{"id":3121,"date":"2012-10-27T22:24:03","date_gmt":"2012-10-28T02:24:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/?p=3121"},"modified":"2012-10-27T22:26:58","modified_gmt":"2012-10-28T02:26:58","slug":"lets-dance-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/2012\/10\/lets-dance-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Let’s Dance"},"content":{"rendered":"

Every now and then, I realize that our society still has a long way to go in terms of dealing with the difference that is autism. I was at a party very recently, and we’d brought Nat, fresh from his Halloween dance with his basketball team and social group friends. \"\"<\/a>He was dressed as James Bond\/Tom Cruise and he looked fantastic. Ned and I went out to dinner with friends and then we picked Nat up from his party and took him to ours — a dance party with friends and neighbors.<\/p>\n

Nat was in fine fettle. He stationed himself near the snack table, in the back room where Ned and I were mingling with old and new friends. Nat was flapping a bit, talking to himself in his own language, and smiling a lot. He loves parties.<\/p>\n

I felt so proud of him, in his black tux and white bowtie and slicked-back hair. He was gorgeous. He was happy. And we didn’t even think for a moment that we had to look out for him in terms of “behaviors.” That’s how far he’s come. Not only does he “behave” himself at parties; he actually loves them.<\/p>\n

Yet, still, a friend and neighbor came up to me and asked if Nat was “alright.” She is a lovely woman whom I’ve known for years, and so I was alert the moment she asked. I looked over at Nat who was doing his flappy happy thing. I said, “Yeah! He loves parties. Why?”<\/p>\n

“Oh, well, he seemed kind of agitated before. Really agitated.”<\/p>\n

I gestured at him with my head, saying, “Oh, like that? Shaking his hands, smiling?”<\/p>\n

“No. He wasn’t smiling. I was worried. But if you tell me he’s fine, then I won’t be.”<\/p>\n

I patted her arm and said, “He’s fine. He hasn’t been agitated around people in years.” But as I said it, my stomach turned a little. Not because I was remembering those days, but because I was explaining and reassuring someone about Nat. When here he was, in his element, at a dance party in his own home neighborhood, looking so happy and beautiful. And yet there is still this level of malaise others have around him, and even the most well-intentioned among us still have the power, unknowingly, to cause pain.\u00a0 \"\"<\/a>We left shortly after, but not until I had a really good, bouncing dance with Nat.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Every now and then, I realize that our society still has a long way to go in terms of dealing with the difference that is autism. I was at a party very recently, and we’d brought Nat, fresh from his Halloween dance with his basketball team and social group friends. He was dressed as James […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pSTth-Ol","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3121"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3121\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3125,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3121\/revisions\/3125"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}