Self-Portrait 

PATTERNS IN THE RAIN

This is something I wrote nearly four years ago. It now seems like it could have been by someone else. In the words of L.P. Hartley, "The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there." She's now 22 and ready to graduate college. We seem to find it even harder to stay in touch these days.

PATTERNS IN THE RAIN

“Strangely, the sea doesn’t get tedious to look at. Wave tracks converge and criss-cross in patterns that have never happened before and will never happen again. It can take hours to tear one’s eyes away.” Sebastian Junger, The Perfect Storm.

The March rain has been falling steadily since mid-morning, though it’s mostly let up now. I’m driving through the early evening darkness, wipers intermittently pushing water across the windshield, streetlights reflecting off the pavement, traffic lights splashing long, wavy lines of red, yellow and green. I turn into the restaurant parking lot, beneath an orange and green neon sign. As I do so, the car thumps through a big pothole wedged between the roadway and the driveway, and the tires toss up a sheet of water, whose dirty droplets sparkle briefly in the fluorescence of the parking lot lights, then fall back onto the asphalt, becoming once again muddy, oily water. I walk through the light rain and then along the building, under the eaves. I notice intertwining, endless ripples in the puddles along the sidewalk, as the steady drips of water find their way down from the edges of the overhanging roof.
I pull open the glass door and spot her, standing just beyond the doorway, near the dark-paneled wall, just having risen from the cushioned bench. Short blonde hair, wearing a green hooded sweatshirt, tennis shoes, and blue jeans, in many ways looking like the high school senior she is, yet also looking surprisingly small and slight for her 18 years. It still strikes me as odd that she got here by herself, instead of waiting for me to pick her up. Intellectually, I know she’s had her license since the day she turned 16 and has been driving regularly since then. But in my unguarded moments, she’s still a little girl, waiting for rides. I sometimes forget it’s been nearly eight years since she left, since she went to live with her mom. That’s a lot of time in a young life, and many changes have occurred, most without my knowing about them until later. Anyway, she’s here now, looking toward me with a nervous smile. This is an awkward moment for both of us. Despite the weekly phone calls and occasional weekend visits, it seems like forever since we talked openly, and most of the moments we have shared lately have been tinged by apprehension, frustration, and suppressed emotion. This is supposed to be an evening of resolution, an opportunity to wash away the residue of the past several years, to wipe the slate clean, to say a clear goodbye to the past and to open the way to new beginnings. I’m moving away, going 500 miles from here, so that even the illusion of resuming our shared lives must die. We’re here for a sort of last supper, a chance to say the right things and, maybe, to lay the groundwork for a better future.
It soon becomes obvious that everything isn’t going to be accomplished tonight. We greet each other awkwardly, and make small talk as we follow the server to a table by the windows. The words feel scripted, and we both recognize that the past adheres too tightly to be easily brushed aside. Having the waitress take our orders provides a welcome, but short, distraction. Once, during a silence that has grown too long, I turn and stare at the window, and watch a bead of water work its way down. I wonder, idly, why it doesn’t drop straight – what sort of imperfection in, or on, the glass causes it to wander like it goes? But it doggedly keeps pushing down, until it finally disappears below the windowsill. Likely it will drop into a puddle down there, and, before losing itself in the pool, will leave its mark in ever expanding ripples, perfect circles that reach nearly to the edges before losing energy and disappearing forever. I think that’s what will happen, but I don’t see it – and if no one sees that pattern, it’s like it never really existed.
“What are you looking at,” she asks, with a nervous edge to her voice. “Nothing,” I reply, with a slight laugh, “just looking.” From then on, things go better, the words flow more freely, we even laugh a little, sometimes without strain or restraint. At one point I remember an episode from my younger days, when I was her age, and I talk for awhile, then stop. “But enough about that,” I say, “nobody wants to hear a middle-aged man telling stories about things he once did.” “You’re wrong,” she says, “I do. I want to listen to your stories.” I look up, look at her, actually meeting her eyes for the first time that evening, probably for the first time in years, since our lives began flowing down separate channels. And I realized that she does want to hear these stories, she needs to hear them and, even more, I desperately want her to hear them. For her, they are an indication of her own beginnings, suggestions of where she comes from, evidence of the imperfections in our beings that may help to make sense of things to come. And, for me, for her to hear my stories gives meaning to my past. Otherwise, the incidents of my life are merely patterns that have never happened before and will never happen again, nothing more than random happenings in time, no more and no less than any other. The understanding and appreciation of people who care makes those moments, and makes me, special. And I realized that, no matter how much the stream of our shared being has broken into separate currents, she and I will always touch in some way. The blood that flows in her is half mine, and we are forever linked.
The evening goes on, the words working their way back through the lost years, the conversation ebbing and flowing until, suddenly, it’s time for us to part, each going to our separate homes, our separate lives. As we stand in the doorway, it becomes painfully clear that this evening has reached a moment of resolution, when something should be said, or done, to impose some meaning to this pattern. But nothing happens. Two hours of talk cannot undo eight years. Not all at once, anyway. We make awkward statements of goodbye, and exchange promises to write. The rain has picked up again, and I watch her dash to her car. The brakelights of her car flash through the semi-darkness, then the back-up lights, and the raindrops sparkle like diamonds. Her car backs around, pulls forward, and she’s gone.
As I drive home, I again notice water streaking and flowing down and across the windshield. I stop at a traffic light and watch the steady dripping of rainwater, off the little awning above the red light, the drips momentarily flashing crimson against the yellowish fluorescence of the streetlights. I realize I never hugged her goodbye. That would have been the defining moment, and I had let it slip away, like I had so many others. I wipe my hand across my face, pushing aside the few tears that have worked down my face, glad there’s no one here to see them. The light turns green, I step on the gas and move on. By now she’s probably halfway home.

OUT OF DARKNESS

I have a picture on the wall above my desk, a picture of a small boy, in a white short-sleeved shirt, on a brown horse, wearing a black riding helmet. It’s not easy to make out his face, but it’s obvious he is focused on where he is and what he is doing. He is looking toward his right, downward, toward three young adult women standing off to that side. One of them, a teenager really, loosely holds a lead rope attached to the horse’s bridle. The horse’s body is facing the camera, but its head is turned to the boy’s left, in the opposite direction that the boy is looking, and the horse appears to be nuzzling a fourth woman who stands close by, her hands on her hips, looking at the boy and horse, a white ring through her black hair shining like a halo.
I shot the photo inside a dim riding barn, but, because sunlight streams in through an open doorway, the boy, the horse, and the women are highlighted against a black background. The horse nearly shines, his bridle sparkles silver, sunlight glints off the boy’s helmet and the brown hair of two women, while the face and one arm of a third woman, facing the boy, taller than the others, her hair tucked beneath a red kerchief, is bathed in bright sunlight that comes over the boy’s shoulder, one hand slightly raised, one finger pointing.
The horse’s name is Snuffy. Three of the women are volunteers at an equestrian therapy center, the other is one of the owners and teachers. The boy is my son, Daniel. He comes to this place once every week, where he spends a little less than an hour on horseback, developing his coordination, muscle tone, and confidence.
I like the aesthetics of the picture: the colors and the light, the accidentally black background, the sense of frozen action contrasted with the gentle passivity of the horse, the clustered poses of the people. One friend has described it as "nearly Rockwellian." I also like it for the story behind it.
My son's face is not clearly visible in the picture, but if you could see it, you would notice, want to or not, that it’s not quite right. The eyes are a little off, the mouth and nose too small. He’s been that way since he was born seven years ago. Actually, he is better now. His skull fused while still in the womb, so that instead of having a soft spot, his growing brain pushed against the bone, trying desperately to find room, turning solid bone into nothing more than papery thin Swiss cheese. He was born with bulging eyes and a "conehead," requiring major operations at three months, six months, and 18 months, surgery to open up, reconstruct, and brace the skull and pull the forehead forward. Three different times that we were led into pediatric ICU area, where we saw our little guy, ensnared in tubes and wires, a pale yellow cap, like a puffy shower cap, on top of his head, his eyes swollen shut, immobilized by drugs and swaddling, his soft breathing accented by the quiet beep and whir of machinery.
He has recovered from that surgery now and, as I said, he looks better. He will have at least one more surgery, in two or three years, after the face bones have set, to expand his nose, pull his mid face forward and make him even closer to "normal," whatever that may mean. Bu that will be primarily cosmetic surgery, for his benefit and ours, mostly ours, in case he should begin to feel self-conscious about his appearance, an appearance we never notice until someone, usually a kid on a playground or at a mall, points it out to him – or us.
Ironically, I would be thrilled if he did feel self-conscious, even as I tried to reassure him. Because his damaged skull is not our little guy’s only birthright. Something else happened to him when he was in the womb. If you were in the photo with him, and you looked him fully in the face, he probably would not look back at you. He doesn’t make eye contact, at least not for more than a second or two. Nor does he usually talk in full sentences. He seldom plays with children, other than his "typical" twin sister.
My son, you see, is also autistic. Technically, somewhere "within the autistic syndrome." That means, essentially, that he’s not a textbook autistic child, not fully locked away from us, not wandering alone in his own world. He is with us, in his own way, on his own terms. On a few levels he is like any other seven-year-old, busy with school, swimming and playing. He loves to read and has a great appreciation of slapstick humor. He’s quite bright, numbers and calculations get his immediate attention. Still, he is different in so many ways. He is not yet potty-trained and has absolutely no interest in the idea. He seems impervious to what other kids think of him, on that and so many other issues. But he is not without his own fears, wants and needs. He simply doesn’t express them well or often; his laugh is infectious, but his tears, rare as they are, will tear your heart out because they are so honest. One thing I know about our little guy, he has never lied to me, not because he is a saint, but because he is incapable of grasping the concept of picturing the world as other than it is. He is without guile or guilt, contentedly what he is because he can conceive of nothing else.
Back to the photo. These four people, like so many others, therapists, teachers, doctors, relatives, babysitters, parents, and us, have come together, been brought together, in efforts to reach this guy, to draw him out of his world and into theirs, to give of themselves to give him, this sweet little boy, who, in his innocent way, is as naively accepting of all efforts as is the horse in the picture, taking what is offered, absorbing those efforts into his own world, and, rarely but sometimes (more and more lately) beginning to reach back out and invite others in.
When that happens I know for certain that good can arise from unwarranted and incomprehensible injustice, that we can, when the need and the opportunity arise, give freely of ourselves to try and make it better, and in so doing, find beauty within ourselves. The picture reminds me that sometimes, seemingly quite by accident, in an apparently random configuration of otherwise unrelated people and events, we can make a beautiful picture against an unknown and uncaring blackness.

Tuesday 3 a.m.

It’s nearly 3 o’clock on a Tuesday morning when my autistic 8-year-old son walks into our bedroom, backlit by the bathroom nightlight. He needs help going to the bathroom. I get up and walk him in, talk him through it, help him. When he leaves the bathroom he turns toward our room instead of his. I try to steer him toward his, but he stubbornly twists away and through our door, climbs into our bed. Nothing unusual there. I scooch him over and climb in, pulling up the covers, drifting back into sleep.
A few minutes of stillness, then he rolls around a bit and sits up. He crawls over my wife, dragging his feet across her face and slides out her side of the bed. "What are you doing?" she asks. "I’m leaving." "Where are you going?" "Away." He walks out of the bedroom and down the other hall, to the kitchen. I follow him, telling my wife to try to sleep. It’s my turn this time. "Is it morning yet?" "No, son, it’s still night time. It’s all dark. Everyone is trying to sleep. Let’s go back to bed, your bed or our bed." "No. I wanna get up." "C’mon boy, let’s go. Our bed or your bed, but you have to go to bed." "No."
In a perfect world a perfect father would negotiate, but I’m tired and I don’t want risk setting a bad precedent of late night rambles. "Let’s go to bed," I say in my firmest tone, trying hard to keep my voice level, knowing that any agitation on my part will feed his own. "Either bed, you choose, but we have to go, now." "No. No no no no," his voice rising. "No." I try to shepherd him toward the bedroom, his bedroom, saying, "Son, we need to go to bed." He goes limp and sits on the floor. I try to pick him up, he stays limp but squirms. He’s not very big, but he can be awkward when he chooses. He so chooses. I try again to force him to go. Big mistake. His agitation level rises. "No. I wanna go watch a tape." Now I negotiate. How about if we read a book. "No." A snack, then back to bed? He’s quiet now, apparently considering my offer. He says something about not wanting a snack but heads toward the kitchen; sometimes, when he is agitated, he gets confused with his language, especially when he is not fully awake. He goes past the kitchen, into the family room, and rummages through the library box. He grabs one of his favorite books, a Mutts collection, and sets it on the kitchen table, standing beside it. I turn toward the cupboard to get him a snack. He grabs the book and heads down the hall, into his bedroom, and turns on the bedroom light. "You don’t want to read," he says, clutching the book to his chest like a magic talisman. "Read to me. Don’t read." Things have clearly moved now beyond the immediate issue, into deeper fears and feelings. Tears rise in his eyes and drip down his cheeks. I gently take the book from his hands and begin to read. He really likes this book and I hope he will get engrossed in it. "No!" he shouts, grabs the book back and tosses it on the floor. "You want to read!" "Then let me read." "No." I sit on the bed beside him. I reach over and gently rub his shoulder, feeling the tension in those muscles. We leave the book on the floor.
He looks at me, his always-big, jet black, eyes magnified by the tears welling in them, then he looks away, into space. Eye contact is difficult for him to maintain, he feels much safer staring at nothing. "I’m, not, happy," he sobs, each word coming between gasps of air. "I’m not happy." I slip my hand under his nightshirt, actually one of my T-shirts, really too big on his slight body. I rub his back. "You’re not happy," I echo. "No." I’m a little surprised that he lets me keep rubbing his back, even more so when he leans a little against my hand. I look around the room, at the dark blue walls; the white blinds against the window, which is still black with night; at the large wall calendar, torn in places from his pressing against it when he counts out days; at the few stuffed animals that had fallen from the bed to the floor; at the colorful rug, the Mutts book lying on it, open, the cover splayed
His words are obviously true at this moment, and I feel bad for his feelings, for him. But I am secretly thrilled that he is able to say them now, that his statement matches the situation. Appropriate and timely communication is something we have long prayed for. He says again he is not happy. I ask why. He is quiet for a moment, then moves back into his usual communication style, naming concrete things in his life, listing them, in no real order and without real meaning. I’m not surprised; he has difficulty conceptualizing emotions and feelings, and under the best of circumstances he finds it hard to articulate anything that can’t be counted out or physically measured. What he feels is more than he can say; I can tell he knows it, and that knowledge frustrates him. I know, from experience, that the tone of my own voice is more important to him than its content, that he and I need to work through this tension; he needs to relax and return to his comfort zone. As much to fill my words as anything else, I remind him that I love him, his mother loves him, his sister loves him. I know those things are true, and I know he hears me, but I don’t know how much he really comprehends what I am saying. He sighs, though, and leans back a little harder against my rubbing hand.
I find myself thinking about just how alone this little boy can be. I picture him walking in the faint light, from his room toward ours, through a long and sometimes eerie hallway, seeking something he cannot quite name For most of us, the darkness leads to somewhere, the night fades into morning, we see, we name, we seek, we find, we share. But for him, I think, the hallway sometimes goes on and on. He lives mostly alone, sees shadows on the edges, hears strange sounds from around corners, sometimes finds a place to rest. But, most often it is just him, in his world, at 3 a.m., not knowing what lies beyond, uncertain of the dawn, not knowing exactly what he wants, not knowing how to ask.
He leans back against me. I lay down and he lies against me, his head on my stomach. I see by the window that it is still night; I think about getting up to turn off the light, but I know he would object; he has had enough of darkness. So I close my eyes. He lies against me. I drift off. When I awaken, he is laying beside me, breathing heavily. I get up, carefully, gently move him so his head is on the pillow, and cover him. I turn off the light, but it doesn’t get dark. Dawn has come, at least for me. I glance back at him, watch him sleep, and gently close his door, leaving him alone in his room, and to his long gray journey.

About My Golden River

Just a word about the title of this blog. For those unfamiliar with the Pete Seeger tune, "Sailing Down This Golden River," it begins,

Sailing down my golden river
Sun and water all my own
Yet I was never alone.

I have reached the point in my life at which the form of my life has begun to show itself, defining itself – and me – against the landscape through which I have come. And, like most rivers left to themselves, my life contains much meandering, some shallows, some rough spots, smooth and tranquil pools, sharp definitions and formless mudflats. I can trace it to the beginnings, to the springs from which I arose, and I can trace the path I followed. And now, from this point, I can – or better said, I have come to believe I can – begin to sort out some of the influences that brought me to where I am, some choices, some chances, sometimes changing course because I came hard against immovable rock, sometimes wandering, nearly stagnant, over broad flat expanses, spreading thin and wide, unduly perhaps influenced by minor rises and bumps that would never appear in the deeper places.

There have been times, too, where I have been forced into narrow canyons by rocky and unyielding walls, where I was surprised by the force and power of the life that surges within me; and even times where, by sheer determination, I carved my way through barriers that seemed impenetrable. All of that, of course, is discernible now, from the vantage of the present, none clear at the time it was all happening. And, already, the relentless pressures of time have caused much of the old landscape to change, to erode away, so that the reasons behind those early changes in direction are no longer clear, known only to me, and even that knowledge fading into time, buried beneath the drifting clouds of hours and the distractions of the present.

I spoke earlier of choices I have made, but the older I get the more convinced I am that we only think we choose, or, at least, we only make the surface choices, and life takes care of the rest, the way a drop of rain slides down a window, its twists and turns affected by dirt on and imperfections in the glass. I chose to marry for the first time, but no one,, I think, chooses to divorce; it happens when the flows diverge, when unexpected currents surge and bang us against rocks that lurk beneath the surface. But that marriage and that divorce shaped my life as much as any other, as does my relationship with my now-grown daughter from that marriage.

My current – and I believe forever – wife and I also chose both to marry and to have a child in early middle age; we did not choose to have an autistic son. Had I known he lay waiting for me, I would have had second or third thoughts – and they would all have been wrong. He (and his twin, unchallenged, sister) has brought us joy and understanding beyond any reasonable expectation, along, of course, with deep challenges and fears. Much of this second half of my life is shaped by my boy, the progress he makes, and the depths he forces me – us – to explore. He and his sister have taken us to many places we likely would never had gone, had we stayed childless and been like so many of our age contemporaries, who never had children or whose children are grown and out of the home. All of that, too, has shaped the river of my life. And all of that, I hope, will be reflected in these pages.

But unlike an actual river, the river of my life is not yet set in its future course, at least so far as I know and believe. I don’t know what barriers and challenges – or for that matter shallows and broad valleys -- lie ahead, anymore than I knew during the first half. But I do think I bring something more with on the journey from here on out – the knowledge that while I cannot control the full course of my life, I can at least influence its general direction. And I have a deeper understanding of the wonder of it all, and a growing belief that there is, indeed, a reason and a pattern to what had once seemed a random and pointless meander.

Sunlight glancing on the water
Life and death are all my own
Yet I was never alone.