The Dark Night

Central Park has its Pumpkin Sail this evening, an event the boys enjoy. At dusk you bring your jack-o’-lantern to the park, admire the other lanterns, and then the pumpkins are lit, then launched into the Harlem Meer. You walk around the lake oohing and aahing over the sight of thousands of jack-o’-lanterns flickering over the dark water.

Two years ago the Sail was canceled because of a gusty wind, so last year we were happy and excited to be going. Today we buy our pumpkins; we’ll carve late in the afternoon when Alex gets home from his recreation program and Ned from sib shop.

Every year Alex seems to look forward to Halloween, and it’s satisfying to see him moving in step with everyone else. Autism seems so often like a private celebration. We don’t know what he’s laughing at, or why. We can’t make him eat the way we do, although he’s gotten much better about tasting things (and finding, amazingly, that he likes some of them). My sister bought me Little Miss Matched socks last year, and Alex seized on them with delight. They fit him, so I let him wear them, but it started an unshakable belief for him that socks must never match.

This time of year seems so filled with things that people do to bind together in the darkening days, that autism in the family can weigh more heavily. Alex is not looking forward to pumpkin pie or post-Thanksgiving shopping (though he will be happy to see cousins and a foil-wrapped chocolate turkey). There’s no Hanukkah or Christmas countdown for him, though he’s mighty happy to see those wrapped gifts. But if he’s anticipating the coming season, we don’t know. And he’s not telling.

I’m glad to know that there is a holiday he seems to know is coming, to be celebrated with miniature pumpkins and “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.” He doesn’t seem to cue in on trick-or-treating but he’ll be thrilled to get some chocolate, and he’ll enjoy, as we all do, the excitement and thrill of being up late, and walking through the dark night, when who knows what will happen?