sensory integration

29 October 2014

The Telltale Desktop

IMG_0024_2

 

You can learn a lot by what someone keeps on their desk, and I’m developing a new appreciation for the tangible things that signify what’s important to our young man. We are designing a new, more professional workspace for him and so have been moving some things around. Here’s part of what I discovered:

  • a pencil sharpener, for when the electric one is too noisy
  • an eraser that does not make crumbs
  • a harmonica, for playing along to music on the computer ( with headphones on)
  • double stick tape, because we are out of regular and drawings must go up on the wall ASAP
  • two spare mouse batteries in a handy basket
  • the three little pigs and the big bad wolf, for inspiration
  • a battery charger for the camera we can’t find
  • a picture from the prom sent by a teacher
  • a ruler – probably because it fits nicely in that spot because he never uses it – except maybe to conduct a symphony now and then.

There were various pictures printed out from the internet taped to the table but I did not get to those in time for the photo – but one of them was of the chorus from Joseph Had a Little Overcoat, which is stuck in my memory in perpetuity.

I feel as though we are now truly seeing the emergence of an adult personality. Like all of us, there are parts of his childhood that he will never let go. Some patterns are set, but there is a self confidence about routine that seems less driven and more comfortable. He is taking charge of the things that matter to him and for now, he is trusting us to take care of the rest. We’re doing our best not to let him down.

In the meantime, maybe he can organize my desk for me.

26 August 2012

Vacation Revelation

We went straight from camp pickup to vacation; now is the only significant length of time between June and December that we will all be together. There is a lot to process: camp, work and school transitions, the sudden loss of friends and colleagues over the summer. It seems I say in every post that we are learning a lot, but each time I write it I suppose I really mean to say we are learning unexpected things about the twists and turns our lives take, beyond what we have come to expect in the earlier years of raising children and getting older. The more I try to live in the moment, the more these unanticipated  events seem to get in the way.

Even as I write a hurricane (Isaac) has popped up out of nowhere to bluster through our trip and set us back a day – it’s causing both excitement and anxiety, but right now the nearly empty beach is populated by just two people, Dad and boy out for a snorkle in a window of late afternoon sunshine between the bands of wind and rain. This is the revelation of the vacation for me. Usually too chicken to snorkel, the calm waters of Caneel Bay convinced me that even I could venture out into the reefs. Much as I am enchanted by graceful sea turtles and spiky urchins down on the sea floor, the most breathtaking sight is the beauty of our boy moving through the ocean. I have always known he is more content under the water than above it, but I never understood the truth of that until now. While I have to remind myself to breathe through the snorkle, he dives and darts down through the water with an ease that astounds. This is a moment I can savor and one I would give him every day if I could.

And when he comes out of the water he rests. And then he talks. And most of words and phrases are his – not scripted or non-sensical. He wants to know more about his friend who died suddenly of leukemia while he was away (we don’t have a lot of answers; we can’t make sense of it, either). He wants to talk about school and home and his sister going to college. The water has cleared the static in his brain and it reminds me a little of Oliver Sacks‘s stories of people who gain clarity and lose it again. Even though the increased fluidity does not last, the gift from the sea is a window into his mind, and I wish and wonder how we could prop it open a bit longer before the storm arrives, passes, and we go home.