look East sounds like. I prefer to sing it slowly like a ballad, but it's based on a French carol and most choir directors take the sprightly approach:)

Railing against the tireless watcher

2005 was not a great year. In fact, I would join with Lucy Van Pelt of the comic strip Peanuts in declaring that I had been stuck with a "used year". That February, I saw a television special called From Time to Time. It was a suite of six dances, all set to Joni Mitchell songs. The fifth of these was called "Neighbourhood Suite" and was set to "Sire of Sorrow", a song that I had not heard until then, probably because at the time the album "Turbulent Indigo" came out, I had one small child and was expecting another. The song haunted me for days after the television show, particularly its chorus: O you tireless watcher, what have I done to you, that you make everything I dread and everything I fear come true? In fact, one winter morning, as I was accompanying younger daughter to school from a speech therapy appointment, I was so mesmerized by that song playing in my head that I missed our Transitway stop and ended up way out in Orleans, having to find our way back.

The song is meant to be Job, railing at God from his ash pit, where he has retreated, covered with sores, having lost everything including his children. His neighbours come down to the edge of the pit to offer advice and to suggest what he may have done to tick God off. (Not helpful.) Eventually God himself shows up, only to ask: Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? (Actually not terribly helpful, either.) Job is eventually relieved of his suffering and gets to have more kids, but the scholars aren't kidding when they say Job is one of the more problematic stories of the Bible.

The first person voice in "Sire of Sorrow" is for me, however, unmistakeably that of a woman, which is why this song gets me where I live. Besides, 2008 is showing all the hallmarks of being a "used year". Here's a YouTube video that furnishes the lyrics:

Painful Irony

"Crosswalk" by Vermont artist Gillian Klein

The springlike evenings that have marked early November may have been some comfort to the Resident Fan Boy as he lay stunned in the street after a cyclist slammed into him. My regular readers (all five of you) may recall my "gremlin" experience of a couple of weeks ago when I was assailed by fears of my husband's untimely demise on the verge of a business trip to Québec City. So, of course, when the crisis came, it was in a crosswalk less than two blocks from our house. The Resident Fan Boy remembers stepping into the street when the signal changed.

 That's all he remembers.

Back home, I was flitting between tasks, and beginning to wonder why my husband was late. I thought, given the balminess of the day, that he had chosen to walk home from downtown Ottawa which takes about 40 minutes. Elder daughter had left to do homework at a friend's, and of course, she didn't know the number. I had instructed her to call it in when she arrived, so when a classmate pounded on our door a few minutes later, I went prepared to say that elder daughter was gone, and as yet, unpinpointed.

But that wasn't why she was there. Her dad, who knows the Resident Fan Boy from church, had been driving his daughter home from hockey practice when they saw the Resident Fan Boy knocked to the pavement. Her father had the presence of mind to pull his car in front of the RFB's supine body, ignoring the honks and rude gestures from his fellow commuters. His daughter remembered we were up the block and hightailed it to our front steps.

I was attempting to keep calm. I didn't know where elder daughter was, and I couldn't leave younger daughter alone in the house. Luckily, the classmate guessed elder daughter's whereabouts and hauled out the ubiquitous cell phone.

 Somehow, I remembered to turn off the mini-quiches baking in the oven, and she agreed to wait for elder daughter at the house, while I led younger daughter down to the intersection where I could see flashing lights. Pounding on the traffic signal, I bounced impatiently on my heels watching the paramedics shift the Resident Fan Boy onto a body board. Several cars sailed through the red lights past the ambulance before I made it across the road.

It was, as I've noted, a warm evening and there was quite a crowd: the ashen-faced young cyclist who gave me a slip with his information; a medical student who had been waiting for a bus across the road; a pediatrician who patted my arm, saying apologetically, "Wrong kind of doctor!" and her husband. Of course, RFB's fellow church-goers were doing their best to reassure me and fill me in. 

The paramedics were asking me questions. "Hasn't he told you himself?" I stammered, gazing at my husband who looked back at me with mildly bewildered eyes, just before they had to tip the board to allow him to vomit. We were gently steered away before younger daughter saw this; she had begun to cry quietly.

Not much to do. Fellow Church-goer offered to drive younger daughter and me home to pick up things and proceed to the hospital. While my husband was loaded into the ambulance (his first post-accident memory), I watched the passing cars in fascination, honking impatiently, cutting each other off, their drivers chatting on cell phones, oblivious to the irony.

My late grandmother imagined Hell would be an airport. I've always imagined it would be an emergency room: bleak, noisy, frightening and dull, all at the same time. I was not overly surprised when the Resident Fan Boy didn't remember the accident, but I fought back the panic as he asked questions I'd already answered.

 I'm the daughter and the sister of physiotherapists. I know the symptoms of brain injury. At one point, they sat him up in a "peri-chair" to make room for other casualties. He crossed his legs and dozed, occasionally waking to complain of the pain in his head (from the road-rashed haemotoma on his right temple), and his dislocated shoulder.

The really frightening part came when the doctor arrived with the results of his CT-scan, and suddenly he was bustled back to bed.

Two "internal bruises" they said.
Transfer to the Civic campus of the Ottawa General Hospital, they said. 
Neurosurgeons, they said.

And, dear God, that's when I had to leave him, because our younger daughter is Special Needs and I had to get her to bed with the best semblance of normalcy I could muster. The nurses and doctor assured me they would take care of the Resident Fan Boy, but oh, I hated to leave him, all hurt and curled up awkwardly on his uninjured left side...

Home to smooth things over and prepare for a night of phoning Emergency at intervals ("slight bleeding to the brain", they told me at 2 am) and a day of getting younger daughter to second set of a battery of psycho-educational tests.

Obama was sweeping to victory in the States, and in bed, watching the older African-Americans, those who remember Little Rock and Selma and MLK, weep quietly during the acceptance speech, I grieved that Resident Fan Boy, a long-time election junkie, was missing this.

As of today, nearly 48 hours after the accident, the RFB is still in hospital getting mightily ticked off, which is the best sign of all I think. With each phone call and visit, he sounds more like himself.

But oh, you drivers, quit with the cutting off and honking and cell phones! And oh you cyclists, wear your helmets and remember you're a vehicle too! And as for us pedestrians? Practise defensive walking, I guess, because even crossing at the crosswalk with the signal is no guarantee...

Hallowe'en in Hades

Ottawa, unlike other Canadian cities in which I've lived, tends to treat most holidays like Christmas. There's a long run-up to Canada Day which, I suppose, is only natural in a city that is, and constantly refers to itself as, The Nation's Capital.

However, the first thing I noticed when we moved here in the autumn of 2000, was the long Christmas-like anticipation of Hallowe'en. Around the Thanksgiving long weekend, the pumpkins are parked on porches and front steps, while other spooky decorations begin adorning the neighbouring houses in early to mid-October. This year, the pumpkins were caught outside in a snowstorm, so we've been passing some odd juxtapositions this week:

Mind you, this is not all that odd; I doubt there are all that many Canadian kids who have not experienced at one time or the other the fantasy-dampening sensation of wearing a winter coat and boots (even, gawd help us, ski-pants) under a costume when going trick-or-treating. (We sang out "Hal-lah-ween-ah-puls!" on the frozen prairie of my youth; do they do that anymore? "Trick or Treat!" is so lame...) However, today is sunny and reasonably temperate for the time of year. The snow has plummeted from the flash-frozen golden leaves and (mostly) retreated from the grass. There's a promise of cloud cover for the evening which should hold in what warmth there is like a blanket.

The Resident Fan Boy carved the jack o' lanterns last night, according to his daughters' design. Here's elder daughter's:
... and here's younger daughter's.

Madness has reigned at younger daughter's school all week. There's talk of teachers in Toronto changing October 31st at school to "Black and Orange Day", presumably to fade the religious (or not-so-religious) implications of Hallowe'en. However, this is unlikely to ease the stress at younger daughter's school where Hallowe'en merely precedes the massive Book Fair held in early November, and the ambitious and annual Remembrance Day play, complete with uniforms and dance numbers. The special ed teacher is fully tentacled this morning, but has lost her voice. I've packed up younger daughter's vampiress costume (complete with good set of fangs; second-class fangs on reserve at home), because her teacher has decreed that costumes may not be donned until after lunch. I hand over Old Dutch potato chips and our traditional Hoot Owl cookies before stashing the costume in younger daughter's locker and checking that she knows where her fangs are. (She'd probably like to bite me by that point.) I'm inches from a clean getaway when I realize that her lunch hadn't made it into her packsack (gawd, I love Hallowe'en). Still, the extra two-kilometre walk is probably a good idea, given that I'm on my way to the grocery store to pick up the chocolate bags for shelling out tonight. (I don't dare have that stuff in my house before the day...)

The cashier is dressed rather attractively in a sea-foam two-piece top with a beaded necklace. It takes me several minutes to realize that this is her costume; to me, she looks ready for a nice night out. "What are you?" I ask. "Retro," she shrugs.

We get a lot of teen trick-or-treaters like this. When challenged on not wearing a costume, they declare: "This is my costume; I don't usually look like this!" I am prepared for this kind of malarkey, because to my mind, dressing in a different style from your normal day-to-day wear is not true trick-or-treating; it's merely a fashion statement. I smile pleasantly and remark: "There's a traditional term for treat-or-treating without a costume, you know."
"What's that?"
"Begging!!"
I then hand over Witches Fingers instead of chocolate bars to these interlopers. (They look gross, but are actually quite delicious and quite easy to make.) I haven't been soaped or T.P.-ed yet, but it's only a matter of time. May you make it through to All Saints' Day in one piece. Happy Hallowe'en indeed...

The Lonely Tree

Planning an outing with children, as most parents will attest, is an art. Planning an outing with a child with a pervasive development disorder is a discipline. Still, with eleven days remaining until our annual escape from Hades, I need to get said child out somewhere every day, if only for my own conscience. She, of course, would happily stay in watching DVDs and playing with her imaginary friends.

The project for Friday was to get her to the Museum of Civilization to see The Greeks, a visiting exhibit from Benaki Museum in Athens. Why? Her class did an Ancient Civilization Fair this spring and younger daughter, being a member of the Ancient Greece group, told the story of Daedalus and Icarus to whomever asked. And it looked like a nifty exhibit. And Mum needed to feed her own soul, and get the Hades out of the house.

I've learned the hard way not to spring things on her. So the lead-up began early in the week: "Soon we'll go to the museum"; "Tomorrow, we're going to the museum"; "We're going to the museum today, we'll stay a little while and then we'll come home and you can watch something".

This time, I was blessed with an outing that turned out better than I hoped. Despite its being a sunny Friday, the museum wasn't packed. I decided on the spur of the moment to purchase audio tours for both of us, and this turned out to be a hit. Younger daughter earnestly looked for the headphone icon and punched in the required number. Unlike the National Art Gallery audio guides, each spiel was short and in accessible language (at the NAC, I pick the children's option if there is one, so I can figure what's actually going on). There were also snatches of music and sound effects which younger daughter enjoyed.

And the artifacts were something else: vases, jugs and figurines made 4000 to 5000 years ago. Elaborate memorial markers and figureheads of gods, including one of Hermes, Marie, but alas he looked nothing like David Tennant...or Mario Ancic. And Hellenistic gold jewelery. Unspeakably intricate and beautiful. Here's a funerary coronet, placed on the head of the dead person to indicate their worthiness for accolades in the afterlife. There was a bracelet with minuscule dangling ornaments which turned out to be Muses sitting on pedestals. The only way you knew was by the greatly enlarged photograph by the display. Who did this kind of work? Tiny slaves? Younger daughter was charmed by bridal costumes with delicate red slippers, and a suspended and elaborately embroidered bed tent from the time of the Ottoman Empire.

As it wasn't crowded, I had the luxury of letting younger daughter read the inscriptions out to me which she really seemed to want to do, perhaps to off-set her audio intake from the headphones with visual intake. We could also sit down and rest partway through. However (also from sad experience), I was prepared to leave the exhibit before seeing everything and she did run out of steam, so we hurried down the hall to the cafeteria, arriving just before the lunchtime rush. We chose a table looking out across the Ottawa River, back to Ontario and Canada's capital city, which only proves that the prettiest view by far of the Parliament Buildings is from the province of Québec. After a leisurely lunch, I was astonished when younger daughter told me she'd like to visit the Children's Museum. The Children's Museum is a huge draw for the Museum of Civilization and one of the reasons I dreaded taking my daughters there, chiefly because we'd make a beeline for it, and I'd sit around, wander around, stand around for hours while the girls tried out the mini-cabs and buses, swabbed the decks of the freighter and transferred cargo with the pulley, explored the child-sized houses from all around the world, and hawked bread at the miniature bakery and vegetables at the market....and I never got to see any other exhibits. We'd been living here four years before I made it to the First Nations wing -- and that was on a field trip.

But here was younger daughter wanting to go to the Children's Museum, even after a morning in the Greek exhibit and the offer of returning home. I couldn't refuse her, although part of me wondered about taking a girl less than a year from thirteen. But of course, she's eager to take refuge in childhood, this lithe lady in early adolescence with the "scattered profile" that has her age 12 in some areas, age 10 in others, and age 6 in yet others. Besides, I'd inadvertently paid the general admission in addition to the tickets for the special Greek exhibit. She headed straight for the newly refurbished and redecorated theatre with a dressing room in the back featuring fanciful costumes.
She donned the Tree outfit and took the stage, saying solemnly, "This is the story of the lonely tree," and, pacing back and forth, told a tale in a lowered voice that I found hard to catch, except I gathered the tree was looking for friends in the animals of the forest and was wondering where they were. Other children appeared in other costumes, lining up to proclaim a few sassy theatrical words for their photo calls and younger daughter quietly took her bows with them and said thank-you for the bravos from these other parents. These were polite children who glanced at her, noted the difference and left, chattering to each other.

There's a cinema there now, which didn't exist a few years back, and we watched a National Film Board cartoon twice. Other children peered in, but didn't stay. Younger daughter swabbed a deck for old time's sake, and after a quick tour, we left. I had hoped to walk back over the Alexandra Bridge, since it was a lovely day without the usual Ottawa humidity, and when we missed the #8 by inches, I eagerly set off, ignoring the protests of younger daughter who didn't want "to walk all the way home". (Actually, I have made the trek from Gatineau, Québec to our New Edinburgh, Ontario doorstep in under 50 minutes, but that would be asking too much of younger daughter, especially after a full day of sensory overload.) The Royal Alexandra Interprovincial Bridge, though, takes about ten or fifteen minutes to cross by foot
and it has a splendid view of many Ottawa and Gatineau landmarks, including the Chateau Laurier, the Parliament Buildings, the Museum of Civilization, the Rideau Canal Locks and the Ottawa River itself, of course. Eventually, younger daughter got over her grudge and began to enjoy the breeze, the heady view of the sparkling water below woven with various boats, and passing comments on her fetching sunhat.

I walked alongside her, mulling over the little triumphs and heartbreaks of our excursion. A day like this underlines how far we have to go, how her differences have crystallized over the years, how much other people notice. At the same time, how far she's come, that I can bring her to the museum for nearly a full day without a meltdown, that I can share an adult exhibit with her, even that she tell the story of a lonely tree while walking a stage. I have to constantly remind myself that, where others see a "special needs child" (and many give us wide berth), I have the privilege of remembering that we did things this day that would not have been possible a few years ago.

And, oh, it was a beautiful, sunny afternoon, warm but not oppressive, crossing that bridge between two provinces, enjoying the summer green and the beautiful view. If more days were like this, I think I could almost bear living here...