The Dancers (2001)

It’s been one of those Saturdays. My son’s been cranky, asking for things he can’t explain and getting upset when we don’t understand. Every time this happens, it ratchets up the stress for his mother and me. No matter how prepared we think we are for dealing with his autism, no matter how many times we remind ourselves that he is more than a disability, that he is also a little boy, a four-year-old, who will have good days and bad, who has as much right to get mad as does any other kid, no matter how often we tell ourselves these things, we still worry. We worry about his future, about whether the program is working, about whether we are really capable of dealing with this.
It doesn’t help that we are tired from a long week, one filled with the frustration of juggling daycare and work and therapy, therapy that sometimes seems like a futile attempt to jam a square peg into a round hole. Sometimes it seems our life has become an endless marathon dance to music we don’t recognize and for which we don’t know the steps.
Today’s been hard for his twin sister, too. Already, at four, she knows the word "autism," knows that life is harder for her brother, and knows that because of it he is sometimes entitled to attention that should be hers. She also knows that because she can understand when her brother cannot, we sometimes demand more of her than we do of him, ask her to step out of her little girl world, to be patient and understanding when she feels worried and upset.
She knows, and she tries. She’s protective of him in the outside world, but at home she sometimes resents him, in the same way that any other sister can resent her brother. Today that resentment rises up. Today her unspoken need to be acknowledged, for reassurance, has overcome her understanding. She tries to get us to focus on her and her alone, but her efforts are lost in the noise of her brother’s tantrums.
"Just a minute," I tell her, again and again, but she doesn’t listen. She insists on an immediate response and when she doesn’t get it she has a minor tantrum of her own. She works hard to annoy us with a loud whine, being difficult because that’s how she feels and because this day she can’t do otherwise. She gets sent to her room, told that "You can come out when you stop fussing." She sulks off, eyes welling with tears, and shuts her door. Between the other noises I hear her crying, loud at first, then softer.
Then quiet.
Time passes. I open her door. The late afternoon sun has slipped through the blinds, reaching across the room, laying strips of dazzling white against the shadowy carpet. I see her sitting on her bed, holding and talking to her newest toy, her stick horse, a white, fluffy head mounted on a long pink pole. The horse is named Moonlight.As I walk into the room I think about that name, her mother’s suggestion. I think how perfect it is for that toy, soft, white, and gentle. Those reflections lead me somewhere deep inside, and I recall an old Dean Martin song, which I start to sing, as much in tune as I can get.
"In the misty moonlight. . . ." My daughter looks up, eyes still puffy from crying. "By the sacred firelight. . . ." She smiles and holds her hand up, limp at the wrist. This is her four-year-old image of being romantic, and on her it works.
I kiss her hand and pick her up, moving slowly, turning, around and around, across the floor. She lays her head on my shoulder, and we move out of her room, still turning, toward the kitchen, where her mother is fixing dinner. "In a faraway land, by the tropic sea sand, with your hand in my hand. . . ." My daughter opens her eyes, looks at me, and gives me a soft kiss, slipping her hand into mine. "Everything’s okay. . . ." She closes her eyes and returns her head to my shoulder. Her mother looks at us, and smiles.
For this moment, anyway, everything is okay.

Gone so sudden

We have a pair of birdhouses in the backyard, visible from our kitchen window. A pair of wrens have taken up housekeeping in one of them, which hangs from a shepherd's crook pole. They're an interesting couple; in building the nest they blocked the entrance hole, so they decided to slip in under the hinged roof, which their sticks and stuff had propped up. I peeked in the other day, under the watchful eye and vocal protests of the male, and saw at least two tiny eggs, no doubt there are more. They may have hatched by now, since the mother has begun coming and going with some reqularity; Dad mostly sits on the pole, or a nearby tree, and sings. And casts a beady, watchful, eye on me whenever I step into the backyard. I said we have a pair of houses, but I somewhat misspoke. We had a pair. The second one, a square one set on an old clothes-line pole, was ultimately occupied by a pair of sparrows, after some dispute with a pair of chickadees who had put down the initial deposit -- and the initial lining for a nest. Sparrows are the plebians of the bird world, numerous and often annoying, and I know people sometimes remove their nests in hopes that more respectable folk, like the chickadees or the wrens, will settle in. But I let them stay. And it should be noted that, unlike the wrens next door, the sparrows at least had the decency to use their front door. I'd seen a few eggs in there too. Birdville seemed a contented place, tranquil in a busy sort of way. Until two mornings ago. That was when, making coffee, I half-glanced into the paling gray of the morning. Something didn't look right. As things came into focus I saw that the square birdhouse lay on the ground, on its side, nails jutting from its bottom wehre it had been torn from its perch, the hinged top half-open, and the nest materials strewn around, sticks, matted dried grass, a couple scraps of wrapper, even a crow feather, more material than seemed reasonable to have been shoved into the house. Obviously a raccoon had been busy in the darkness, when the mother couldn't fly and the eggs were fair game. I wasn't irritated or sad. Nature is nature. At most I felt a tang of disappointment; I hadn't known them well, but I'd watched them settle in. Like losing a neighbor you waved to, maybe knew by name, but had never visited. I had just about filed the incident away, when suddenly the male sparrow flew into view. He circled the pole where the house had been, and landed on the ground next to the jumbled nest and broken house. He hopped around a bit, poking at stuff, then seemed to consider things with his cocked and beady eye. He jumped back into the air, and flew up to where the house had been, pausing to perch briefly on the platform. He darted over to the wren house, to be met by an irritated Mr. Wren. The two flashed around in tight circles, then the sparrow took off across the yard, and was gone. And this time I did feel something deep, profound and sad. I don't claim to speak for animals, much less talk to them, but I've been around them enough to know they have some degree of self. It was obvious watching the male sparrow that he was surprised, and confused. As well he should have been. Whether he had a sense of loss, or anger, or fear, I don't know. But he'd put energy into that house, and it --the nest, his mate, the eggs -- and knew something he valued had been ripped from his life. I don't know what he thought as he headed out, but I know he was suddenly cast into a future different than he had expected. His dreams, however rudimentary they may have been, were gone, as was the world he'd been building. As has, or someday will, happen to us all.