Just so you know, it’s not all gloom and doom here in the Senator-Batchelder household. I write about the stuff with Nat because it is how I deal. But sometimes I just have to write about other stuff, like the things that are in my head that make me laugh, or think.

Jim Gaffigan is a fairly new comedian out there, at least he’s new to us. This Manatee bit makes me laugh until I almost choke. Any guy who can channel sea creatures is alright in my book.

And then there’s the Fail Blog. Page after page of “fails.” Fatal typos, weird translations, lapses in judgment. A whole panoply of human error.

And Ben. Yesterday he told me a joke he’d made up: Q: What happened when the ship dropped a bomb into the sea?
A: There was a huge ballast.

We’ll raise our children in the peaceful way we can,
Its up to you and me brother
To try and try again.
–Allman Joy

It’s not that Nat isn’t ready to go. It’s that I am not ready for him to go. We went from zero to 60, just like that. Yes, last summer was hard, so hard, with all of his outbursts, so inexplicable to us. So much would bother him. Ben was so afraid of him, no matter what I did. If I said too much to explain things to him, it would only serve to invalidate his feelings. I don’t know how much fact sunk in. All I know is how he grew to hate Nat, to hate just about everything in his life, to mistrust us, to withdraw into sarcasm, goth clothing, gaming, cynicism, tears.

I am not blaming Nat. I would never see it that way. I don’t blame autism. That is a condition of nerve cells, like a part of his body; it would be like blaming my own belly for having cellulite, or blaming humidity for causing rain. You can see connections and causes, but you can’t blame. It is apart from him, and yet, deeply connected to him, so how could I blame autism? Autism, to me, is not a capitalized word, like some Being. I blame myself, more than anything, because I do not know what to do to provide balance and safety for all of my children, and that is my primary job as their mother.

Why are we created to fail our kids? Why can’t we figure them out? Why can’t love overpower all the mistakes, all the hurts? We are too complex for our own good. And so it twists and cuts so much to watch the repercussions of our inadequacy.

I realized at some point, in my mind, that Nat had to go. He was old enough and could learn more about how to be with others, from others. I had to focus on Ben — and Max. Ben was crying for help. Max, well, no crying, but — I always worry. Is he quiet and accommodating, like Ned, or is he this way because he had to become this way? He was always this way. But is it okay? Like Ned, he seems happy, but like Ned, I always wonder about someone who handles things so internally, so unlike the way I do.

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, and sometimes it is much, much more. Still waters, and all that.

With Nat’s school, we now had a place that I could trust, which is saying a lot. I don’t trust easily. It has taken me years to get to know his school and how they do things. I know their flaws and I know their postive attributes. Teacher after teacher seems to fall in love with him, and why wouldn’t they? He’s bright and beautiful, laughs easily, and he’s so funny.

Oh, God, I am going to start crying again! I was just in his room, straightening for the cleaning women (such a strange thing we do, clean so that they can clean). Looking around at the toys, from 18 years of life, the class photos, the art, just sucked my heart downward. The abortive attempts to teach him this and that: sentence-generation puzzles; construction toys; piggy bank; baby doll; math fact flash cards. The toys he used to like, but that now are dust magnets: Funny Bunny (tattered gray rags shaped vaguely like a rabbit); books on tape; Disney CDs.

Nat, Nat, Nat. Baby pictures of you, preteen, chubby 9 year-old. I know, I know, here come the strains of Sunrise, Sunset. Ned says I am just a big pile of sugar. But I’m just saying: it all happened way too fast.

Sorry to be confusing. Nat’s move-out day is actually July 28. Some of my readers thought that because the poem I wrote a few days ago referred to him leaving, that I meant immediately. No, thank goodness, it is not that soon. And yet, it is soon enough. It is a bit of a torment to drag it out, as well. He needs the time to prepare, but I don’t. I will need the time afterwards, to grieve.

I talked to him today about moving to his new home, “the way boys do when they are 18.” He took it in. I don’t know how he felt about it. I think he wants me to make him a special calendar, which I’ll do tomorrow. Something visually different to reflect the new life.

We are all home, post-Cape, hanging around, waiting for things to start: camp, move-out, new book project. I am trying to keep busy, and with four men to take care of, that is not too difficult. Taking care of me comes in drips and drabs, like tonight, when Shadia, one of my first teachers — who is also a costume designer — stopped by. A few weeks ago I had purged my old costumes and had offered these to her, so that she could give them new life. She offered a trade: she would tailor my best costume (the ruby red Eman Zaki) so that it would fit me perfectly, in exchange for a few bedlahs and scraps.

And so she did:

Shadia is a lovely person, a brilliant costume-maker, and a new friend. This costume, remade by rearranging the components of wristlets, anklets, veil, and shoulder straps, is now simply beautiful. It has a brand new life.

It will be my new inspiration, for my latest favorite song, Raul Ferrardo’s Yearning. I will be giving a workshop for friends of my mom, and I will perform for them in the Eman to Yearning. Here is a choreography I found, below:

Healed by love and sleep
Awakened to your voice that told you things.
I marvel at how you comfort yourself
I wonder if you sat down with me for more
I know you don’t want to leave this place of softest blues and spiky greens,
Crows that argue and rabbits that chew, stare, and think, maybe.

This goodbye feels like more to me
A familiar maw of sadness that yawned open as the day closed.
We’re going.
You’re going.
I drink scalding coffee, swallow down a fresh blooming pain
and listen to you whispering sudden cool laughter bubbles in your mouth
And a symphony of birds outside
On our last day.

…All men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.
-Thomas Jefferson, July 4, 1776

Here’s to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness!

10,000 years can give you such a crick in the neck!
–The Genie in Aladdin

But 24 years, well, our little party’s just beginning…

We’re on the Cape this week so there’s probably going to be a series of airheaded posts. Nat seems extremely happy (knock wood) and in his element: smiling and punching the air constantly; Joyful Beach Stompies; boogie-boarding; helping carry this and that here and there. He is just a joy, plain and simple. Have you ever felt so happy that you just couldn’t stop moving around? Maybe that’s why I need to exercise sometimes, just to pump my muscles and get my whole body into the imminent happiness pushing its way through me.

Well, that’s Nat. Especially in the morning. To him, it is like the weekend, which means a “No School” day, which means wake up as early as possible and come downstairs and walk, walk, walk. So I usually get up early and try to contain it, so that everyone else can sleep. I reminded Nat gently that he needs to “walk and talk calmly, quietly, because it’s early and everyone else is sleeping.” And so there he was, actually tip-toeing and whispering his Stompies! It was so wonderful and thoughtful that I hugged him. That guy just does what he can.

We bought Max and Ben Rock Band last week, to celebrate a successful and difficult school year for both of them. I had hoped that this would be something that we could all do together, and so far, it is turning out that way. On Tuesday I got up the courage to sing, creating an avatar for myself: Lilia. She looks a little like me twenty years ago. Today I earned enough money to buy her some new, outrageous threads. Suddenly there I was, cybershopping for clothes and wondering if this looked okay or not, while Max, Ned, Hannah, and Ben looked on and laughed.

Max and Hannah switch off on guitar and drums, and they are both really good already. I find the guitar kind of hard to do; maybe it’s because I play a real guitar and I’m doing too much with this mini one (?) Maybe I just suck. Ned tried some drumming the other day and looked like a hot rocker with his long shaggy hair and ultra-confident attitude. Mm — mm, good.

Ben plays drums very well and now has gotten up the nerve to share some of my voice solos, especially the freestyle parts. He’s a little too soft or too loud, though. He shouted right in my ear before and it still feels fuzzy. I have tried to entice Nat to come in and play with us, and he obliges, perched on Max’s bed, but I suspect it is just not his bag, man.

Rock Band is a lot of family fun. I highly recommend it as a way to connect a little with your teenagers. Also, you can pretend to be a rocker, and, come on, you know you want to. Remember the Partridge Family? I was Laurie, my sister was David Cassidy. We played it with our cousins. Rock Band is this generations’s version of Partridge Family. You even get to buy a bus after you’ve earned enough bread.

Once you let the concepts of neurodiversity split open your basic assumptions about autism, the crack just keeps widening. Early this morning I took my coffee and book into the living room, to the couch across from Nat. I slurped and read while Nat sat still, in the center of the couch, whispering to himself into the crisp post-rain air.

My current read is not that great, plus the sky is lit up a promising blue and white, so my mind kept wandering. This is my frequent mental state: running from thought to thought, barely stopping to breathe and really notice them. Because of Nat’s presence, and the imminent lack thereof come July 28, the thoughts churning there were about him. As often happens when I think about this, sadness crept over me.

I couldn’t push away the way I felt sorry for him. Sorry because he was going away, and doesn’t really know yet what it means, to leave us and live somewhere else; sorry because I wondered if he felt that something was afoot, but could not put words to it because words are so elusive for him. Sorry because he didn’t have a book, but just sits there, so often, center-couch, staring ahead of him. And that made me feel bad because I realized that he doesn’t really possess much of a way to escape reality, with pleasurable leisure pursuits. (Leisure activities — or “appropriate leisure skills,” as we have come to call them because of our behavioral training — are what most people eagerly slip into to feel content: reading, listening to music, exercising, writing, gardening, doing crossword puzzles; at least, those are my typical leisure choices.)

Nat can’t escape himself the way I can. But where has all my escape gotten me? So often I run away from my real feelings (maybe you don’t think I do, but truly all you know is what you read here, where I work things out on Precious). I have a huge problem with sitting with feelings, letting them in, letting them merely pass, without acting or pushing away. Trust me, I have had some pretty awful consequences with all my running and impulsive action.

Nat, on the other hand, is capable of simply sitting, literally, with himself, his thoughts, his feelings. He exists within himself, within the moment, just about all the time. And he is okay with it. I realized then, how remarkable that is, how brave, how strong. It was the first time ever that I wanted to be like Nat.

My misplaced pity evaporated and I slunk away into the kitchen, uncomfortable, as usual, with these new feelings and discoveries, and plunged with relief into more coffee and my blog.

I made a party for Ned’s birthday, this past Sunday. It was a real mixture of worlds: his work friends, our neighborhood friends, my bellydance friend, some of our oldest friends, and some very new ones, too. All their kids, too, which Ned specifically requested. I tried to have the food be stuff that would please everyone: fried chicken, curried chicken salad, salmon nicoise, and of course, an excellent cake. Photos by Pete.

The cake was not homemade, because the design was too complicated, and too important. And a surprise. So without Ned’s expertise, I did not feel confident that I could make Betty Crocker work out just right. So I assigned the whole thing to Party Favors, a local bakery that makes the most fabulous cakes ever. (They are the ones who made my bellydancer birthday cake, complete with a cake tent, cake palm trees, and a cake desert. The bellydancer was a frosted tiny figurine.) This is an Aptus cake, based on a fractal image that Ned generated with some code he created. (This kind of software doodling is one of Ned’s hobbies. He was the first person I ever met who did math for fun. His hobbies, in the Penn facebook, were something like this: Recreational math, juggling, and other circus skills.”) The name “Aptus” actually is from the words “Apple Tush,” which is what Ben called the shape when he first saw it, as a baby. You can see that it does, indeed, look like an Apple Tush.

The party was terrific; the weather pretty much cooperated. And just about everyone we invited came, and they did bring their kids: around 35 people. I dragged out all of our classic kiddie vehicles for them to play with, and it was so great seeing the old toys out again, which hosed off very well after having been stored in the gross basement all this time. The little Playskool wagon is 17 years old now. This wagon was one of Nat’s first toys, and as a one-year-old, he had delighted in rolling it back and forth, watching its steady and then uneven movement. As a teeny baby he had actually started singing a little tune every time he rolled it, and eventually I realized that this tune was a musical illustration of the the rolling of the wagon. Never, never doubt that there is a lot going on inside the head of an autistic person. Whether they choose to or are able to share it with you is another thing altogether.)

I took out Max’s Big Wheel, now fifteen! He had been so proud of it. Ben inherited it, of course. Ben’s Cozy Coupe was there, too. Or maybe it was Max’s. So many boys went in and out of its door, checked its little mirror for who knows what, turned its impotent ignition. And now, my friend Pete’s adorable little girl tried out those vintage wheels.

I forced Ned and Max to help me set up a volleyball net. Ben actually played volleyball with some of the kids. Nat hung out the entire time, gobbling up all the chips and salsa (when I tried to add different chips to the remaining chips, he grabbed two handfuls of the remaining chips, carried them to the dining room table, and ate them. Note to self: never mix chip types).

One of the stereotypes about autism I am guilty of perpetrating is that there is a deficit in intuitive knowledge. I have observed in Nat over the years an apparent lack of knowledge about things that I thought were “common sense.” But the more I live with him, the more I understand that with autism, the differences between one person and another are not about my world vs. your world. There is no retreating into another world. The closedness we observe may not be what we think. I have come to believe that there is not “surroundings dumbness” (my term) anymore than there is a “mind-blindness.” As satisfying it was for me to believe in this condition in Nat, I now realize that the blindness was on my part. While it is true that Nat has had to be taught many things that I or my other two sons do more naturally, like reading others’ expressions, it is not because he doesn’t know how to tune into others. It’s more because he does not realize that this practice is important. Or he’s not ready to. They are subtle distinctions, but I believe they are absolutely important ones.

I had that sense about him even when he was very little; that his way of being was not necessarily about a deficit, as much as a lack of desire. Not a willful refusal, either, but rather, a simple but perhaps subconscious understanding he had of himself that this was not for him, not yet, perhaps never. Something like that. I could tell that he knew how to say hi to people, or play with toys. What he did not know was why those were good, desirable things. In some ways, my sister was right when she said so long ago, “So? Why does he have to play with stupid toys anyway?”

I used to plead with his teachers, “Tell me how to get him to like being with other kids, not merely to tolerate being with other kids!” (“Tolerating” something is a big goal in the ABA community. The belief is you get enough tolerance stored up within and you eventually generalize to liking that thing, to choosing that thing. I have found this to be so. But what a drag.)

I despaired over his autism, because I thought that it was getting in the way of his happiness. But it was really getting in the way of mine. But for him, maybe it was just that he was not ready for those kinds of interactions, and did not make them a priority until he was. Now he loves to be with other kids, other people. And still, he doesn’t like talking to them, which is basically all I do with other people I like. So I’ve learned: Nat has his way, I have mine.

What Nat knows and doesn’t know is a bit of a mystery to me. What human is not a mystery to another? We think we know what someone is thinking, we take pleasure in predicting another’s actions, or perverse pleasure in recounting another’s allegedly evil agendas. But how often are we right?

Today we went on a bike ride together and I could see that Nat was very much aware of his surroundings and what to do most of the time, like brake when he got to a stop sign or close to other people. I was breathlessly proud of him, watching him take hills effortlessly without shifting (doesn’t know how, doesn’t need to know how, with those muscular legs), and to see the smile on his face, so like mine. But when we got to a high curb, he clearly did not know how to get his bike down to the street. I had to teach him. I would have thought this was a natural motion to people — the bike lift and lower — but not for Nat. So I showed him. And now he knows. Big deal.

Perhaps it stands out to people, this sort of apparently-obvious thing that is not so obvious to guys like Nat. But the fact is, I have to teach obvious things to Ned, Max, and Ben, too. I have to prompt Ben to answer people who ask him questions. I sometimes whisper, hiss-like, to Ned, “Be nice!” And with Max, I still have to let him know when he has taken someone for granted. And I am constantly learning that I truly do not know the “real” reason someone does something I don’t like. Most of the time it has nothing to do with me at all, it turns out!!

So why should Nat’s be considered a deficit or get a pejorative label? Maybe we can just realize that we can teach people things but sometimes we have to wait until they are ready to learn. And the learning never stops. For him and for me.

I’m especially mad at stupid jump ropes.
— Lucy Van Pelt

This post is dedicated to stupid power failures, stupid house alarms, stupid people who don’t even realize it is their house alarm, stupid Ambien that no longer works, stupid snoring, and of course, stupid mind that thinks of all the bad things and can’t go back to sleep.

The Bad Sleep Song

Blah, blah bad sleep
Have you any guilt?
Yes Sue, yes Sue
Three boys’ full:

One for my Natster
One for my Beast
And one for my Little Maxie, now 6’2″ at least

Blah, blah bad sleep
Have you any guilt?
yes Sue yes Sue
Three boys’ full.

*YAWN*

I am not a refrigerator.
But when you were born
There was something so fragile,
so tenuous
wispy
I was terrified.
I couldn’t even leave the house.
Somehow, I thought you would die.
I was afraid to get too close
deep down
So afraid of losing you,
just a little ball with a face painted on
you could just roll away
A terrible sadness gripped my mind
Maybe it burst through my own tangled synapses
Maybe it rose from the hormones that nurtured you
Or maybe I knew something.

I thought you were going to leave me somehow
There was this impermanence
In the light, then out.
Shimmering, like the string you liked to look at.

I got over it
I guess.
But —
Now.
You are going to leave
I am dodging you
bouncing off you with my smiles
Keeping myself safe
and cool
But I’m really not a refrigerator.

I fear this will come off as crass, but this is an important issue, plus it’s my blog, so…

I am looking to interview an autism mom who is happy with her sex life.
What do I mean by happy? I guess I mean that:
1) Most of the time when you think about sex/intimacy/romance with your spouse, it is a good feeling, rather than a negative or hopeless feeling. In other words, you want to be intimate with your spouse but maybe you can’t. Why not?
2) How do you plan for moments of togetherness?
3) Are there particular times in the week/month when intimate moments (physical or emotional) are more possible than others? Why is that?
4) Do you believe that couples without autism in their lives are having more sex than you?

I want to be able to quote you in a chapter in my new book. I want you to give me a few reasons why you think things have worked out this way for you, by way of helping others.

Sex in a challenging family is one thing no one talks about, but probably all of us can benefit from such a discussion. It is even a difficult discussion within couples who are considering natural ways of tightening the vagina. Read more about this topic on https://vtightensafely.com. This might give you some insight on ways to improve your sex life.

And I am looking to talk to practitioners and therapists who have helped autism couples in this regard, willing to be quoted in my book.

Email me @ susan@susansenator.com

Don’t be insulted if I don’t respond to your email. There are many, many and I am looking for just the right voice/tone/attitude. Many thanks!!!
Susan

There’s always tomorrow for dreams to come true…
–Clarice the Reindeer

Oh, no. No, no, no. There we were, having bought our lemon ice, Ben and me, and on our way back, slurping deliriously and fending off the drips, we ran into one of the Brookline Shark Dads. “Did you hear what happened?” he asked. We had not. “Someone pooped in the pool, and they have to close it.”

Ben grinned, ten-year-old that he is. But I rushed back to where the team sat, waiting. Ned saw me, and after I handed out everyone’s lemon ice, I said, “How’s Nat.”
“He’s okay, I guess,” said Ned. The plan at the moment was for all of us to return home and then come back at 8 a.m. the next morning to resume.

We got home, and a few hours later we got a call from one of the coaches. The entire rest of the Games had been canceled. No swimming this year, except those lucky few who got their heats in prior to the accident.

We had to tell Nat the bad news. No swim races at all. I gave him a hug and I said, “Sorry, Darling.” Then I heard a lot of the word, “sorry” going round and round the silly talk. Sigh.

Ned and I felt so bad for him we wanted to cry.

But then Ned said, “We should make him a calendar. He’s been asking for it.” I realized that this was true, and that I had been putting it off, because of late July. We have not yet told him about moving out on July 28 and so I did not want to deal with how to make the calendar. But now I thought that if we had a calendar leading up to but not quite getting to July 28, we could show him all the fun things coming up beyond the Swim Races.

Nat ran to get me a piece of paper — the old calendar, which was still blank on the back, of course — and we sat down to fill it out. I was so glad to be able to say,”Dad’s birthday/pie” tomorrow (!) (June 16th!!!!) and then “Dad’s birthday party,” for next Sunday, followed by “Social Group Camp! Canobie Lake Park!; Chunky’s/Mini Golf!. Movie Madness!; Dance!; Go to a show!” YAY for Social Group!!! And then, the piece de la resistance: Week at Cape Cod!!!!

So together we were able to see that, yes, shit happens, but after all, tomorrow is another day.

Major Joyful House Stompies today: it is the State Games this weekend. Nat will be swimming around 12:30 today, and then at 8 tomorrow, and 12:30 again. I went on a huge bike ride with my friend Lisa today in anticipation of a great day (we went down Memorial Drive in Cambridge and then all the way up Storrow, through the Esplanade. It doesn’t get much better than that, except for riding along the ocean at Cape Cod. Wait, make that riding with my sons along the ocean at Cape Cod. That is the goal this summer.)!

We will be at Harvard Stadium, at the pool. If you see a crazy woman jumping up and down, shouting at the top of her lungs, “GO NAT!!!” that is me. Stop by and cheer him on, if you’re in the neighborhood (but remember, Mem Drive will be closed and parking is a nightmare, as always). Maybe we’ll even share some snacks with you.

When you watch a Special Olympics event, I guarantee the other Olympics will pale forever after. Nothing compares. Makes you understand a whole new meaning of “The Best.”

I never learn. I get all worked up about all the stuff I have to do, all nervous, sweaty palms, etc. And it ends up okay. I guess that is because the few times it did not remain forever in my brain, open sores slashed into the gray matter. Why can’t I hold onto the good stuff, soft kisses pressed into my heart?

Anyway…

This afternoon was one of those action-packed days where I had to be two places at once. You all know the kind of day I mean. Nat had a half day, so I booked his 6 month-teeth-cleaning for today. So — Nat at the dentist at 2, but Ben is in school at 2. Ben then had an appointment at 2:30, while Nat would be in the dentist. My mission — and I had no choice but to undertake it — was to pick them up and drop them off and wait with whichever boy for the designated amount of time before I had to pick up the other boy with the first boy in tow.

My strategy: Get Ben out of school early, leaving Nat in the car while I do so so as not to upset Ben by bringing Nat into the school and risking an outburst (it’s happened before, just horrible, don’t get me started: kids heads being slapped, my head being slapped, etc. All because we took the wrong turn down the hall.). Hoping Nat would be okay in the car for a few minutes.

Bringing them both to the dentist, waiting there while Nat paced the waiting room full of little kids. The receptionists know us well, however, and just love Nat, so they just smile and everything’s cool. Then at 2, Nat went in and I split with Ben for his appointment, which, luckily, was just across Beacon Street from the dentist!

Wait with Ben until 2:30. Rush back to get Nat. Go with Nat up to the corner and buy ice cream. Eat the ice cream. Throw away half of it because I don’t want to get fat(ter). Walk quickly to Starbux and get Ben a cookie like I always do, must keep all routines the same, and an ice coffee for me to reward myself for only eating half the ice cream, which was lo carb anyway.

Rush up the three flights to get Ben, running behind Nat the Sprinter, who is just about to open the door to a psychotherapist’s office!!! “No, Nat!!” Okay, we made it. Find a magazine I haven’t read, that I could tolerate. (Family Circle? Ick. More? Should be called “Bore.”) Wonder why Nat is staring at me? Everything okay? Worry, worry about outburst…

Ben spills out from his appointment. I pull the cookie out of the bag. He HUGS ME!!

Nothing else matters. We are done and I was hugged. Happy weekend to you all.

My column in today’s Brookline Tab was about the year teaching bellydance.

Opinion: Teaching class yields belly laughs

By Susan Senator/Edge of Town

Thu Jun 12, 2008, 05:46 AM EDT

Nothing is ever what you think it’s going to be. Especially the first time you try to teach.

Teaching an after-school belly dance class at our school, Lincoln, was an idea I had last year, when I was finishing a year of studying belly dance. I wanted to share my passion with others, but because I did not have the nerve to perform anywhere, I wasn’t sure how.

I broached the idea with our PTO president, and she was very excited about it. By the fall, I had four girls signed up, first- and second-graders. The day of my first class, my head was filled with images of little girls in pink, eager to learn, falling in love with exotic music and hanging on my every word.

They did wear pink, but they also wore black, camouflage, leopard prints and high-top sneakers. They thought the music was weird, and funny. They enjoyed the hip scarves — a little too much. They wanted to change their color choices frequently, or they needed me to re-tie them every few minutes. (When you don’t have any hips, it is tough to keep a hip scarf in place.)

They were beautiful, lively, happy little girls, but that, too, was nothing I expected. They would go from high-pitched laughter to inexplicable pouting in minutes. They listened to me, but only in small bursts. I only got through a few moves each class, before half of them would say, “We already learned that one!”

I felt stressed. I felt like a failure. It seemed that I was getting mad a lot, and learning my limitations rather than teaching anyone anything.

What I learned did have some value. I learned, for instance, that bringing in snacks helped a lot, because it gave me some leverage with them: “We’ll do 10 more minutes of this, and then there will be a snack.” I learned that I could only teach three things in one hour. I learned that the hour was really a half-hour, because of snacks and running around. And I learned that teaching was a lot more than merely loving a subject and loving children.

Over time, I finally learned how to control them, but I still felt I was not “reaching” them. Then one day, it dawned on me that I was trying too hard. That day, after they had bugged me for the umpteenth time to let them dance for each other, I decided we could do just that: We could put on a show. A recital for the parents, on the stage. I didn’t know how, exactly, but I figured we would do one brief song and work on just a few moves to accompany it.

That was probably the turning point — the moment I let go of my unrealistic expectations and connected instead with them, their interests and abilities. The upcoming recital gave the class a structure, a rhyme and a reason. I hadn’t realized how much this small goal would help. I felt my head clear. I finally understood that I wasn’t going to be teaching much actual belly dance, but maybe, if I let the girls play with hip scarves and veils for a while, I’d get to show them what was great about dance.

Maybe the girls sensed my new focus and peace of mind. They worked hard, in their own chaotic, noisy way. Over the weeks I could see their movements coalesce into a kind of orderliness. I could sometimes recognize shimmies, undulations and pedal turns. Through all the chaos, there was the vague shape of a choreography that would come and go, like a mirage on the desert.

The day of the recital arrived. On the stage, before we started, there was chasing and running, slipping on veils, playing with the curtain. I felt my tension rise with the noise, but I reminded myself that this was what they did. I tried to relax, told myself that it would be OK, whatever it was. And sure enough, when they heard their song, their eyes widened and they gasped. They ran — of course — to take their places.

They glided in slowly, veils overhead, and they arranged themselves into a circle. They followed through with the piece, quiet and dignified. My heart bloomed with pride. When they were finished, everyone clapped. And then came the best part: The girls each thanked me, and then asked if they could take it again next year.

Susan Senator is author of “Making Peace with Autism.” She can be reached at www.susansenator.com

All these cold and rude things that you do I suppose
you do because he belongs to you;
and instead of love, the feel of warmth
you’ve given him these cuts and sores that won’t heal
with time or age.
–Natalie Merchant

How much do our words sink in, and permanently lacerate? How resilient are the others in our lives? People say children just bounce back, but we all know how we carry around hurts from childhood, things that made us as screwed up as we now are.

I guess the thing I’m so worried about is something I said years ago when Nat was eleven and we were going through hell with the first onslaught of his aggression. This was when I first came up with the term “Living Under Siege,” referring to how imprisoned I felt because Nat was so volatile. I went around with a stomach ache from the fear. I was afraid he would suddenly hurt me or someone else in the family, or lash out inexplicably at a stranger and get us all in trouble. I was afraid someone (at his school) would hurt him while trying to subdue him. I was afraid we would, too, inadvertently.

I’m reminded of Rhett Butler, who, head in hands, is crying to Melanie about Scarlet’s fall down the stairs. Scarlet almost died from the fall, and the baby she was carrying did die. Rhett says, “And then, what did I do? What did I say?”

We all know what he said: Maybe you’ll have an accident. And then, just then, she did.

Here I am, head in hands. What did I do, what did I say, in the middle of a terrible bout of fending off Nat’s aggression: “If you don’t stop, I’ll send you away to live at your school. You won’t be able to live here.”

“No live at school,” Nat said.

I am beyond sorry. I can’t take those words back. I know I’m a drama queen. So be it. And now you know what’s the matter here.

I was folding napkins for dinner. In the middle of smiling at Joyful House Stompies, I stopped dead in my tracks. My brow pulled inward and my throat swelled, and there it was, grief out of nowhere. I watched Nat running back and forth, stimming, talking so loudly in his own language, and I suddenly felt leveled by what was to come. He was going to live at his school. It was really going to happen. The thing that I once feared so much, come to life. I had promised, when he was eleven, that I would never send him away. Anything that happened, our family would deal with it. We would just broaden our arms to hold it up.

So — my arms are tired. I find I cannot carry this much. I am opening them up, and letting him go. Our family is no longer bigger than our challenge, the way families with little kids are in control. We are beyond control. Nat and Max are breaking off, discreet lands of their own. We are bigger, and also smaller than we have ever been.

It is upon us now. I once feared this eventuality so much that I ran from it — for the first three years of Nat’s life. That thing — once the doctor at Mass General said the word, “Autism,” — was kind of a gray, shadowy essence that I could keep at bay. I did not have to see it. I did not know what shape it would take, but I could be optimistic. I could still say, “All bets are off. You never know.”

I was sad tonight because now there is one big thing I do know. He’s leaving.