Susan Senator

“Knowledge is good.”
–Emil T. Faber, Faber College

Something I would like to recommend to all of you: meet with your police community relations people to exchange information on autism spectrum and your public safety needs. Some police forces and first responders are already doing ALEC trainings around issues to do with autism and best approaches, etc. Dennis Debbaudt was instrumental in creating the ALEC training. He is a former cop and a dad to a guy on the spectrum, so he knows from where he speaks. (He is also a fun and inspiring public speaker. We have presented at several of the same conferences.)

Last night our autism parents coalition (another recommendation to autism parents: organize, organize, organize. There is strength in numbers and if you are not getting the services you or your child needs, bring a group to your local Board of Ed or School Committee. Trust me, nothing gets their attention more than a large group of enthusiastic citizens!) met with the Brookline police, who have already had the ALEC training, for more of a personal autism information exchange. Ned and two other parents told stories of run-ins with the police and their ASD children, and the cops commented and advised, and then we parents asked a lot of questions. There were parents of kids of all forms of ASD, and all ages. One family even brought up their fears for their black autistic son, vis a vis potential racial misperceptions. I talked about ASD and some kids’ tendencies to touch themselves or others inappropriately, just to make the police aware of the whole potential Sex Offender nightmare. Others talked about the fear to call for help, because they did not want their child removed to a psych ward or hospital.

The main lesson that came out of this night was that the more info we ASD parents and citizens can get to the police for their convenient reference (info like: photos, preferences, “hates sirens; loves bodies of water; hates the color yellow; will not tolerate the word ‘not;'” motivators, hiding places, strategies for approach) the better off we will be if, God forbid, there is bolting or some other incident. Knowledge is good.

This is a blog post that is merely a news report, nothing pithy, and therefore, nothing to pith anyone off. What is on my mind today is water, but really, deep down, worry about water. We are getting that $#@ sewage pipe replaced — all 30 feet of it — out of our front lawn. The water will be off all day. No little drinkies spilled down the drain, no flushes. Who will be the first to forget?

This job is a result of a video that was taken of the inside of the pipe, that revealed tree root invasion in eleven places, and pipe so broken that it is not meeting up with pipe in three places. How will they do this job, with snow on the ground and the air temp being low thirties, if that? Ned and I are sitting here shrugging and feeling very, very nervous about the job. It is so hard to be a grown-up, sometimes, and look into these things and know all you have to know.

I think I would rather be a kid than this construction-managing, food-shopping, meal-preparing, clothing-washing adult that I now am. As a kid, you don’t have to worry about sewage, except your own. And it provides endless material for jokes, which every one around you gets.

I got so deep into my dance class yesterday (Baby Bellies) that I felt like a kid, too. I was actually disappointed when the first mom showed up. This time, I was so much with them, so in-the-moment, that I felt like one of them, in some ways, or like a neato older sister in others. They were asking to do this or that, and for me to show them. They actually told me how they like to learn, which is to just try doing the stuff as I do it, watching me. So two of them asked to learn a dance routine — can you believe it, that is ambitious stuff! — and so I tried to make one up, using only moves I had taught them. I put on my trusty Misirlou, the George Abdo version, and just felt the music tell me what to do. Knowing the piece so well, I could warn them of tempo changes ahead of time, and of what I would do next. At one point I saw, out of the corner of my eye, four flashes of colored veil: gold, pink, green, and lavender, all swirling at the same time, the same direction. Oh my God, I thought, they are doing it. They are dancing. They get it.

Creature Comforts — because it snowed last night and so it now feels like comfort time.
1) The soft, fluffy white peds I took from my Mom’s drawer. Good to sleep in, too.
2) 3-carb hot chocollate from Swiss Miss. The first tastes of wet, lumpy powder taste really good. This is not a brown crayon dipped in water.
3) Candles in my fireplace. Less hassle than lighting a fire, little flames can cheer, too.
4) Falling asleep against Ned on the couch while we watch an Old Simpson’s episode on the Tivo with Ben; I can hear his laughter, low and rumbling, against my ear.
5) A week of nothing nudgy planned but meeting friends, writing, holiday shopping, making Chanukah nights special.
6) Decorating for Chanukah: get out the choo-choo train menorah, the cheap brass one we bought at the Penn Bookstore when we were first married, the ceramic one little Max made where the holes are so tiny we use birthday candles, the silver one I splurged on, the lightbulb one like Mom and Dad’s that goes in the front window. Plug in all my Casbah lights leftover from my birthday party. Drape flashy paper dreidl from my porch light.
7) Making latkes from scratch. Must buy taters today. And applesauce, that’s how Max likes them.
8) Assembling wrapping paper, tape, scissors, and presents and having a wrap session, the excitement over the piles growing.
9) The feeling of having finished the raking, (yesterday!) in time for the first snow (last night!)
10) The look of the first snow from within a warm house.

Today was haircut day in the Batchelder-Senator household! (Except for me, and Beastie’s was cut last week. Mine is growing long for spinning in bellydance.)

What’s flap got to do, got to do with it?
What’s flap but a single-handed motion?
–Tina Turner and me

A friend put a comment on my blog asking if she should ask her ABA therapist to ease up on the anti-flapping. My answer is a resounding, “Yes!”

My question right now is, “What’s Flap Got to Do With It?” Why should anyone care so much about what someone else is doing, if no pain or illegal matters are involved? Why can’t we all just stay focused on what we need to do and leave the flappers alone? Or the sillytalkers or the rockers and spinners? Once again, Voltaire had it right. Our own gardens, man, our own gardens. Get weeding and stop looking at my flapping boy.

This reminds me of the Standards Movement in education. The Standards Folks believe basically that if my Natty boy fulfills his I.E.P., works long years to understand and master typing, placing a phone call, alphabetizing, conversation, basic math, purchasing, and then Nat gets a diploma — the same diploma as your typically-developing, A student — then that diploma is de-valued. Even if it took Nat much, much, more effort and brainpower to get from his own Point A to Point B then it took for A. Student to get from his 88% to his 99%. Whose achievements were greater? Who decides that A. Student’s 99% in Calculus and American History are so much more important to the World Out There, then Nat learning how to exist mostly on his own as an adult? What is an education for, really? Is it to learn more science and math than the Chinese, or is it to create a generation of adults who can reason, think things through, act safe in the world, find a job, and contribute their little bit to society?

Diplomas should measure mastery and effort, but with respect to each individual’s abilities. My Nat’s diploma does not devalue A. Student’s. But most of my state Board of Ed believe it does and Nat will be denied a bona fide diploma when he graduates, or actually, when he leaves school at 22. Technically in Massachusetts Nat will not “graduate;” he will finish school with a nice ceremony. This is true in most of the country as well. Standardized, exit exams decide graduation, rather than years of effort and IEPs. The Standards Folks have taken the stuffing out of the primacy of the IEP. What kind of standard is that?

The ABA-ists apply their standard of “normal behavior,” or “appropriate behavior” to autistic people. Sure, we NTs all know what is normal and what is not. Or do we? There I go picking at my forehead zit again and again, twirling my hair, jouncing my knees under the table, singing as I cook. There Ned goes endlessly tapping his fingers or clicking his teeth to a song. There goes Beastie humming a Mario tune. There goes my mom clearing her throat while she reads. Or Dad with his perpetually raised eyebrows. There you go surreptitiously picking your nose, especially when you are driving.

Nat does his thing, gloriously un-self-consciously. Vibrant, voracious, sillytalk and fastwalking back and forth. Who the F cares? He’s getting excercise, he’s declaring his happiness.

Is it that we NTs are secretly jealous of the Auties who just freely let their flap flag fly?

They will beat their swords into market shares and their spears into social storybooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore. — Me, and Isaiah 2:4 and Micah

What is going to happen to this country, to this world, if the numbers of autism keep jumping? Or, if science and medical technology allow people to live, who otherwise would have died in utero or from having been born prematurely? We all tear our hair out and cry to the heavens about the problem.

But — are the numbers the problem? Or is it just that we currently don’t have the resources to accommodate these people? And, if enough people have these problems, isn’t there the possibility that it will force society to change its values and find that money? If society had the money to take care of pain, to educate, to hire supportive staff, to house, to accommodate and employ — would it actually matter so much that some people could not sit quietly in movie theatres, stop from flapping in restaurants or playgrounds, have tantrums in supermarkets? I am talking about if there were enough money. The war in Iraq is costing around $720 million daily. Most people feel this war should never have happened in the first place. Even of those who do, many feel it is now a failed venture and the troops should be brought home. With so many other places on fire in the world, we cannot justify being only in Iraq, nor can we propose going into all the other places. We have to tend to our own gardens now.

If we tended to our own gardens, we would have enough money for the people in need in this country.

If we could build sufficient schools with enough space for small, separate classrooms when needed, but also with enough money to train regular education staff to include and mainstream wherever we could — and yet kept those classes small so that staff could be effective and everyone within could learn in their own style — we would not have a problem of having too many special needs kids. The problem results from not enough money, from mismanaged priorities — the Iraqi war is but one example — not from the people themselves with the issues.

If you think about it, it is actually a good thing, the changing face of our populations, the addition of multiple disabilities, of autism spectrum thinkers, of Down Syndrome classmates and friends, of kids with CP trying to speak and kids without CP learning to understand them. Our children are now used to kids flapping, working with aides, being pulled out for math support, using wheelchairs in elevators in schoolbuildings. Our kids are learning that bullying is wrong, (even if they still do it a little, you have to start somewhere). We have anti-bullying curricula now. That is lightyears better than in my day, when poor developmentally delayed Clayton came into the classroom and peed on the floor and we just laughed and no one said anything, no one explained, and I never got to know him. I was afraid and looked away.

The shifting ingredients of society, now in the classrooms due to the miracle of modern medicine, soon to be in neighborhoods and in the workforce, is a brilliantly beautiful manifestation of the wonders of life. Life was first formed from random mutations of cells and evolution. Most of us are now two-legged, sighted, reasoning, speaking. But some of us are not. Big Fucking Deal. We are all here, and we all must be brought to the table. Our children are learning that, and they are getting over it and incorporating these experiences into their daily lives.

This program was sent to me by a reader (thanks, Susan B!), and you will notice that the father talks about the boy’s hard life. It got me wondering, would Walker’s life be this hard, if there were no stigmas to overcome, no dismissals on face value? If no one looked away from Walker, but actually embraced him so that his father and mother could get a break?

If the community fearlessly embraced their “disabled,” unafraid because they were used to difference and because there was enough money to provide training and understanding, would Walker’s life and his father’s life be less isolated and sad? Perhaps it is the constant burden of feeling that difference = wrong, emphasized by the penny-pinching mentality of school systems, caused by lack of funds from the government, that contribute in a huge way to the disabled and their families feeling like outsiders, like grateful beggars.

Am I a dreamer? Maybe. But we all know, governments are voted out, priorities shift, laws are signed into being, and society changes. We can imagine a better world because we actually witness it sometimes in our kids’ lives. We don’t have to settle for shitty conditions. We can do better than this; in fact, sometimes, in our children’s classrooms, we already do.

Oooh, my sacroiliac…
–Kaa the Snake, Disney’s “The Jungle Book”

You wouldn’t think that mere light touch would do much of anything for a person with high anxiety, and actually, I’m not sure that it does. Nevertheless, Ned and I brought Nat to his first session of Craniosacral therapy today at my gym’s spa, and we sat with him while Kate worked on him.

I chose to do this because I have had several excellent massages with Kate. I find her kind, warm, and with just the right degree of pressure. I truly relax with her, and for me, that is a wonder. I was idly checking her bio on my gym’s homepage and I saw that she practices CST. I knew that craniosacral is an alternative, unproven therapy for autism, and of course I thought of Nat, although the thing is, what does it mean to be a “therapy for autism?” Are you trying to address autism, or are you trying to somehow help the autistic person? And what does that mean?

In my mind, therapy for Nat would be about either making his body more effective in some way, or making him feel good in some way. CST could possibly do both, or nothing. But I figured there would be no harm done in having Nat experience something new like massage. Once he has the context of a new thing, he can enjoy it and I believe he will enjoy getting massages; perhaps with Kate.

First Kate worked on me (yay! did that feel good!) while Nat watched, so that he would know what to expect. She gently pulled at my feet for a while and then went to my neck and head and temples, gently stroking or resting her hands there. She finished with these mild tugs on my ears. It was delightful.

Then Nat eagerly got up on the table, laying down face up, and she touched his feet for a while, and then moved over to his neck and shoulders. Nat was smiling gently for some of it, and eyes closed and mouth neutral for the rest of it. He sometimes stared at the ceiling, fuzzy-eyed, too.

No sillytalk for the entire session. That is the one big observation I made. He was definitely not asleep, either. He answered her questions each time — about his comfort level — and lay still. Only once did his hand move in a vague flap, and he pronounced one brief syllable, but that was it. Not at all sure what to make of that, except that he was probably uber-relaxed.

I suppose utter relaxation is what I was hoping to get out it for him. As I gazed at him lying there so still, so serene, I felt my mind moving back in time, to Baby Nat and how he would laugh when I tried to lay down with him for a nap. He kept lifting up his head, looking at me with my eyes closed, laughing as if I were playing a game with him. I remember I was so tired, and so wishing to sleep, and yet his delighted little face right near mine was so adorable that I didn’t really mind being awake.

Watching Nat lying on the soft table in the massage room, thinking about how much has happened, an odd thing happened. For perhaps the first time ever, my remembering in that way did not make me feel sad. I kept looking at his sleepy, bearded face and only thinking, “Do you feel good, Nat? Is this different? Is this okay?” I only wanted for him to feel happy, calm, relaxed, at peace: no other feelings. And the funny thing is, that is what I was feeling.

Just came across this splash from another life.

Maurice Sendak and Carol King need to update.

A … Autism All Around
B … Bolting Outside
C … Can’t Tell If He’s Cold
D … Dragging to Doctors
E … Enervating Educators
F … Forever Flapping
G … Getting Giggles
H … Having Heartache
I … Irritating IEPs
J … Juggling Therapies
K … Kissing Strangers
L … Looking at Lines
M … Memorizing Everything
N … Never Napping
O … Ordering (Gluten-free) Oatmeal
P … Pinching People
Q … Quite Quiet
R … Running Away
S … Sweetly Unspoiled
T … Throwing Tantrums
U … Unusually Upside Down
V … Very Bright
W… Wears No Labels
X … X’ing X’s
Y … Yackety-yacking
Z … Zippity Zound… Autism All Around

Sounds crazy, no?
–Tevye, “A Fiddler on the Roof”

Bad title, great movie. It sounds like it’s going to be a musical where the characters are signing about aspects of autism. It is not.

Autism: The Musical is a documentary about a theater troupe of ASD kids, “The Miracle Project,” run by Elaine, a single mom of 12-year-old Neal. There are five main characters, actors in the troupe, who are the focus of the film: Neal, Adam, Wyatt, Henry, and Lexi. We learn their stories from mostly their moms, but also their dads, in between scenes of rehearsals. We watch the process of bringing a bunch of very different ASD kids together, all different levels of ability, and see them learn not only how to be in a play, but also to listen to one another, communicate effectively, and connect with others.

The overall feel of the movie is naked honesty and riveting storytelling. Your emotions churn from sad to shocked to moved to laughing as you watch it, taking in poignant early childhood footage and then the story of a marriage breaking up, then an insensitive and expensive school advocate, or a few minutes of one child describing what it’s like to be stuck in “the retard class,” but bullied by the “regular kids.” Even the lighting is raw and natural, no one has on any stage make-up, houses are sometimes messy, but more than that, their words are unvarnished, and the conflicts both among couples and between staff and parents and among kids are unflinchingly recorded and presented to us as all part of the story.

The best thing about Autism: the Musical is the way you get to know each of the kids as a person. This, to me, is the kind of work that will change the world because it will get people beyond stereotype and dismissal, to seeing real people with a full range of talents, problems, concerns, annoyances, and delights. Where first you see perhaps an “overweight” adolescent, you come to love Lexi for her beautiful, ready smile and her Joni Mitchell singing voice, honed by echolalia and the love of imitating. You want to listen to Henry all day as he talks about his obsession, reptiles, but gradually begins to relate more to the people around him. Neal is non-verbal, apparently out of it, but then you see how he’s mischievous and funny with gestures, keyboarding, and looks he gives. Wyatt breaks your heart talking about bullies, but then he gets to act the part of a bully and it completely thrills him. Adam is the buck-toothed, cherished son of an intense, argumentative mom and in the end you are rooting for them both.

Even my much more even-keeled friend was crying and laughing all the way through. I somehow left feeling proud of myself, and proud of Nat, imagining him in the Miracle Project. I knew there would be a place for him there. He would fit right in. All of our kids, all of us would, because they were determined to welcome and work with everybody, no matter what their challenges, and find their talents. As far as I know, no one had special training of any sort, no baggage about autism, nothing but an eagerness to do this. There was only the ingredients necessary for success: enough bright and caring staff; parental input; adequate space and time; reasonable but respectable goals; an eye out for fun and pleasure. And that, my friends, is what a true learning experience is all about. That is what human interaction should be about.

As my Grandma would have said, “A beautiful picture.”

Almost time to flush November. December is better, it even sounds like the word “Decent.” Although, December is a funny time of year to be a Jew. You really feel like a minority. You get the sense of being an outsider. It’s like finding out about a big party you didn’t get invited to. You know you’ve got your own little, intimate party of menorahs, dreidls, chocolate coins, and songs in the minor key about lights that lasted eight days (hard to appreciate when our little colored candles last 45 minutes and our light bulbs last six months) but they all kind of pale next to the onslaught of red velvet, deep green, fake snow, lights, shiny presents, and music in the malls. Yeah, we’ve got Adam Sandler, but they’ve got Bruce Springsteen.

But more and more, I only feel psyched for this holiday. I have a place to go for Christmas dinner: Ned’s father and stepmom’s house in New Hampshire. I know exactly how it will be, what we will eat, who I will see there, and I’m glad. I’m like Nat; give me a social story about how I’ll feel and when it will end, and I’ll be okay. We even get to dress up.

At Christmastime, I feel like, well, if we’ve got to lose our leaves, flowers, and warmth, at least we lose them to a tidal wave of color and shopping. We get a long vacation, we get a lot of happy, excited Christians — always a good thing for the majority to be happy when you are a minority — we get to revisit old classic television like “Rudolph” and “It’s a Wonderful Life,” “The Grinch,” and “Charlie Brown Christmas.”

I was all grumpy at the Stop and Shop the other day — even though they’ve renovated it, it’s still an armpit of a supermarket, always out of things I need, plus I hate food shopping because there is always so much to get and so much to carry inside. I hate walking in through my basement, pass the termite-eaten wood, thinking of all the renovating we are never going to get to, thinking of how the stairs up to the kitchen always look worn out and dirty, even when freshly vacuumed, thinking about all this food I just bought but I have no idea what to make for dinner. I was hearing the end of some real stinker of a Christmas song — probably some goopy thing from the ’50’s, the one about the Winter Wonderland and Parson Brown, for crying out loud — when suddenly I heard those familiar little piano-key Jingle Bells along with a very deep voice saying, “ho ho ho,” and I had a hot flash of joy realizing that Bruce’s “Santa Claus is Comin’ To Town” was beginning. Now that is one classy, classic Christmas song. It makes me so happy to hear Bruce get all wound up and giddy, laughing and out of breath from Clarence’s clowning. It is the best Christmas song there is.

I don’t know where this is going, I’m just glad November has.
And now, for your listening pleasure, a blast from my past.

Now I’m back to thinking about setting up a foundation/writing a guide. What would be the most helpful, what is the most needed? Here is my list:

1) A resource that gives parents a few clear paths to follow, at every stage of development, for their atypically developing child (without being arrogant-pricklike). Diagnosis, school planning, IEP negotiating, middle school planning, resources for having fun, transition, vocational, independence-training, adulthood. A guide that gives parents a meaningful structure to explain to them the stage they are entering, a platform to cling to.

2) A foundation that awards grants to families who need help with some aspect of family life. Grants to aid families in Siege Mode (when they are in crisis related to autism), grants to aid independence, grants for therapy for family members.

3) A foundation that awards grants to families trying to have fun, in the midst of crisis. Doesn’t have to be autism-related.

4) A workshop/center that offers fun to disabled kids, that is not billed as “therapeutic” or “pragmatic” or does the standard van-to-bowling-alley (not that there’s anything wrong with that). You see where this is leading? A place for kids to be kids, especially girls. My belief is that disabled girls are probably steered away from feminine fun, and that they sorely miss that stuff. Do they learn how to feel beautiful, do they ever feel empowered from within or without? That is what I could teach them, through bellydance and perhaps some personal shopping and make-up lessons. Makeovers! Ever since I saw Cinderella, my very first movie, and she transformed, bibitty-bobitty-boo, into a princess, I have been enthralled with the power of the makeover.

I could call it: Fairy Godmother Foundation: Because everyone deserves to go to the ball.

Sometimes it takes a lot of trips on the merry-go-round before you grab the brass ring. What’s more, sometimes brass rings are made, not found.

We had been through four pediatricians before finding Susan Reuter. I always liked her openness to my ideas and my discoveries about autism, and I have cherished the way she would admit when I was the expert, and she was not. She’s been our doctor now for 11 years. We kind of grew up together, a mother and a pediatrician learning as we went (she is only one year younger than me and even went to the same school as Ned and me). We had a true partnership in taking care of my kids’ health. And while sometimes deep down I have wished for that one professional who really knew it all, who could tell me what really to expect, who could tell me the best path, and what else I should, really, be doing, I know that such expertise does not actually exist and if someone tried to be that for me, I would probably think they were arrogant, know-it-all pricks.

I visited Susan today, to get the guardianship process started. (After Susan, we have to get a psychologist and a licensed social worker — not one of those imposter social workers that we run into day after day — to sign off on the report.)

Sitting there with her, I began pulling out the forms from my crisp little “Nat 688” folder, as if I were Ms. Together Mother Extraordinaire. Suddenly I started coughing and sputtering like Krakatoa. It felt like my throat was just closing right up, the fingers of God pressing in, and my freshly made-up eyes began watering like Niagara Falls. It was an anaphylactic-geographic nightmare.

Good old Dr. Reuter immediately grasped both the seriousness and the humor in the situation. She rushed outside and got me water, tissues, and even an inhaler. I said, “Yeah, I have one of those, but…”

And she finished my sentence, “It’s expired.”

Eyes a-flooding, chest heaving, I merely nodded. Then, as if that weren’t enough, I burst out in a sweat. “Got anything for hot flashes?”
“But you’re only 21!” She said. We laughed, but then I was coughing again.

* * *

“You know, this is real noxious stuff,” she said, looking at the forms, after I’d recovered a little.
“Yes, I’ve been a mess over it, ” I said, wiping my nose and filling my coat pocket with crumpled tissues.
“That you guys have to go through this, considering the awesome parents that you are!” she murmured. “I’ll take care of it; you have enough on your plate.”
“So — ” I said, wanting to cry, lie down on the rug and sleep, or else just hug her, “Can he keep seeing you even though he’s eighteen?”
“We even have someone who’s 28,” she said. “Some people, you can’t just go by age.” I liked the matter-of-fact way she said that. Nat was her patient and that was that.

Forget the brass ring; I felt like I’d struck gold.

My kingdom for a horse
–Richard the III, Shakespeare. (For a better accounting of Richard III, read Sharon Kaye Pennman’s The Sunne in Splendour, one of my all-time favorite books)

If you were startled awake by a loud, shouting cougher, it was probably me. My cough, which started as a little post-nasal-drip on Thanksgiving, has morphed into the stage of devlish-tickle-in-the-throat that makes you scream out your cough in an effort to excise/exorcise it from your gullet. Nyquil quenched the fire for most of the night, but took a good hour to really work and then wore off too early, so here I am. Upright and coffee-d up, I am now fine, so I will forget about this backhoe inside my neck until tonight.

Mo-in-lo coming tonight, just for dinner. Got to figure out what to cook (or dial, more likely. Ssh, don’t tell her.)

That’s all for now, no kinder awake yet. Today I must also go to the pediatrician and get her to write up the beginning of the clinical team report that sets in motion the guardianship process for Nat. I feel fine about it — right now — but stay tuned for the after shock.

More coffee, argh, the tickle is back, &%#!! Open the coughers! My kingdom, for I’m hoarse.

It seems to me that perhaps the thing that makes an interaction more enjoyable is if you join with the other person, in the moment, to whatever degree possible. This is something I learned, and keep on learning, with Nat. I remember us sitting in his little play tent in his room and I had no idea what to say or do next so I just started wiggling my mouth and being silly. “I’m Mrs. Sillymouth,” I said, channeling Adam Sandler; Nat imitated me, saying, “Mrs. SillyMouse.” So I became Mrs. SillyMouse. It wasn’t earth-shattering fun; it was just meat-and-potatoes play, but it was exactly what we felt like doing just then. I felt free; my breath came easily, my legs were “Indian style,” (that can’t be the best way to say it); my back was comfortably curved. Nat was close to me and he was smiling.

Today I only had two Baby Bellies in my class; the raw weather is starting to claim its victims. At first it was a little stark and quiet, just playing that Arabic music, which I think of as: “almost-out-of-tune-but-just-enough-melody-to-be-tantalizing.” Little J was watching me quietly with wide brown eyes and Little E was running around, bumping into the walls. The hour stretched before me, yawning and empty. I heard my thoughts start to churn nervously, as they have been the last few weeks in Baby Bellies, with those warped inner tapes of mine, “You don’t know how to teach, you don’t know how to engage them, what makes you think you can do this, you’re just a flakey hausfrau.” I felt my big fat heart start to fold up on itself, watching Little E rolling senselessly on the gym mats. “Gym mats!” I thought. “In a bellydance class! That doesn’t go! Make them stop and pay attention to you!” (My tapes go up to eleven.)

But not today. I just turned down the sound of self-destruction as much as I could, turned up Hakim, and forgot my Adult Self and started playing, right along with the little girls. The mats were blue, so they were water. I said, “Watch out, this is the alligator pit.” Little E lit up and started walking on the “ropes” that went across the pit. And Little J started being a mermaid in the water. Perfect. I took the sea-green veil and moved it through the air like water or fins. Before long, they were off the mat, and showing me a dance routine they made up on the spot. It had a few elements that I recognized: spinning with a veil, throwing your veil like a flower, and choo-choo steps. I couldn’t have been prouder.

I won’t say the hour flew by but I think we got in some good meat-and-potatoes dance moves, and some really great mermaid flips in between.

I’m all out of faith
This is how I feel.
–Natalie Imbruglia

To all of you who think of my life as a roller coaster ride: welcome to Lightning Loops. (Or possibly, Free Fall, the ride that is so horrible they don’t even bother to disguise it as a giant spider or a Tower of Terror. It is just a metal structure with a chair that rises and rises until you hear this BUZZ and the chair is released and you fall downward.) I am feeling so brittle today, like I could break any second, just held together with scotch tape and coffee. The plastic sheen of the blue sky makes me squint and want to take refuge in yet another cup of highly sweetened Peet’s.

What started it? A shaky Thanksgiving. A disappointing long weekend. An uncertain future. The pervasive, snappish cold that tells me that it is absolutely true that winter is right around the corner, even though Indian summer was only last week. Why? Why do I feel this way? When all is fairly well within my combustible nuclear family? Taking the emotional temperature of the four of them, I find that they are all doing really well right now, so WTF is my problem?

Was it the New Yorker’s review of — of all things — War and Peace, the latest translation? Why, you might ask, would that send me into a tailspin? Because it makes me feel like a failure. It reminds me of my lost youth, of the path not taken, or in my case, the path barred to me by Penn and Harvard grad school admissions. You see, way back when, I thought I was going to get my PhD in Russian Intellectual History of the 19th Century, at either Penn (where I got my Master’s in the above) or Harvard, because we were destined for Boston after 5 long years in Philadelphia. But I was not accepted into either program; I probably was not serious enough a student. I did not read 18th century whaling diaries on my vacations at Cape Cod. I did not subscribe to any historical journals. I had not mastered statistics. I did not want to visit the Soviet Union, I told my advisor. I wanted to visit Russia. 19th Century. I wanted to wear those clothes, bustle and all. I wanted to ride in my coach and play Whist, whatever that was, dance at the Rostovs’ ball and decide between suitors. Seriously, all I really wanted to do was figure out why the Russian Enlightened thinkers thought the way they did. I wanted to immerse in it, go back in a time machine. Well, that was just too emotional for those hardheaded academics, so they turned me down. Anyway, so I just came to Boston figuring I’d do something else. And — voila! I did. Oh, boy, did I.

But I still wonder at what I have not done with my life. I read that terrific and interesting New Yorker review and I could not help reading various clever paragraphs to poor pre-coffee Ned. I felt such longing, to steep myself in that academic world of pondering Tolstoy’s every word and then doing the research to prove this or that completely irrelevant but beautiful point.

I am both blessed and cursed with having the time to do what I want with my life. I understand that this is a wonderful, lucky thing, but it certainly brings with it its own problems. I feel utterly compelled to find The Right Thing to do with myself and then Do It. I am longing for a book idea; at the same time I want to start a dance studio for disabled girls. At the same time, I have a partially-filled-out job application to Anthropologie; at the same time I am looking up grad school programs in special needs education but feeling like, Jeebus Cripes I should be teaching these classes, not taking them! My arrogance and impatience get in my way as much as my intertia and depression.

A lot of people have told me that I should give myself a break and realize that I have a hard life. They mean Nat, of course. Nat is an easy target, poor Sweet Guy. But they are so wrong. I know that Nat is not what makes my life its most difficult; I am. I trip over my own neuroses like tree roots in the path. Nat, in fact, has given me a little respite from all that, as well as a chance to strike out on a whole new path through the swamp. Pardon my metaphor, but I am really trying to figure shit out and I am currently feeling a bit lost in the woods.

I have to admit, I sometimes enjoy being a hater. Looking at my squat, jagged broken nail in the midst of a handful of perfect Jordan Almond-yummy fingernails, I will now make my list of things I hate, otherwise known as “Knots in the Stomach of the Universe.”

1) One broken nail on an otherwise perfect hand
2) Hour at the gym and still fat
3) Puffy eyes
4) Puffy-eye products that don’t work (Like Sabon, Origins, and Trish McEvoy)
5) A sea of heavy, sodden, brown leaves covering my lawn
6) Still can’t do a decent Choo-Choo Shimmy
7) People who care more about how a dinner looks than how their guests feel
8) When someone asks “How does this look” and the answer is “bad.”
9) No idea for new book
10) Read my (husband’s) lips: No New Babies!

The nerve cells are one of the wonders of the uinverse.
–Little Susan Senator, 5th grade science paper ending.

That last post of mine (yesterday) was written after a three hour drive and with a headcold!
This one will be far more straightforward.

Keys to the Universe (no-fail items or people or activities that truly do what I want them to do)
1) roasted, salted almonds, 365 Brand from Whole Foods. The perfect salty, crunchy Atkins-friendly, heart-friendly snack. For an even bigger charge, have them with a cup of ultra Splenda-sweet Peet’s French Roast decaf and just a little cream.
2) hour at my gym. Even if I’m a tank after Thanksgiving, working out and then soaking in the hot tub surrounded by friendly, pumped women gives me the illusion of slender fitness.
3) Nat with Julie, our new tutor. She is a self-starter, bright, sweet, and warm and really gets him.
4) Tivo episodes of Seinfeld. Consistently funny and wacky, and they are brilliant at tying together all the stray threads introduced in the episode.
5) Haram Alayk by Natacha Atlas. Always always gets me dancing, even while driving.
6) Nap in the car while Ned drives. It passes the time and I wake up feeling great.
7) Plans to go out that night. Even if the night ends up no good, the anticipation all day long gives me a great day.
8) James McNair’s Pie Cookbook. Especially the cornmeal crust. Why does anyone go with regular pie crust when you can make cornmeal?
9) A good long cat cuddle and neck smush, (as long as you wash, wash, wash and take Singulaire after) They sniff and purr and look at you with those almond-shaped eyes!
10) Shu Umumera Liquid Fabric. It allows me to dry my hair naturally and all I have to do is then spray it on and crunch the ends for perfectly controlled curls. No effort, and works even better with a curling iron.

Typing on Precious’ keyboard is a zen-like experience, because half of the letters are completely gone, rubbed away from so much sweaty use. I find I have no problem with accuracy, however, because I learned to touch-type while in high school, a skill that earned me many an unsatisfying temp job as a young woman. It is my acrylic fingernails that get in the way of perfect typing, far more than the lack of letters.

Ned, Max, and Laura often laugh or exclaim over my odd keyboard and my ability to use it anyway. It is a small but satisfying example of how well humans adapt to their surroundings. I also understand increasingly how much I have adapted to living with Nat, and how easy it is to know him, while others feel mystified by him. Does he find it easy to live with us, who obviously adore him, or is it easier for him to be at school, where his day is full and regimented into predictable time blocks? These days I am able to understand his “silly talk” and interpret it, and he always looks startled and yet happy. He is so happy in general these days, knock wood, it is a joy to see. He is in a peak right now, eminently adaptable, flexible, talkative, charming. It is a growth phase, where I can learn more and more about him, and he can take in more and more around him, effortlessly it seems.

At Thanksgiving the other night Dad told a story of a Polish woman whom some relatives knew who had hidden dozens of Jews during the Holocaust. For years they had hidden in her house, and because she was friends with the Chief of Police, he would warn her whenever the Nazis (“those Devils,” as my Polish Grandma called them) were coming, and they would travel through tunnels that had been dug, out into the woods. This enabled them to survive.

I was thinking about conditions that people have to adapt to. Sometimes I wonder how (God forbid) I would do in a situation like the Holocaust. Would I have figured out a way to survive those camps? Apparently a relative of mine (whom everyone always thought of as crazy) Joe Glotzer, a Provincetown artist, survived a mass execution during the Holocaust. He hid under several dead bodies and lay there for a while until it was safe to burrow out. (When I asked in what way was he crazy, Mom said he made inappropriate remarks, often asked women if he could paint them nude. I wondered out loud if perhaps he was always inappropriate, and that maybe it was not the Holocaust that did it to him but genetics? But of course, who could blame him for being “inappropriate” anyway? Imagine surviving such a horror!)

And yet also, in the same family (Dad’s side, the Senators), his parents and sisters remained in Warsaw rather than come to America with Irving (Grandpa), Nathan, and Jerry. They perished in the camps. Unbelievable. Why would they stay?

I often wonder if I would know, were something terrible like the Holocaust to come here, (God forbid). Would I feel that this was the time to leave, or would I fall back on hope and optimism and remain behind?

Why am I thinking about this the night that I got back from Thanksgiving? You decide.