A Different Sense of Time

Something was up with the servers here yesterday (and might still be): I’ve been endlessly refreshing and reloading and thanking the tech guys who have been working and working at it. I know too well that sometimes things just take time.

This is the case with so much for Charlie. Sometimes there are days when every start seems like a stop, when things (skills) get lost, when a constant sort of stasis— everything in Charlie’s words, the way he holds his body, the frown in his eyes and face—becomes the rule. On the one hand I’ve learned that I have to slow my own pace and sit down beside Charlie to listen and to wait. This is readily done when we are at home and, to a lesser extent, when we are in our most familiar public places, the grocery stores where Charlie likes to linger before the shelves and the display cases, the staircase to the swimming pool where he holds onto the railings dipping a bit of a toe into the water before, ever so gradually, he lets himself fall into the water.

In other settings—the gym where Special Olympics basketball meets—it’s not so easy to stay on Charlie’s time only. Charlie smiles when we talk about basketball and watches the other kids with much interest, and this, aside from the exercise and the chance to practice some new skills of throwing, dribbling, shooting, has been a happy motivation for hurrying him off to practice for the past month and a half. The practices begin with a few kids running and shooting together on the court, while other kids shoot on their own on the sides and this warm-up session has been a fun time for Charlie. Jim bounce-passed the ball to Charlie who kept his eyes on it and moved his arms to catch it in an easy-going, fluid way; Jim stood under the basket and Charlie threw the ball over his head and Jim reached to tip it in. I had meant to drop them off and head home and come back, but wanting to watch Charlie’s different moves, had stayed a bit. Then Charlie looked at me, said “Mom,” and bounce-passed the ball. I left a few minutes later.

Jim called a few minutes later as I was driving home and I turned immediately around.

When it was time for the players to line up at one end of the court and alternately run and walk back and forth, Charlie had been in the circle at center court, doubled over, yowling, and Jim had little choice but to try to pull Charlie up: The team was ready to run. As Jim and I, back in the safe space of the car with Charlie curled up behind us, talked it over, we noted the incredible sensory mishmash in the gym: Coaches’ whistles, the loud thunks of sneakers, the bright lights against the shiney floorboards, the big space, the grunts and yells of the other players. Just this afternoon I had visited Charlie in the careful order of his classroom, where he was focused and busy and attentive—the complete contrast to the basketball court which Charlie, of course, has only been to four or five times. Tonight, Charlie just was not ready to run and shoot at the pace of so many others and he sat, silent yet mournful, as we drove back towards home.

Out of the blue we decided to stop at Stewart’s Root Beer for dinner and we waited for our meal, Jim noted that we have to let people know, with Charlie, we move at a different time. We move in step with Charlie and sometimes that means standing and waiting and waiting some more—-and trying to be part of a team is not so easy. Jim had a milkshake and Charlie dug into a burger and coleslaw and didn’t mind when Jim took some fries. A group of children about Charlie’s age and their mothers were seated to our right; a man with an apron and a black and white bowling sort of shirt was making elaborate balloon sculptures and going back and forth with one child about whether whatever he was making was a pink squirrel. “Pink,” said Charlie. “He’s making balloons,” I said, biting into my sandwich. The group filed out the door and the man approached our table. Jim started talking to him. The man looked at Charlie: “Ok, what do you like? What kind of animals? What do you like to do?”

“Ketchup,” said Charlie. The man kept asking questions and pointing to the various colors of balloons in his numerous apron pockets: “What sports? Play any instruments? C’mon, what do you like to do? You know, you have to keep at it. I started playing guitar when I was in school and then I wanted to play saxophone—it’s so shiney—and then I tried clarinet but I never learned how to read music. You have to stick to it. Now, that’s what I did with surfing….” “What about surfing, pal?” Jim asked Charlie. Before we knew it, the man was twisting blue balloons and then a white one and then peach colored ones for the surfer and red for his swimsuit, and a green surfboard. The man handed the finished product over to Charlie, who was reaching under the table for his shoes, and then gave us his card: The Mad Hatter, LLC. “It’s your business?” asked Jim. “My dad runs it,” said the man, and told us his schedule for making balloon sculptures at Stewart’s and how he gets a free meal too. “But I’ve never had 16 hamburgers,” he noted.

At home, Charlie showered and took out his computer to look at photos of his seventh birthday party, with an occasional request of “Mom, Mom.” After a half-hour of that, he picked up the surfer balloon and squeezed and squeaked it and investigated the curves of the blue balloon wave. And smiled before gathering up his blanket and backpack and going to bed.

Sometimes you have to wait a bit before you can really enjoy something as intricate as a multicolored balloon surfer (with wave)—-for us, it’s learning to move in time with Charlie, however long it takes, and he takes, too.