Growing Up: It Happens

Muggy and hot on Sunday so—-after a morning of typing and working and Charlie getting up, piling his laptop and a blanket and a couple of old toys and his Leapster on the couch, with a layer of breakfast crumbs underneath, and dozing off so soundly that my vacuuming some of the crumbs didn’t wake him—we packed up the car and went to the beach. In the past, there’s no lifeguards after Labor Day but we’d learned there would be some at certain beaches, so to one of those we went.

Also in the past, we have been hesitant to go to the beach once Charlie has started school. The transition from beach mode to school mode seemed too jarring: Charlie would be excited, would be thrilled, to be back at the beach and swimming and eating his fries and burger. Then, he’d become a little upset when he requested the ferris wheel and was told that it was closed; driving by and looking at the giant, still wheel, led to more nervous sounds from the back seat. But driving away and going up the Garden State Parkway—–Charlie’s distress became loudly, physically apparent.

I still sat in the back seat with him then and won’t ever forget one ride home in early November. I don’t know if the car shook; Jim drove home as fast as he legally could while I tried to hang onto Charlie who was aiming his head at every possible surface and back arching like a gymnast. We got him home and Charlie lay down on the couch and at the mention of the word “school,” everything started up again. In the midst of it all, Jim and I decided, that Charlie was not going back to school the next day.

Charlie never went back to his classroom in the school district of the north Jersey town we lived in then. He stayed home for over a month (my mother had to fly out on short notice to stay with Charlie while Jim and I worked) and many difficult moments followed, including some terse and tense exchanges with the Assistant Superintendent of the school district and the social worker who was Charlie’s case manager. Charlie went back to school in mid-December, in a private autism school where he started, after some unhappy years, to like school again.

But no going back for day trips to the beach, Jim and I sadly agreed. We had heard about Surfers’ Healing some years ago, but because the New Jersey and New York surf camps always seemed to fall around the time that Charlie had school, we thought better of going, until this year.

Going down to the beach today was, I am happy to report, not a big deal, and just plain good fun. Charlie was drowsy when I roused him at 1.30pm, then lively and chatty in the car. He ran for the beach while Jim and I were still gathering our things and stopped to wait when I called him. The water was warm, though very salty, with short, choppy, rocky waves (made to order for Charlie) and there were lots of people. Charlie, with Jim beside him, was soon jumping in the waves and ducking under the water and running his hands and feet in the sand, and running excitedly beside the ocean. He was completely covered in sand when we left for a public shower that’s a bit of a drive away; after a couple of no’s, Charlie got under the (cold) shower and I was able to brush some of the sand off of him. (I was able to get more off the back car seat.) He kicked around the gravel while waiting at a picnic table for takeout and expressed his exuberance.

There was a couple with a baby at the next table. “There’s cheese, and bread, and peas, and carrots,” her mother said. A sippy cup and two Coronas were arrayed on the table. At another table, a mother was helping her preschool-age daughter into a pink hoodie. “You know what?” said the daughter. “I don’t want to ever be a big girl. I don’t want to be grown-up, like you!” Her mother was trying to dole out forks and napkins and food containers to the table’s occupants. “Well, you may change your mind when you get older,” she said, eyes elsewhere. “No,” said the girl.

And I so wanted to assure her, this getting bigger business, it’s not to be feared but just lived and then one day (like one hot day in mid-September) you see all the changes and what they add up to.