Sometimes the universe gives you just what you need

It was a melancholy sort of day after a melancholy sort of night that gave me, perhaps, about an hour's rest. I just wanted to curl up into a ball and sleep--deeply--for a few days, but comps were just three days away and I didn't have the luxury of delicious sleep. And so I took a shower, threw on some clothes, brushed a bit of lipstick on my lips and dragged a comb through my still-wet hair before heading out the door.

I went to a coffee shop across the street from my old high school (even though I've been back in this town for four years it still feels creepy and weird to go anywhere near that building) and I read and wrote and prepped, trying to make sure I'd sound smart when I answered a question about ASD pedagogy during my exams. I worked until I got too fidgety to stay there any longer--grad school on-set ADHD--and I went over to the Starbucks in Barnes and Noble for round two.

Only six tables have access to an outlet, and I took a table that would allow me to watch all six--I needed to pounce as soon as a spot became available because someone else was sure to try to steal it. I read and wrote and prepped, trying to make sure I'd sound smart when I answered a question about rhetorical listening as a means of bringing Osteen's "empathetic scholarship" to the composition classroom. The battery indicator fell lower and lower, and just as the yellow caution sign popped up I was wrestling with Lott's claim that bringing disability into the classroom is imperative to reflecting democratic ideals, and realizing that to make Lott work for my argument that I was going to have to bring in Isocrates or some similar dead rhetorician, and wondering if there was something, anything, in the classical rhetoric notes Amanda gave me that would help me with my dead rhetorician weakness . . .

Yeah, my battery decided it was done.

I wandered around a bit, trying to see if there was somewhere else in the store where I could plug in my laptop. I found nothing. I went outside--yes, there's seating out there; there certainly would be an outlet.

No.

I felt a little lost for a moment--where was I going to work? Ugh. I turned around and started walking toward my car.

"Hey beautiful lady," a kindly older man said, "Looking good today." The inflection of the words made them kind rather than creepy.

I turned around, smiled, and said thank you. And, I don't know, something about a stranger being kind made the melancholiness better.

Excuse me; do these comps make my ass look big?

My first comprehensive exam is in one week. And I've been prepping lots.

It's kind of like the intense zone that I get into when I writing something that I think is smart (and may or may not realize later wasn't as smart as I thought it was). I get in the zone, and I can sit and work for hours as all the neurotransmitters fire like I just took speed or something. I sit and write and munch incessantly. Comps prep is like that, but for way longer than my typical two-day writing bursts.

I pulled out the Wii Fit two days ago, and it reminded me that it had been two weeks since I'd visited. Yes, thank you for chastising me, you stupid animated balance board. Then it told me that I'd gained five pounds.

Yay for comps.

Deceitful Nostalgia

The semester was going to start itself up again, and so I spent a summer day on campus, handling the minutia of academia. I stopped off at the new Writing Center space that would be my home, navigating my way through the labyrinth of shiny glass walls and the smells of new furniture.

And then I took a walk four buildings down to my old home, the former space of our campus Writing Center. The space is housed in Bear Down Gymnasium, a building with a rich historical tradition. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, Bear Down is one of the oldest buildings on campus and bears (haha, no pun intended) the name of the university's athletic slogan. As the story goes, in 1926 John "Button" Salmon, starting quarterback and student body president, was in a fatal car accident. Before he gave up the ghost, he had one last message for his team mates: "Tell them . . . tell the team to bear down." Thus a quarterback died and a legend was born.

Then, in the 80s, the gym was used in Revenge of the Nerds. That gym the nerd guys are sleeping in when they have nowhere to live? Bear Down.

So as I stepped up to the door and slid my key into the hole, I felt a bit sad to be letting this place go. It wasn't just that it was a legendary space; it was a home, the place where I had to kick tutors out of my desk so that I could have somewhere to sit, the place where I watched tutors catch mice with plastic cups.

I fought with the knob, and the door finally opened. I was greeted by a burning stench of mouse urine and rotting mouse carcass, a smell so insipid that it burned my nose, burned my throat. I went over to my desk to round up a few items that hadn't made the move to the new location yet, and I saw that the filing cabinet next to my desk was littered with mouse feces. I set about gathering my things--quickly--and felt the sweat beginning to roll off of my skin in the hotly humid room, air conditioned by an archaic system installed probably half a century ago.

Then I left. Quickly.

I wonder how many things in life are like that old, mouse-infested Writing Center. They are the things we've known, and so floods of nostalgia make us feel sad about leaving them. How many relationships and jobs do we hold on to because they are what we've known and thus fear to give up? How many of those things would we find to be mouse dens if we only took the time to step away from them for a bit?

I haven't been back since that day. I'm content to leave familiarity behind . . . and make a new home.

No Dogs Allowed

When I was a kid, the movie Snoopy Come Home stuck with me, haunted me. Snoopy tries to visit the beach, go to the library, and ride on a train, only to be taunted by ominous "no dogs allowed" signs. He tries to visit a sick little girl named Lila in the hospital, who needs his company to feel better, but again those "no dogs allowed" signs thwart Snoopy.

All he wants to do is be with a little girl who needs his love, and a heartless institution refuses to see the healing he could bring.

A news story this week brought back all the memories of that childhood trauma about dogs not being allowed to help a sick child, but this time the story was real, not fiction.

Most of you know about my love affair with autism service dogs. Service dogs help children with autism make emotional connections, help soothe them as they negotiate the stressful world of neurotypicals, prevent them from running into a street, and act as a retriever when a child with autism wanders away (as they are apt to do). Organizations like Dogwish help families raise money for autism service dogs. I sooo wanna get one of those dogs for Nick.

But if I do get a dog for Nick, it is questionable whether or not his school would allow his canine companion on campus.

Six-year-old Kaleb Drew's family is fighting for Kaleb's right to bring his service dog to school. The school cites issues such as other students' pet allergies in their argument against Kaleb's yellow Lab, Chewey. And yet, according to Alejandro Miyar from the Department of Justice, under the Americans with Disabilities Act, "a person with autism would be considered a person with a disability in nearly all cases, and a service animal is any guide dog, signal dog or other animal individually trained to provide assistance to someone with a disability." And thus you would think that Kaleb would be allowed to bring his dog to school. The Villa Grove School District in Illinois doesn't see it that way.

So it goes on to a judge to decide in November. My only hope is that the courts will see the healing potential of service dogs and force schools to pull up their "no dogs allowed" signs.

Snoopy needs to be allowed in the building.

Crying over class postings

It's the day we've been waiting for: class postings at Noah's elementary school. Yes, school starts Thursday, and they only posted classes and supply lists today, but that's how it works at his school.

I went to campus do to some course-prepping of my own, then I stopped by the elementary school on my way home to find out who Noah's teacher would be this year. I found his teacher and wrote down a name I didn't recognize--it looks like his teacher is new to the school.

And then, I don't know why, I glanced across all the other listings. Second grade, first grade, kindergarten . . . and then, right next to kindergarten, a paper labeled "multicategorical" with the names of eight children.

I cried.

***********

Nick's ISP meeting was a couple weeks ago, and as I sat with his DDD case manager I saw all the goals I'd laid out for my son over the years. I still remember sitting down with John as Nick was leaving early intervention to chart out those goals for the first time. The very first one that I asked John to write down was that I wanted to see Nick mainstreamed (possibly with an aide) by the time he reached elementary school. Each year, every annual ISP meeting, I see that goal again. And each time I see it, I realize it's less and less feasible.

Nick will start kindergarten next year. He has maybe eighty words, but none of them are really conversational. Well, that is unless the conversation is about trains, then "stop, train, stop," "Percy slow down," "Thomas, Toby, James, Edward, Gordon, Percy" (in that exact order, always) are conversational. He's beautiful and intelligent and sweet, but he's nowhere near ready for a neurotypical classroom. Nowhere near ready.

And so next year I'll see Nick's name listed under "multicategorical" when I drive up to the school to see the boys' placements for the year. And I'm okay with that, okay with who he is . . . I'm just a bit sad as I mourn the dream I had for my son.

But dreams can always be replaced with new dreams, which is the beautiful thing. And Nick, he's utterly irreplaceable, which is the other beautiful thing.

Ooops

I accidently broke the comment function awhile back, but I think I fixed it now! Feel free to comment away!

The Power of Teachers

I have this ritual at the end of a school year. I go through all the school stuff Noah's saved up throughout the year and send some to the recycle bin, and save some for a special box that has a slot for keepsakes from each school year.

I'm running a bit behind (the new school year is two weeks away), but I got to his second-grade things this week. And I found whale mobiles and dinosaur paintings and manduka lifecycles. I also found a pattern of descent.

Noah is smarter than any of you. Don't feel bad; he's smarter than me, too.

He's simply brilliant.

He also happens to have disabilities.

In first grade, Noah had an awesome teacher. She knew how to support him; she knew how to work with his abilities to help him thrive. And she genuinely cared about him.

But in second grade, Noah had a different sort of teacher. The kind that wouldn't let him use the bathroom when he asked, leaving him to sit half the day in urine-soaked clothes. Yeah, I don't have enough words to say about her . . . so I won't.

I looked through Noah's work of a year and saw a pattern. He started out with stellar grades. 100%. 98%. 107%. As the year went on, though, those scores dropped. 65% became far more common than 107%.

She'd defeated him.

I look at the advent of the new school year with trepidation. What kind of teacher will Noah draw? Will we be lucky and get someone like his first-grade teacher, or will he be cursed with someone like his second grade teacher? And if he does get someone like his second-grade teacher again, will he ever be able to recover from that devastation?