{"id":674,"date":"2008-01-03T12:07:00","date_gmt":"2008-01-03T12:07:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog2\/2008\/01\/the-winter-of-our-content\/"},"modified":"2008-01-03T12:07:00","modified_gmt":"2008-01-03T12:07:00","slug":"the-winter-of-our-content","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/2008\/01\/the-winter-of-our-content\/","title":{"rendered":"The Winter of Our Content"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Now is the winter of our [dis]content;<\/span><br \/><span style=\"font-style: italic;\">made glorious by this noble son of [York] Ned and Sue<\/span><br \/><span style=\"font-style: italic;\">&#8211;Bill Shakespeare, and me<\/span><\/p>\n<p>This morning, in honor of a very good team meeting at Nat&#8217;s school, I post for you <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wickedlocal.com\/brookline\/news\/opinions\/x603830629\">my column in the Brookline Tab.<\/a>  I feel that Ned and I did very well in expressing ourselves and representing our young man.  Today is a good day.<\/p>\n<h1>Opinion:  The winter of our content? <\/h1>\n<h4>By Susan Senator\/Edge of Town<\/h4>\n<h4>Wed Jan 02, 2008, 04:31 PM EST<\/h4>\n<div class=\"storyTools\"> <\/div>\n<div id=\"shareContainer\" style=\"display: none;\">\n<div id=\"share\" style=\"display: none;\">\n<ul>\n<li> <a class=\"stumbleupon\" href=\"http:\/\/www.stumbleupon.com\/submit\" onclick=\"window.open('http:\/\/www.stumbleupon.com\/submit?url='+encodeURIComponent(location.href)+'&amp;title='+encodeURIComponent(document.title), 'stumbleupon','toolbar=no,width=869,height=450,resizable=yes,scrollbars=yes'); return false;\">StumbleUpon<\/a> <\/li>\n<li> <a class=\"newsvine\" href=\"http:\/\/www.newsvine.com\/_wine\/save\" onclick=\"window.open('http:\/\/www.newsvine.com\/_wine\/save?popoff=1&amp;u='+encodeURIComponent(location.href),'newsvine','toolbar=no,width=590,height=600,resizable=yes,scrollbars=yes'); return false;\">Newsvine<\/a> <\/li>\n<li> <a class=\"delicious\" href=\"http:\/\/del.icio.us\/post\" onclick=\"window.open('http:\/\/del.icio.us\/post?v=4&amp;noui&amp;jump=close&amp;url='+encodeURIComponent(location.href)+'&amp;title='+encodeURIComponent(document.title), 'delicious','toolbar=no,width=700,height=400,resizable=yes,scrollbars=yes'); return false;\">del.icio.us<\/a> <\/li>\n<li> <a class=\"digg\" href=\"http:\/\/www.digg.com\/submit\" onclick=\"window.open('http:\/\/digg.com\/submit?phase=2&amp;url='+encodeURIComponent(location.href), 'digg','toolbar=no,width=939,height=650,resizable=yes,scrollbars=yes'); return false;\">Digg<\/a> <\/li>\n<\/ul><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div style=\"display: block;\" id=\"storyBody\">\n<p><span style=\"text-transform: uppercase;\">Brookline &#8211; <\/span>The morning of the recent whopper snowstorm, I kept thinking about a phrase I\u2019d read in a Laura Ingalls Wilder book: \u201cThe rich get their ice in the summer, the poor get their ice in the winter.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Maybe this was because, rich or poor, we were all being hammered by snow and freezing rain here in the Northeast. But maybe it\u2019s also because this phrase, which once had the power to charm me, just seems too simplistic for my life now. Things are not what they seem, most of the time. A rich family \u2014 or in our case, upper-middle-class suburban Bostonians \u2014 can get their ice at any time.<\/p>\n<p>That frozen morning, my 18-year-old autistic son, Nat, extremely sensitive to weather and light, woke up sensing and dreading the imminent cold, snowy, gray day that lay ahead. Shifting climate conditions make Nat miserable, but I am at a loss as to how to explain nature\u2019s inconsistencies in a way that will help him. Gray light \u2014 and for that matter, gray areas \u2014 are a real challenge for Nat.<\/p>\n<p>That morning we were all hurrying more than usual, because Ben, my 9-year-old, had to get to his breakfast share at Lincoln, and his class was performing a skit, \u201cNative American Cinderella.\u201d Our harried state made us all less inclined to stop and soothe Nat, and explain, once again, about the seasons and why the days get shorter and colder. Eventually, he erupted into a terrible rage, where he was screaming, biting his own arm and clawing at us. My husband, Ned, and I struggled to calm Nat, while simultaneously trying to keep Ben safe, as well as excited about his role in the skit as Chief Shadow Gamer. I asked him questions about the Native Americans, all with a shaky smile and knots in my stomach.<\/p>\n<p>Somehow, Nat got on the bus on time and we made it to Ben\u2019s school. I took deep breaths to calm down and put the ugliness of the morning behind me, to shift gears, but I felt a little odd and out of place at first. The classroom was humming with happy activity, jammed with 22-plus costumed, chatty fourth-graders and their wide-eyed, enthusiastic parents. I took off my coat, sat on a desk and watched as the play began, and focused on the story, which was \u201cCinderella\u201d told with an Abenaki cultural twist.<\/p>\n<p>Watching Ben, who really chewed up the scenery as the Chief, I found I wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. Here was this child of mine, who just minutes before had been in a terrifying situation with his brother out of control. And yet he managed to walk in there and perform with his classmates as if everything was perfect in his life. To look at him, you would never guess where he\u2019d just been, the turmoil he has had to live with.<\/p>\n<p>As I looked around, I understood why he could bounce back like that. I noticed how the kids all watched for each other, and checked that they were performing correctly, saying the right lines. I saw the delighted student teacher standing off in the wings, giving direction confidently. And there in the back, and then the side, and now the front of the room, the breathless, smiling head teacher was skillfully overseeing all. The joy, the encouragement and the support there was palpable.<\/p>\n<p>There, among the beaming parents and frenetic teachers, I felt the chilly lump in my gut start to dissolve. Like Ben, I felt that while in that classroom, I was among friends and that it was going to be all right. This warm place of acceptance and community, I realized, was as real a part of my life as the difficulties with Nat. There at home, I might feel at times like I\u2019m living under siege, but here at the school, I am the proud mother of Ben, budding comic actor. I looked around me and I wondered who else might be feeling the way I was, what other hidden struggles were a part of these kids\u2019 or adults\u2019 lives.<\/p>\n<p>The truth is, you never know what is going on beneath the surface \u2014 whether the ice is solid or paper thin. And yet, we could all sit together in Paula Reilly\u2019s fourth-grade class on that wintry morning and feel like just then, we were having our ice in the summer.<\/p>\n<p><em>Susan Senator is author of \u201cMaking Peace with Autism,\u201d awarded the Exceptional Parent Magazine Symbol of Excellence. She can be reached at www.susansenator.com.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Now is the winter of our [dis]content;made glorious by this noble son of [York] Ned and Sue&#8211;Bill Shakespeare, and me This morning, in honor of a very good team meeting at Nat&#8217;s school, I post for you my column in the Brookline Tab. I feel that Ned and I did very well in expressing ourselves [&hellip;]<\/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-674","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-aS","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/674","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=674"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/674\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}