It seems to me that there are a lot of little pieces of Schuyler that make up who she is, so many mosaic tiles that form her picture. Some of them are tiny, others are large and dictate so much of the shape of her portrait. And most of all, they change, frequently, so much so that sometimes I struggle to keep up.
Schuyler loves fairies now. Dragons are sort of old hat, but dinosaurs still have a place in her world, albeit not as central as before. Mermaids have also lost some of their appeal, although she still loves them and will claim to be one from time to time. And King Kong remains beloved.
Schuyler wants me to buy a Mini Cooper.
Schuyler's hair is slowly going back to its natural color (slowly because apparently "temporary" means something different to the fine folks at L'Oreal), and she hasn't requested a recharge in a while. We usually don't color it during the summer anyway, since she spends so much time in the pool, with its chlorinated water. We'll see what she wants in a few months.
When we drive past this one field full of horses and llamas in Plano, Schuyler loses her mind. Her favorite horse is the white one. And she still knows that llamas say "Om? Om? Om?"
Schuyler seems to be losing her love for Hannah Montana. I'd celebrate, except there's no telling what horribleness will follow. For girls her age, Hannah Montana is about as innocuous as it gets without involving Jesus.
Schuyler is the self-proclaimed Queen of Monkeys.
Having had the opportunity to watch Schuyler with kids her age, including her cousins last weekend, I am learning a few things. The most encouraging is that she seems to be unusually well-adjusted emotionally for her age. She never melts down, she's not terribly materialistic and she shares easily.
The most troubling thing I've realized all over again is also the hardest to say, but here it is: in a lot of ways, both developmentally and even, perhaps, cognitively, Schuyler is still seriously delayed. She doesn't use her device as much as I'd like for her to, largely because her verbal abilities are coming along to the point that we can usually understand her, as can many others who spend time with her regularly. But the fact remains that a lot of what she says goes unfathomed, and she needs to use her device much, much more in her daily life. Consider this a resolution to kick her in the ass, motivationally speaking.
Schuyler's love for pudding defies rational thought.
Schuyler likes to play monster games. Her most recent is the Grass Monster, who apparently lives in the grass (well, yeah) and will grab you like the Kraken if you fail to heed stepping stones. She first came up with it while we were waiting outside a restaurant a few weeks ago, and the fiction of the Grass Monster has grown to near epic proportions. We sort of ganged up on her cousin last weekend and convinced him that there's such a thing as the Grass Monster. I would feel guilty about that, except as father/daughter activities go, it was pretty sweet.
Schuyler had a tiny little wart on her hand. She was bothered by it at first, but then decided that it gave her witch powers and became quite upset when it went away. It recently reappeared, and she couldn't be happier.
Schuyler keeps her coins in a bank that looks like a chocolate rabbit. We call it the Money Bunny. She looks for coins all the time now, and covets the Money Bunny like Silas Marner.
Schuyler watches (and sings the theme song to) Kenny the Shark every morning before school. Well, we all do, really. And then she gets on the bus and goes to school, leaving me with my daily dose of separation anxiety mixed with horrible bus crash paranoid fantasies.
Schuyler always points out "the fuzz" when we're driving around.
Schuyler's condition keeps her from doing some sports, like baseball, but interestingly, I think she might be able to really play soccer. As I wrote before, we tried hooking her up with a local "Don't call it Angel League" angel league, but every time we went, they scrapped the soccer and just played baseball. Schuyler said she didn't want to go anymore, and that was that. In the fall, we'll try again with a different, "You can call us Angel League" angel league. I wouldn't be surprised if she could actually play mainstream soccer, and soon. I've seen some of those girls play, after all.
Schuyler likes to wear hoodies now. Her punkitude is unwavering. She still loves her Chuck Taylors but has chilled on the temporary tattoos.
Schuyler finally got to see the Cloverfield monster, thanks to the wildly inappropriate but "interesting in a cautionary tale sort of way" parenting of her father. I gave her sort of the greatest monster moments version, because I didn't think she'd care about a bunch of hipster wannabes at a party and I thought the little monsters would be too scary for her.
(I was right about the party but wrong about the little monsters, incidentally. I forgot about one scene until it was too late, and she loved it. "Wow!" she whispered, before signing "more" until I complied.)
I asked her what she thought of the actual big monster, and she said on the Big Box of Words, and I quote, "I love him. He my friend. He is biggest. He lives in New York City." (She's not one for spoiler alerts, apparently.)
Speaking of Schuyler's lack of fear, there is one exception. She is still afraid of the water. This is hard because she loves going to the pool, but she won't step away from the edge unless she positively has to. Working on this is going to be a summer project for us.
And speaking of the summer, it looks like we're going to skip all the summer day care trauma altogether this year and just rearrange our schedules so that she can stay with us. This is going to mean that she'll come to work with me from time to time. We'll see how that goes. If nothing else, it'll give me more opportunities to harass her about using her device.
Schuyler and Julie are coming with me to Chicago next November.
When we sign books, Schuyler gets bored with doing it the same way every time. At our last signing, she drew a flower for someone.
Schuyler is learning to lie, which is making for interesting times. She's also experimenting with the idea of "accidentally" leaving her homework at school. Trust me, friend. That doesn't work for long.
She and I talked about her monster recently, in a quiet moment together. She said that she doesn't mind the way things are, because her AAC device makes her different, and she likes that. "I love my voice," she said, indicating her Big Box of Words. She seemed genuinely puzzled that I would even ask.
Sometimes, she says, Schuyler is an eagle.
Sometimes she is Ice Girl.
Sometimes she breaks my heart.
Mostly, she's my "why".
Showing posts with label my big opinions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label my big opinions. Show all posts
May 7, 2008
May 6, 2008
April 28, 2008
Deus ex machina
When Schuyler's Monster was published, I think the thing that surprised my friends the most, even more than my confessed infidelity (because let's face it, who was really surprised?), was the fact that I wrote so much about God. To be honest, I was a little surprised myself.
"For now, she largely remains an enigma, the most daunting one of my life. She is the source of my joy and my sorrow, and for all my resentment at him for giving her this burden, it is nevertheless when I am with Schuyler that I feel closest to God."
After the book came out, and especially after I began talking about faith issues on tour and in book clubs, and now on television, a lot of people have been writing to me about it. That's fair enough, and it's a dialogue I welcome. If I didn't, I wouldn't have written about it. But it's been hard to discuss because my own feelings are in flux. I think that's the way faith is for most people. Does anyone ever truly arrive at an endpoint in their philosophy? I'm not sure I trust anyone who is absolutely sure of very much in this world.
It didn't take me long as a child to decide that I wasn't a Christian and never would be. Sorry, Jesus. I'm just not that into you. But my feelings about God have been more complicated, even before Schuyler was born. It's probably no secret that my feelings have become much more convoluted since she was diagnosed. Well, of course they have.
But the thing is, I've never given up on the idea of God, not completely. My God might not be your God, not if you buy into the whole "angry invisible man in the sky" idea. I find the idea of moral judgment from on high to be so subjective as to be meaningless. When I refer to "this grand rough world" as I sometimes do (and no one has ever identified the source of that phrase), I mean a place that is wondrous and terrible, a universe of unspeakable beauty and unblinking cruelty. It can be difficult to place God in the context of such a place.
And yet, sometimes I try. Sometimes I want an answer from God, an answer to why he sometimes breaks children. It seems like a fair question to me, and yet the God that I seem to have constructed in my head (like I think we all do, which is why our God tends to hate all the same people that we do) doesn't have the answers. Perhaps my God is less of a Creator and more of a Manager. Maybe he built the store, but now he works behind the counter, and what his customers do is beyond his control and maybe even his understanding.
I find Manager God easier to accept than Control Freak God, because then we're back to the idea that he intentionally breaks little children, allows vile things to happen to them, makes a mockery of their innocence. And that's hard. I hear a lot of variations on "God works in mysterious ways", about how Schuyler and all the broken children in the world are here to teach us things, or how their brokenness has some greater meaning. And I just can't accept that, I can't make peace with the idea that they exist and suffer in order to illuminate the rest of us.
And yet.
There are things about myself that I accept as a sort of hardwired reality. I can resist them, and I do, but they are there and they are me. I'm always going to have a temper, and poor impulse control, and most of all issues with authority. I'm not actually sure I'd want to change all that. I'm never going to be the poster boy for monogamy and I doubt very seriously if I'll ever get a job as a responsible financial planner. I can always try to do better, but the thing is, it'll always be something that I must try to improve. I'm flawed, like the rest of you but probably more than most. Perhaps it is to my advantage that my worser nature is in a book now; people who can't deal with my flaws can't say they weren't warned.
And yet, Schuyler came to me. To me, and to Julie, who shares most of my flaws. And I'm going to flatter myself to think that we've done pretty well for her. We made lots of mistakes, and we continue to do so, and our flaws haven't magically disappeared. But we're managing to raise a pretty amazing little girl, one who is as broken as we are and yet perfect in her own way.
I don't know how God fits into that. I remember that very few of the people in the Bible or throughout history who were doing God's work were very strong believers. Blind faith and religious fealty don't necessarily seem to lead to great deeds. They doubted, and they sinned, and if a doubter and a sinner can labor for God while simultaneously calling him on his bullshit every so often, then perhaps I've still got some work to do. I can shake my fists at the sky and say "oh, that's fucked up!" when such a gesture is appropriate, and then get back to work.
God and I have some things to work out. But negotiations haven't broken down just yet.
"For now, she largely remains an enigma, the most daunting one of my life. She is the source of my joy and my sorrow, and for all my resentment at him for giving her this burden, it is nevertheless when I am with Schuyler that I feel closest to God."
After the book came out, and especially after I began talking about faith issues on tour and in book clubs, and now on television, a lot of people have been writing to me about it. That's fair enough, and it's a dialogue I welcome. If I didn't, I wouldn't have written about it. But it's been hard to discuss because my own feelings are in flux. I think that's the way faith is for most people. Does anyone ever truly arrive at an endpoint in their philosophy? I'm not sure I trust anyone who is absolutely sure of very much in this world.
It didn't take me long as a child to decide that I wasn't a Christian and never would be. Sorry, Jesus. I'm just not that into you. But my feelings about God have been more complicated, even before Schuyler was born. It's probably no secret that my feelings have become much more convoluted since she was diagnosed. Well, of course they have.
But the thing is, I've never given up on the idea of God, not completely. My God might not be your God, not if you buy into the whole "angry invisible man in the sky" idea. I find the idea of moral judgment from on high to be so subjective as to be meaningless. When I refer to "this grand rough world" as I sometimes do (and no one has ever identified the source of that phrase), I mean a place that is wondrous and terrible, a universe of unspeakable beauty and unblinking cruelty. It can be difficult to place God in the context of such a place.
And yet, sometimes I try. Sometimes I want an answer from God, an answer to why he sometimes breaks children. It seems like a fair question to me, and yet the God that I seem to have constructed in my head (like I think we all do, which is why our God tends to hate all the same people that we do) doesn't have the answers. Perhaps my God is less of a Creator and more of a Manager. Maybe he built the store, but now he works behind the counter, and what his customers do is beyond his control and maybe even his understanding.
I find Manager God easier to accept than Control Freak God, because then we're back to the idea that he intentionally breaks little children, allows vile things to happen to them, makes a mockery of their innocence. And that's hard. I hear a lot of variations on "God works in mysterious ways", about how Schuyler and all the broken children in the world are here to teach us things, or how their brokenness has some greater meaning. And I just can't accept that, I can't make peace with the idea that they exist and suffer in order to illuminate the rest of us.
And yet.
There are things about myself that I accept as a sort of hardwired reality. I can resist them, and I do, but they are there and they are me. I'm always going to have a temper, and poor impulse control, and most of all issues with authority. I'm not actually sure I'd want to change all that. I'm never going to be the poster boy for monogamy and I doubt very seriously if I'll ever get a job as a responsible financial planner. I can always try to do better, but the thing is, it'll always be something that I must try to improve. I'm flawed, like the rest of you but probably more than most. Perhaps it is to my advantage that my worser nature is in a book now; people who can't deal with my flaws can't say they weren't warned.
And yet, Schuyler came to me. To me, and to Julie, who shares most of my flaws. And I'm going to flatter myself to think that we've done pretty well for her. We made lots of mistakes, and we continue to do so, and our flaws haven't magically disappeared. But we're managing to raise a pretty amazing little girl, one who is as broken as we are and yet perfect in her own way.
I don't know how God fits into that. I remember that very few of the people in the Bible or throughout history who were doing God's work were very strong believers. Blind faith and religious fealty don't necessarily seem to lead to great deeds. They doubted, and they sinned, and if a doubter and a sinner can labor for God while simultaneously calling him on his bullshit every so often, then perhaps I've still got some work to do. I can shake my fists at the sky and say "oh, that's fucked up!" when such a gesture is appropriate, and then get back to work.
God and I have some things to work out. But negotiations haven't broken down just yet.
April 24, 2008
When the visigoths get to the gate, I hope they have flag pins
Every now and then, someone will email me and ask if I ever intend to talk about politics again. This blog has sort of turned into the Rob & Schuyler Show, and that is in part intentional, especially for now while the book is new and people are coming here as a result.
But the truth is that I just haven't had much to say about politics. I've become so disheartened by the whole process that honestly, I don't have much to contribute. I've become the saddest of Independents, the kind who has given up on the two parties as Evil (R) and Incompetent (D). I'll never believe in the Republicans because they stand for everything I deem to be foul, but the Democrats? I may actually despise them a little more, since they dress themselves in my progressive values and then achieve almost nothing of worth at all. Both parties have achieved a level of consistency. I can always count on the Republicans to do the wrong thing, and I know the Democrats will follow up by trying half-heartedly to do the right thing, maybe, if the polls say they should, but ultimately fuck it up catastrophically.
Anyway, I've placed a little Obama widget on the sidebar there since unlike the Nixonian Hillary or the Magoo-like McCain, I can at least believe in what he says he stands for, and his much-maligned "lack of experience" means that he hasn't had time to really don the Cloak of Disappointment yet. But in my heart of hearts, I suspect he will. (Bill Clinton did, after all. Good lord, he needs one good and true friend, someone who's not afraid to lean over and say, "You really need to shut the fuck up now.")
Anyway, since the primary race has officially and flatulently stunk up just about every corner of the media and trying to ignore it is becoming impossible, I thought I'd let The Onion speak for me.
Poll: Bullshit Is Most Important Issue For 2008 Voters
Good Morning Texas Redux
Some of you were having trouble seeing the video from the WFAA site. Also, it cut off at the end before you got to see Julie's Stepford Wife smile and Schuyler mentally compiling her list of places she would rather be at that moment. So here's another shot at it. (Sorry the quality is sort of weird. I'll keep working on it.)
April 23, 2008
Good Morning Texas
Well, that was fast. My interview on Good Morning Texas is already online, so go check it out. I'm sorry to say, this clip cuts off before you get to see Schuyler and Julie sitting in the studio, so sadly it's just me and my unusually large meaty head.
I thought it went very well. It's hard in these very short segments to really get into very much of depth, but Paige McCoy Smith managed to cover an astonishing amount in a brief period. She asked me about my faith, which was a little unexpected (although she did give me a heads up before we started) but something that I was actually happy to talk about. It's funny, but the interviews for which I am the most prepared in terms of knowing questions in advance and what my answers will be, those tend to be my least favorite, and the ones that I think are the least interesting. Discussing my feelings about God on live television isn't something I would have ever expected to actually enjoy doing, but I'm glad she asked it. My answer was pretty much on the fly, and yet I'm entirely happy with it.
Another thing that Paige brought home to me was just how much I enjoy doing interviews with journalists who have actually read the book. That seems like an obvious point, but you'd be surprised. And it's always obvious, too. Not so much that they know facts that are pertinent, although that's part of it. (My favorite from a past interview was, about Schuyler's static brain condition, "Good luck with her continued improvement.") It's more that once you've read a book, you know a great deal about the author's personality and beliefs and such than you'll ever get from a press release or a book flap description. Paige McCoy Smith and KERA's Krys Boyd and Fox's Greg Groogan were responsible for interviews that I've enjoyed immensely, for just that reason.
Schuyler had a great time, of course, and charmed the pants off of everyone, as usual. The studio at WFAA is wide open, with glass walls everywhere, even the green room, so while you're waiting, you can see much of what's going on. She spent the better part of the morning having her mind completely blown, and finished off the experience by eating the strawberry smoothie prepared in a segment by "celebrity chef Jon Ashton". Julie finished up the morning by slobbering all over "celebrity chef Jon Ashton". It's sad, really, watching a woman of her advanced years lose her dignity like that. Really unfortunate.
Okay, so I really shouldn't tell this story, because past experience suggests that the chances of it getting back to the parties involved are somewhere near 100%. But it's been a while since I've started any trouble online (at least here; I've been poking a bees' nest on a parenting site on the topic of spanking, a metaphor that only works if you imagine really dumb bees), so I think I'm due.
While we were waiting for the show to begin, we were sitting in a room watching "Good Morning America" with two fashion models who were going to be on a segment before mine. GMA was interviewing Marlee Matlin about her appearance on "Dancing with the Stars", and she was signing away as she talked.
One of the models turned to the other and said, with absolute sincerity, "Do you think she's deaf?"
I thought it went very well. It's hard in these very short segments to really get into very much of depth, but Paige McCoy Smith managed to cover an astonishing amount in a brief period. She asked me about my faith, which was a little unexpected (although she did give me a heads up before we started) but something that I was actually happy to talk about. It's funny, but the interviews for which I am the most prepared in terms of knowing questions in advance and what my answers will be, those tend to be my least favorite, and the ones that I think are the least interesting. Discussing my feelings about God on live television isn't something I would have ever expected to actually enjoy doing, but I'm glad she asked it. My answer was pretty much on the fly, and yet I'm entirely happy with it.
Another thing that Paige brought home to me was just how much I enjoy doing interviews with journalists who have actually read the book. That seems like an obvious point, but you'd be surprised. And it's always obvious, too. Not so much that they know facts that are pertinent, although that's part of it. (My favorite from a past interview was, about Schuyler's static brain condition, "Good luck with her continued improvement.") It's more that once you've read a book, you know a great deal about the author's personality and beliefs and such than you'll ever get from a press release or a book flap description. Paige McCoy Smith and KERA's Krys Boyd and Fox's Greg Groogan were responsible for interviews that I've enjoyed immensely, for just that reason.
Schuyler had a great time, of course, and charmed the pants off of everyone, as usual. The studio at WFAA is wide open, with glass walls everywhere, even the green room, so while you're waiting, you can see much of what's going on. She spent the better part of the morning having her mind completely blown, and finished off the experience by eating the strawberry smoothie prepared in a segment by "celebrity chef Jon Ashton". Julie finished up the morning by slobbering all over "celebrity chef Jon Ashton". It's sad, really, watching a woman of her advanced years lose her dignity like that. Really unfortunate.
Okay, so I really shouldn't tell this story, because past experience suggests that the chances of it getting back to the parties involved are somewhere near 100%. But it's been a while since I've started any trouble online (at least here; I've been poking a bees' nest on a parenting site on the topic of spanking, a metaphor that only works if you imagine really dumb bees), so I think I'm due.
While we were waiting for the show to begin, we were sitting in a room watching "Good Morning America" with two fashion models who were going to be on a segment before mine. GMA was interviewing Marlee Matlin about her appearance on "Dancing with the Stars", and she was signing away as she talked.
One of the models turned to the other and said, with absolute sincerity, "Do you think she's deaf?"
April 15, 2008
Rockabye
One of the things that still catches me off guard is the fact that anyone gives a damn about what I think concerning books. Even now, in this age of consumer-driven content and Amazon reader reviews, the idea that my own credentials as a writer might give my opinion some added weight or validity doesn't naturally occur to me. When Karen Harrington, author of the very excellent Janeology made mention in an email of the review she had received "from a big-time memoirist", it actually took me a few seconds to realize that she was talking about me.
Nevertheless, when a book really does it for me, I try to put something together to express my feelings of gratitude to the author. And it really is gratitude. A good book is no small thing, nor (more to the point) is a bad one. When you watch a movie that you think is going to be good and it turns out to be a stinker, that's a good two hours of your life that you've tossed away. But when it's a book that leads you astray, the hours and even days that you've invested in it that you'll never get back. You'll be on your death bed one day, muttering to yourself, "If only I hadn't spent so much time reading all that fucking L. Ron Hubbard." You learn to cherish the good ones.
When I started reading Rebecca Woolf's Rockabye: From Wild to Child, I'd followed the marketing closely enough to know what I was supposed to be getting. I settled in to read another memoir of a party girl transitioning to parenthood while struggling to remain hip and cool. Which was certainly fine. Never having been actually cool myself, that transition was fairly straightforward for me, so I occasionally like to vicariously gank some cool from others.
By the time I finished Rockabye, I was looking at a different book altogether.
Simply put, this is a book about the tranformational power of a parent's love, the kind of love that can envelope you and warm you, but also consume and burn you. In bringing her son Archer into the world, Woolf begins to discover her own true heart and her own capacity for love and growth. Yes, part of that evolution involves leaving behind some of the party-all-the-time aspects of her youth, but the more important parts of herself, her independence and her insistence on doing things her own way, relying on her instincts, these are the pieces that she clings to.
I want to make something clear. Rebecca Woolf is a fantastic writer. She's open and honest, unblinkingly so at times, and yet her command of language and the near poetry of her wordplay feels like music. It's been a long time since I've gotten lost in language like that, just floating in someone's wordplay.
There are some striking parallels to Woolf's story and mine (or rather, to Archer's and Schuyler's), but I don't want to make too much of them. I would recommend her book to anyone who liked mine, if only because of some of those parallels, but honestly, I'd rather recommend Rockabye for no other reason than I found it to be a viscerally satisfying read. At its best, it feels like a gift, and it's at its best a lot.
I think you'll like this book. I'm pretty sure most of you will. Rebecca Woolf's the writer that I wish I was, and that's the truth.
Nevertheless, when a book really does it for me, I try to put something together to express my feelings of gratitude to the author. And it really is gratitude. A good book is no small thing, nor (more to the point) is a bad one. When you watch a movie that you think is going to be good and it turns out to be a stinker, that's a good two hours of your life that you've tossed away. But when it's a book that leads you astray, the hours and even days that you've invested in it that you'll never get back. You'll be on your death bed one day, muttering to yourself, "If only I hadn't spent so much time reading all that fucking L. Ron Hubbard." You learn to cherish the good ones.
When I started reading Rebecca Woolf's Rockabye: From Wild to Child, I'd followed the marketing closely enough to know what I was supposed to be getting. I settled in to read another memoir of a party girl transitioning to parenthood while struggling to remain hip and cool. Which was certainly fine. Never having been actually cool myself, that transition was fairly straightforward for me, so I occasionally like to vicariously gank some cool from others.
By the time I finished Rockabye, I was looking at a different book altogether.
Simply put, this is a book about the tranformational power of a parent's love, the kind of love that can envelope you and warm you, but also consume and burn you. In bringing her son Archer into the world, Woolf begins to discover her own true heart and her own capacity for love and growth. Yes, part of that evolution involves leaving behind some of the party-all-the-time aspects of her youth, but the more important parts of herself, her independence and her insistence on doing things her own way, relying on her instincts, these are the pieces that she clings to.
I want to make something clear. Rebecca Woolf is a fantastic writer. She's open and honest, unblinkingly so at times, and yet her command of language and the near poetry of her wordplay feels like music. It's been a long time since I've gotten lost in language like that, just floating in someone's wordplay.
There are some striking parallels to Woolf's story and mine (or rather, to Archer's and Schuyler's), but I don't want to make too much of them. I would recommend her book to anyone who liked mine, if only because of some of those parallels, but honestly, I'd rather recommend Rockabye for no other reason than I found it to be a viscerally satisfying read. At its best, it feels like a gift, and it's at its best a lot.
I think you'll like this book. I'm pretty sure most of you will. Rebecca Woolf's the writer that I wish I was, and that's the truth.
Thank you for choosing me to mother you. Thank you for sneaking in through my window and saying "Boo! Here I am!" Thank you for stirring and purring and screaming and crying and laughing and talking and standing and jumping. You are my exclamation point in a world of dot-dot-dots. You are my star in a sky muted by city lights. You are my sun. My son. My sun.
Rebecca Woolf, "Rockabye: From Wild to Child"
April 10, 2008
Things that give me pause in a busy world
I just wanted to quickly post and say that I'm alive and well, just a little busy and getting caught up. We received a visit from Fox 26 Houston reporter Greg Groogan, who spent some time with Schuyler and Julie and myself, both here at the apartment and at Schuyler's school. I'm told that his story will probably run in early May and may be picked up by affiliates in different parts of the country. In your town, too? Well, perhaps!
It felt like a really good interview; Greg's got a lot of experience with special needs kids, both personally and professionally, and it absolutely showed. I've talked to a variety of reporters since the book came out, and some of them were exceptionally sensitive and good, but with Greg, it was almost disconcerting, being interviewed by someone who really gets it. I'm curious as to how it's going to turn out; I suspect it's going to be outstanding. When we were doing the actual interview, I almost got a little weepy a few times. Not he-manly at all, I know. I suspect Greg was slipping estrogen into my water when I wasn't looking.
There's so much I want to talk about in more depth, such as the fact that I did a little book-for-movie exchange with Dan Habib, the father and filmmaker behind the brilliant documentary Including Samuel. I'll have much more to say about this, but for now, let me simply say that if you have any feelings or questions about inclusion and mainstreaming for special needs kids, you really do owe it to yourself to see his film. We're not in 100% lockstep agreement (you can probably imagine how I feel about the page in the film notes called "Words Matter", about person-first language), but we come to the same conclusions about the benefits of inclusion for these kids. Not just for my kids, but for yours, too. See this film if you get the opportunity, even if you find yourself opposed to inclusion education. Or especially if you're opposed to it, really.
In my book, I mention the polymicrogyria online support groups that I follow. I never contribute to them, probably out of something akin to misplaced guilt for Schuyler's comparatively good fortune, but I read them religiously. In Schuyler's Monster, I wrote about the heartbreak when a parent comes on the forum and reports the death of their child. There was one a few days ago; I showed it to Greg when he was here, and I think it made a powerful impression on him. Well, of course it did. If you're not touched by reading a parent's words as they report the death of their three year-old as a result of repeated, nasty seizures, there's something dead in your chest. You might want to go have that checked by a physician.
How does a parent watch their child die? How do they make peace with that, with their seemingly cruel or indifferent God and a world with such monsters in it? How do you bury your own son or daughter? People have been telling us how brave and how strong we are, but that's a world of brave and strong that I've never lived in, and do not believe I am capable of. I don't breathe the air on that planet. People have said that God never gives you anything that you can't handle, and I'm here to tell you that's the worst kind of bullshit-on-a-stick there is.
Compared to the Godzilla-like monsters that snatch up little babies and consume them before their heartbroken parents' eyes, Schuyler's is the fucking Cookie Monster. And that's good enough for me, thank you very much.
It felt like a really good interview; Greg's got a lot of experience with special needs kids, both personally and professionally, and it absolutely showed. I've talked to a variety of reporters since the book came out, and some of them were exceptionally sensitive and good, but with Greg, it was almost disconcerting, being interviewed by someone who really gets it. I'm curious as to how it's going to turn out; I suspect it's going to be outstanding. When we were doing the actual interview, I almost got a little weepy a few times. Not he-manly at all, I know. I suspect Greg was slipping estrogen into my water when I wasn't looking.
There's so much I want to talk about in more depth, such as the fact that I did a little book-for-movie exchange with Dan Habib, the father and filmmaker behind the brilliant documentary Including Samuel. I'll have much more to say about this, but for now, let me simply say that if you have any feelings or questions about inclusion and mainstreaming for special needs kids, you really do owe it to yourself to see his film. We're not in 100% lockstep agreement (you can probably imagine how I feel about the page in the film notes called "Words Matter", about person-first language), but we come to the same conclusions about the benefits of inclusion for these kids. Not just for my kids, but for yours, too. See this film if you get the opportunity, even if you find yourself opposed to inclusion education. Or especially if you're opposed to it, really.
In my book, I mention the polymicrogyria online support groups that I follow. I never contribute to them, probably out of something akin to misplaced guilt for Schuyler's comparatively good fortune, but I read them religiously. In Schuyler's Monster, I wrote about the heartbreak when a parent comes on the forum and reports the death of their child. There was one a few days ago; I showed it to Greg when he was here, and I think it made a powerful impression on him. Well, of course it did. If you're not touched by reading a parent's words as they report the death of their three year-old as a result of repeated, nasty seizures, there's something dead in your chest. You might want to go have that checked by a physician.
How does a parent watch their child die? How do they make peace with that, with their seemingly cruel or indifferent God and a world with such monsters in it? How do you bury your own son or daughter? People have been telling us how brave and how strong we are, but that's a world of brave and strong that I've never lived in, and do not believe I am capable of. I don't breathe the air on that planet. People have said that God never gives you anything that you can't handle, and I'm here to tell you that's the worst kind of bullshit-on-a-stick there is.
Compared to the Godzilla-like monsters that snatch up little babies and consume them before their heartbroken parents' eyes, Schuyler's is the fucking Cookie Monster. And that's good enough for me, thank you very much.
March 23, 2008
Mockingbird
A few quick book things to report. First of all, the book trailer I put together last year is being featured on the Barnes & Noble site, thanks to the tenacious work of the very cool Monica Katz at St. Martin's. I'm really happy with the continued support from St. Martin's. Also, while I am as "Fight the Man", pro-independent bookstore as anyone, I'll never say a word against Barnes & Noble, who have gotten behind the book in a big way.
Back in the spring of 2003, Jim Shelton at the New Haven Register in Connecticut did a feature about local bloggers, and was kind enough to write about me then. It was fun at the time, although the story of us changed rather dramatically a few months later when Schuyler was diagnosed with polymicrogyria and our world turned upside down. Last week, Jim called me up and we talked for a bit, and the result is a new story in the New Haven Register. It was a nicely done story, and it felt a little like a homecoming for me. I miss New Haven like mad.
Last night marked the end of Spring Break for Schuyler and me. Julie had to work most of the time, so we didn't go crazy this past week, but instead just sort of enjoyed the time together. We hung out, flew kites, watched a lot of Kim Possible (one of the few shows that Schuyler watches that i can stomach; it is the anti-Hannah Montana for me), and even went to a dog parade. It was a nice week.
After Schuyler went to bed last night, Julie and I watched To Kill a Mockingbird again. I can't tell you how many times I've seen it, or how many times I've read the book, for that matter. They seem like two parts of one whole experience, so perfectly matched as they are, in a way that is rare for books and their film adaptations.
I've loved that book most of my life, ever since the first time I read it back when I was probably about the same age as Jem Finch. And yet, in looking back on the years, it seems strange that I would have ever known that book or the film without associating them with Schuyler. I watch the movie now and I am aware of the relationship between the father and the daughter, the wild and different little girl who is curious about a world that is meaner than she is but which is also full of mysteries to be explored.
I always identified with the kid characters growing up, like just about anyone else who read it when they were young, but now I find myself experiencing the story from the perspective of the father. Atticus tells Scout that you can never truly understand someone until you see the world from their perspective, to climb in their skin and walk around in it for a little while. I think I finally understand.
It's an imperfect parallel, of course. Schuyler is herself equal parts Scout Finch and Boo Radley, and I am no Atticus Finch, although God knows I do try.
Back in the spring of 2003, Jim Shelton at the New Haven Register in Connecticut did a feature about local bloggers, and was kind enough to write about me then. It was fun at the time, although the story of us changed rather dramatically a few months later when Schuyler was diagnosed with polymicrogyria and our world turned upside down. Last week, Jim called me up and we talked for a bit, and the result is a new story in the New Haven Register. It was a nicely done story, and it felt a little like a homecoming for me. I miss New Haven like mad.
Last night marked the end of Spring Break for Schuyler and me. Julie had to work most of the time, so we didn't go crazy this past week, but instead just sort of enjoyed the time together. We hung out, flew kites, watched a lot of Kim Possible (one of the few shows that Schuyler watches that i can stomach; it is the anti-Hannah Montana for me), and even went to a dog parade. It was a nice week.
After Schuyler went to bed last night, Julie and I watched To Kill a Mockingbird again. I can't tell you how many times I've seen it, or how many times I've read the book, for that matter. They seem like two parts of one whole experience, so perfectly matched as they are, in a way that is rare for books and their film adaptations.
I've loved that book most of my life, ever since the first time I read it back when I was probably about the same age as Jem Finch. And yet, in looking back on the years, it seems strange that I would have ever known that book or the film without associating them with Schuyler. I watch the movie now and I am aware of the relationship between the father and the daughter, the wild and different little girl who is curious about a world that is meaner than she is but which is also full of mysteries to be explored.
I always identified with the kid characters growing up, like just about anyone else who read it when they were young, but now I find myself experiencing the story from the perspective of the father. Atticus tells Scout that you can never truly understand someone until you see the world from their perspective, to climb in their skin and walk around in it for a little while. I think I finally understand.
It's an imperfect parallel, of course. Schuyler is herself equal parts Scout Finch and Boo Radley, and I am no Atticus Finch, although God knows I do try.
March 5, 2008
Le Roi est mort. Vive le Roi.
It was perhaps tragically fitting that my last post included a photo of Schuyler with her beloved friend Jasper. If you've read the book, or if you've been around for a while, you know that Jasper is Schuyler's oldest inanimate friend.
He was originally purchased while Julie was pregnant so that he could ride around in my car with me and let me see if I could ever get accustomed to the name "Jasper" in case we had a boy. I couldn't, of course (could you?), but the name stuck, and after a period of rejection by Baby Schuyler, he eventually became one of her most treasured friends. She even insisted on a girlfriend for him. (They have a baby bear, too.)
Julie and Schuyler fell asleep on the big floofy chair in the living room tonight, and at some point, Jasper slipped from Schuyler's grasp and fell to the floor, met by the gaping, slobbery maw of Max, Schuyler's very very very bad little dog. The rest you can probably figure out.
I looked over and saw the tragedy unfolding before it could get very far, and I managed to snatch poor Jasper up and take him to the other room before Schuyler could notice. The damage wasn't horrible, but it was bad enough. Ears chewed, one foot stripped of its fur, and most horribly, an eye completely missing. Jasper had been disfigured to an extent that couldn't be fixed.
Well, this is one of those parenting moments where they don't exactly tell you what you're supposed to do, now isn't it? What's the right thing to do here? Let Schuyler face the ugly truth and see what her nasty little hellhound had done to her best friend? Or run to the mall and pray that the Gap (Jasper's port of origin) would carry another that looked like him and try to slip a new Jasper 2.0 past Schuyler? In general, I am all about letting Schuyler see the world in all its grandness and all its pain at the same time, but tonight, I just couldn't do it. Ten minutes to drive to the mall, five minutes in and out of the store, and a sly switcheroo after she had crawled into bed in which she accepted the doppelgänger under darkened conditions, and the deed was done.
We'll see if it worked in the morning. These little Gap bears all seem to be a little different (lovingly hand-crafted by Chinese slave labor, no doubt), and Jasper Mark II looks a little different from his now one-eyed predecessor. Julie and I aren't in agreement on this, by the way. She feels like Schuyler is tough and could deal with the truth. I guess I agree, but then, I feel like she gets to handle the tough truths a lot. I will say that if Schuyler isn't fooled and notices the difference, then I'll come clean with her.
As for poor old Jasper, I think I'll take him on the book tour with me, one last hurrah for the little guy, and then maybe get him an eye patch and seal him up for the future, to be given to Schuyler when she's older and ready for a foolish, sentimental gift from her old man.
This was a tough call. There are times for me, I suppose, when honesty in parenting takes a back seat to the preservation of the fragile world that Schuyler creates. I'm not sure myself if this was the right thing to do. I only know that there's a lot I'll do in this world, right or wrong, to make Schuyler happy.
Happy trails, Jasper...
He was originally purchased while Julie was pregnant so that he could ride around in my car with me and let me see if I could ever get accustomed to the name "Jasper" in case we had a boy. I couldn't, of course (could you?), but the name stuck, and after a period of rejection by Baby Schuyler, he eventually became one of her most treasured friends. She even insisted on a girlfriend for him. (They have a baby bear, too.)
Julie and Schuyler fell asleep on the big floofy chair in the living room tonight, and at some point, Jasper slipped from Schuyler's grasp and fell to the floor, met by the gaping, slobbery maw of Max, Schuyler's very very very bad little dog. The rest you can probably figure out.
I looked over and saw the tragedy unfolding before it could get very far, and I managed to snatch poor Jasper up and take him to the other room before Schuyler could notice. The damage wasn't horrible, but it was bad enough. Ears chewed, one foot stripped of its fur, and most horribly, an eye completely missing. Jasper had been disfigured to an extent that couldn't be fixed.
Well, this is one of those parenting moments where they don't exactly tell you what you're supposed to do, now isn't it? What's the right thing to do here? Let Schuyler face the ugly truth and see what her nasty little hellhound had done to her best friend? Or run to the mall and pray that the Gap (Jasper's port of origin) would carry another that looked like him and try to slip a new Jasper 2.0 past Schuyler? In general, I am all about letting Schuyler see the world in all its grandness and all its pain at the same time, but tonight, I just couldn't do it. Ten minutes to drive to the mall, five minutes in and out of the store, and a sly switcheroo after she had crawled into bed in which she accepted the doppelgänger under darkened conditions, and the deed was done.
We'll see if it worked in the morning. These little Gap bears all seem to be a little different (lovingly hand-crafted by Chinese slave labor, no doubt), and Jasper Mark II looks a little different from his now one-eyed predecessor. Julie and I aren't in agreement on this, by the way. She feels like Schuyler is tough and could deal with the truth. I guess I agree, but then, I feel like she gets to handle the tough truths a lot. I will say that if Schuyler isn't fooled and notices the difference, then I'll come clean with her.
As for poor old Jasper, I think I'll take him on the book tour with me, one last hurrah for the little guy, and then maybe get him an eye patch and seal him up for the future, to be given to Schuyler when she's older and ready for a foolish, sentimental gift from her old man.
This was a tough call. There are times for me, I suppose, when honesty in parenting takes a back seat to the preservation of the fragile world that Schuyler creates. I'm not sure myself if this was the right thing to do. I only know that there's a lot I'll do in this world, right or wrong, to make Schuyler happy.
February 12, 2008
Perfect Storm
When I went to bed last night, I was aware of the possibility of thunderstorms moving through the area, but when they arrived in the middle of the night, they announced themselves like something from a 1950's monster movie. If there was any slow buildup, we slept through it, right up until the bright flash and deafening BOOM that awakened us in a chaotic frenzy of vaguely coherent obscenities.
A few seconds later, Schuyler was standing in the doorway.
The comparison to a monster movie is a good one for her, actually. One of the things that Schuyler and I share is a love for those movies and, more generally, the thrill of being scared. (Julie has been successfully vetoing my taking Schuyler to see Cloverfield for weeks now.) When we watch a scary movie, Schuyler will cower behind a blanket and make little whimpery sounds, but if I try to turn it off or change the channel, she gets well and truly pissed off. She has always been a thrill junkie.
Thunderstorms are like scary movies for Schuyler. Even at 3 o'clock in the morning, once she's found her way to our bed, she's as happy as she can be as the lightning flashes and the thunder shakes the windows. She "wow"s at the lightening and the rain hitting the window so hard that it sounds like hail, and she squeals and giggles after the thunder. As sleepy as I am at that hour and as much as I know how zombiesque we'll all be the next morning, I still can't help but stay awake and watch her little face, illuminated by the steady flicker from the storm. I don't need words from her to see how happy she is when the storms rattle our world.
Middle of the night storms are like monster movies that appear out of nowhere, and I love them unconditionally, probably for the same reasons Schuyler does.
A few seconds later, Schuyler was standing in the doorway.
The comparison to a monster movie is a good one for her, actually. One of the things that Schuyler and I share is a love for those movies and, more generally, the thrill of being scared. (Julie has been successfully vetoing my taking Schuyler to see Cloverfield for weeks now.) When we watch a scary movie, Schuyler will cower behind a blanket and make little whimpery sounds, but if I try to turn it off or change the channel, she gets well and truly pissed off. She has always been a thrill junkie.
Thunderstorms are like scary movies for Schuyler. Even at 3 o'clock in the morning, once she's found her way to our bed, she's as happy as she can be as the lightning flashes and the thunder shakes the windows. She "wow"s at the lightening and the rain hitting the window so hard that it sounds like hail, and she squeals and giggles after the thunder. As sleepy as I am at that hour and as much as I know how zombiesque we'll all be the next morning, I still can't help but stay awake and watch her little face, illuminated by the steady flicker from the storm. I don't need words from her to see how happy she is when the storms rattle our world.
Middle of the night storms are like monster movies that appear out of nowhere, and I love them unconditionally, probably for the same reasons Schuyler does.
February 5, 2008
Pinwheeling
I did an interview for Jennifer Graf Groneberg over on her blog, Pinwheels, mostly about writing. Go check it out, yo.
Jennifer has her own book about parenting a special needs child, Road Map to Holland: How I Found My Way Through My Son's First Two Years With Down Syndrome, coming out in April and available for pre-order now.
February 1, 2008
Philanthropy and boobs
I don't know about your friends, but I know some pretty remarkable and generous people, and of them all, I can't think of one that I admire more than my friend Dana. She has been a good friend to my family and me since before Schuyler was born, and I can't think of anyone who we've been able to consistently count on more than her. I know that I'm not the only person who feels that way, too. We miss her madly.
Back in the summer of 2000, Dana embarked on a crazy bicycle ride from Boston to New York, benefitting AIDS research. To me, the person who has to have an internal dialogue every day I go to work concerning whether or not I should take the elevator to the second floor, this was an astounding achievement.
Now she's doing it again. This time it's a three-day walk benefitting the Susan G. Komen for the Cure and National Philanthropic Trust, funding research, education, screening and treatment of breast cancer.
Go to Dana's Philadelphia Breast Cancer 3-Day page and help out, won't you? It's for a great cause, and besides, as Dana points out, "EVERYONE LIKES BREASTS". Which I think is probably a universal truth.
January 26, 2008
But I'm not the only one
I attended a media party here in Dallas the other night. These sorts of things aren't always the easiest for me, and not just because I don't drink myself into "life of the party" mode so much anymore. (What was cute when I was in college would probably just be sad now that I'm, you know, thirty-ten.)
Unlike the healthy (perhaps not?) narcissism that I display in my writing, I can be a little shy in person. I also feel a lot more comfortable talking about Schuyler (or just about any other topic you might bring up) than myself, which is probably something I need to get over in roughly twenty-three days. It feels strange, as it must to a lot of authors, having to simultaneously present myself as both salesman and merchandise. Add to that the fact that I tend to feel big and clumsy and unattractive at these events ("Oh my god, who invited the Cloverfield monster to this thing?"), and I don't know, perhaps I should re-evaluate that whole "not drinking heavily" decision.
The party this week wasn't bad, though. I saw a lot of people whom I've met before, I got to talk a bit to a journalist whose work I really dig, and most of all I got to spend some time with a friend whom I haven't seen in a while. We went and got a bite to eat after the schmoozefest, and I found myself opening up about some aspects of this whole experience that I haven't really allowed myself before. I don't know why I've been so reticent to do so, especially since I expressed much of it in my book. I guess it's easier to type my guts out than actually talk about these things.
The topic of personal strength came up. Everyone wants to be strong, and I suspect that on some level we all feel as if we've failed in that regard. I can say for certain that I do. I admitted something that I haven't expressed very often to that many people, the fact that I cry almost every day. Never in front of anyone, and it's never a big deal, but at least on the days that I go to work, I can get a little weepy. (My office is forty-five miles away; perhaps THAT'S why I'm crying.) I get it out of my system, and then when I get home, I'm ready to do what's got to be done.
I went back to my archives here to see if I'd ever spoken about this before. I didn't find anything exactly on topic, but I did find this, which is close, I guess.
One of the stories that I share in the book but hadn't ever actually told anyone before took place the evening that we got Schuyler's diagnosis, back in the summer of 2003, roughly a thousand years ago. I had to go straight from the doctor's office to a meeting at work, where I mostly just sat in the back and pretended to watch a Powerpoint presentation while my heart broke into jagged little shards. When the meeting was over, I stopped by my desk and googled "congenital bilateral perisylvian syndrome", and when I'd read quite enough, I left for home.
On the way, I saw an old Gothic-looking church that I passed every day, and something just snapped. I pulled over, got out of the car and, in my anger and my hurt, actually attempted to vandalize the church. (I didn't succeed; put down your bibles and relax.) Finally I dropped to the ground and offered up to God what was perhaps the most sincere prayer that I ever prayed in my life. It was a ridiculous prayer, but it was one that I meant with everything I was.
I asked God to take Schuyler's monster from her and give it to me instead. I probably didn't ask so much as demand it, really. I was thirty-five years old. I'd said enough in my lifetime. Give it to me and let her walk away free of it.
I know how silly that sounds now. But at that moment, I wanted it so much and meant it so sincerely that as soon as I said it, I sat quietly for a moment, waiting for it to happen, bracing myself for the transformation that I knew was coming, that HAD to come, because I wished for it so hard and because it was fair, it was a fair trade.
God said no. And so I cry when no one's looking, and I hold a grudge against God, because he was wrong to say no.
In his interview in D Magazine, Tim Rogers asked Schuyler about her dreams. I'm not sure if she understood what he meant, but she said that she dreamed of Santa (well, of course she did), and that I dreamed of King Kong. As a matter of fact I don't, swell though Kong may be.
I dream of Schuyler, but not as she is. In my dreams, she speaks to me, always comforting me, telling me that everything's going to be okay. I've written about that before, both here and in the book. But it's only now that I realize something else about these dreams, something that I never noticed before.
In my dreams, she speaks to me, but I almost never speak back to her.
The Schuyler in my dreams is the little girl that she would be if God had said yes, I suppose. Some dreams deserve to come true; some prayers deserve to be answered. I still haven't made peace with the fact that they haven't, but I'm still working on it.
Unlike the healthy (perhaps not?) narcissism that I display in my writing, I can be a little shy in person. I also feel a lot more comfortable talking about Schuyler (or just about any other topic you might bring up) than myself, which is probably something I need to get over in roughly twenty-three days. It feels strange, as it must to a lot of authors, having to simultaneously present myself as both salesman and merchandise. Add to that the fact that I tend to feel big and clumsy and unattractive at these events ("Oh my god, who invited the Cloverfield monster to this thing?"), and I don't know, perhaps I should re-evaluate that whole "not drinking heavily" decision.
The party this week wasn't bad, though. I saw a lot of people whom I've met before, I got to talk a bit to a journalist whose work I really dig, and most of all I got to spend some time with a friend whom I haven't seen in a while. We went and got a bite to eat after the schmoozefest, and I found myself opening up about some aspects of this whole experience that I haven't really allowed myself before. I don't know why I've been so reticent to do so, especially since I expressed much of it in my book. I guess it's easier to type my guts out than actually talk about these things.
The topic of personal strength came up. Everyone wants to be strong, and I suspect that on some level we all feel as if we've failed in that regard. I can say for certain that I do. I admitted something that I haven't expressed very often to that many people, the fact that I cry almost every day. Never in front of anyone, and it's never a big deal, but at least on the days that I go to work, I can get a little weepy. (My office is forty-five miles away; perhaps THAT'S why I'm crying.) I get it out of my system, and then when I get home, I'm ready to do what's got to be done.
I went back to my archives here to see if I'd ever spoken about this before. I didn't find anything exactly on topic, but I did find this, which is close, I guess.
Sometimes the way broken parents of broken children get through it all is to step into the dark and lose their fucking minds, to cry hard and insult God as the bully that he undeniably is, and just stop being the brave little soldier for a while.
That's how it happens. You exhaust yourself of the frustration and the unfairness of it. You empty out that part of you, the little pit in the center of you that stores away the fear and the anger and the protective fire that you can use against child molesters and internet bullies and mean bitey dogs but not against God and Fate and a child's brain.
And then you wait for it to slowly fill again, I guess.
One of the stories that I share in the book but hadn't ever actually told anyone before took place the evening that we got Schuyler's diagnosis, back in the summer of 2003, roughly a thousand years ago. I had to go straight from the doctor's office to a meeting at work, where I mostly just sat in the back and pretended to watch a Powerpoint presentation while my heart broke into jagged little shards. When the meeting was over, I stopped by my desk and googled "congenital bilateral perisylvian syndrome", and when I'd read quite enough, I left for home.
On the way, I saw an old Gothic-looking church that I passed every day, and something just snapped. I pulled over, got out of the car and, in my anger and my hurt, actually attempted to vandalize the church. (I didn't succeed; put down your bibles and relax.) Finally I dropped to the ground and offered up to God what was perhaps the most sincere prayer that I ever prayed in my life. It was a ridiculous prayer, but it was one that I meant with everything I was.
I asked God to take Schuyler's monster from her and give it to me instead. I probably didn't ask so much as demand it, really. I was thirty-five years old. I'd said enough in my lifetime. Give it to me and let her walk away free of it.
I know how silly that sounds now. But at that moment, I wanted it so much and meant it so sincerely that as soon as I said it, I sat quietly for a moment, waiting for it to happen, bracing myself for the transformation that I knew was coming, that HAD to come, because I wished for it so hard and because it was fair, it was a fair trade.
God said no. And so I cry when no one's looking, and I hold a grudge against God, because he was wrong to say no.
In his interview in D Magazine, Tim Rogers asked Schuyler about her dreams. I'm not sure if she understood what he meant, but she said that she dreamed of Santa (well, of course she did), and that I dreamed of King Kong. As a matter of fact I don't, swell though Kong may be.
I dream of Schuyler, but not as she is. In my dreams, she speaks to me, always comforting me, telling me that everything's going to be okay. I've written about that before, both here and in the book. But it's only now that I realize something else about these dreams, something that I never noticed before.
In my dreams, she speaks to me, but I almost never speak back to her.
The Schuyler in my dreams is the little girl that she would be if God had said yes, I suppose. Some dreams deserve to come true; some prayers deserve to be answered. I still haven't made peace with the fact that they haven't, but I'm still working on it.
January 14, 2008
The Quiet World of Ice Girl
We went for a walk in downtown Dallas yesterday, not for any particular reason other than to visit the Crow Collection of Asian Art, which Julie had been wanting to see for a while and which was within the budgetary range most suitable for the grand Rummel-Hudson estate. (Free, of course.)
After we made our way through the gallery, we took a stroll around the art-filled grounds of the Trammel Crow Center and came across an outdoor sculpture called "Men Against Man" (1968), by a Norwegian-American doctor and sculptor named Kaare Nygaard. (In a weird coincidence, Nygaard was the surgeon who treated Australian composer and nutbag Percy Grainger, whose music I like.) The sculpture depicts six uniformed and faceless figures (soldiers? policemen?) carrying a struggling prisoner by his arms and legs.
Schuyler was taken by it immediately.
She bent close to the prisoner's face (or what would have been his face if he'd had one), touching it gently. She held his hand. She walked around the sculpture several times, touching his feet and hands, but she was very careful to never touch any of the captors.
Finally, she stopped near the prisoner's head and stayed there. She touched his face again, tenderly and with great care, and put her forehead against his while whispering softly in Martian. As I tried to take photos as quietly as I could, she kissed his head and smiled sadly to herself. Finally, she simply rested her face next to his, giving him the same wordless comfort that she's always given to me when she knows I'm sad. When it was time to leave, she looked at him one last time, purposefully not recognizing his tormentors, and gave a little wave to him as we walked away.
Schuyler is an eight year-old girl, and much of the time she's not all that different from any other. She laughs, she plays, she watches Kim Possible on television, and she makes up imaginary scenarios for us all to participate in. (In her most recent story, she is a superhero named Ice Girl, and Julie and I are her co-horts, Ice Mama and Ice Daddy. I told her we could assemble an Ice Girl costume for her and she could come to my first book signing as Ice Girl. So, you know, watch for that.) Most of the time, Schuyler is just like any other kid.
But then, like yesterday, something else will appear behind her eyes, something a little dark and a little sad, but also wise beyond her years. When it does, Schuyler doesn't try to express it to us, but instead she moves through her world like a shaman. I watched her yesterday as she poured out her compassion and her sad love for the idea of someone suffering oppression, a concept that I doubt she could even express if pressed.
Schuyler is like any other kid you might meet, and Schuyler is like no one else in the world. In her mysteries (and she has so many), she is a puzzle and a source of immense pride. Schuyler is my most inscrutable enigma, and also my most perfect muse.
After we made our way through the gallery, we took a stroll around the art-filled grounds of the Trammel Crow Center and came across an outdoor sculpture called "Men Against Man" (1968), by a Norwegian-American doctor and sculptor named Kaare Nygaard. (In a weird coincidence, Nygaard was the surgeon who treated Australian composer and nutbag Percy Grainger, whose music I like.) The sculpture depicts six uniformed and faceless figures (soldiers? policemen?) carrying a struggling prisoner by his arms and legs.
Schuyler was taken by it immediately.
She bent close to the prisoner's face (or what would have been his face if he'd had one), touching it gently. She held his hand. She walked around the sculpture several times, touching his feet and hands, but she was very careful to never touch any of the captors.
Finally, she stopped near the prisoner's head and stayed there. She touched his face again, tenderly and with great care, and put her forehead against his while whispering softly in Martian. As I tried to take photos as quietly as I could, she kissed his head and smiled sadly to herself. Finally, she simply rested her face next to his, giving him the same wordless comfort that she's always given to me when she knows I'm sad. When it was time to leave, she looked at him one last time, purposefully not recognizing his tormentors, and gave a little wave to him as we walked away.
Schuyler is an eight year-old girl, and much of the time she's not all that different from any other. She laughs, she plays, she watches Kim Possible on television, and she makes up imaginary scenarios for us all to participate in. (In her most recent story, she is a superhero named Ice Girl, and Julie and I are her co-horts, Ice Mama and Ice Daddy. I told her we could assemble an Ice Girl costume for her and she could come to my first book signing as Ice Girl. So, you know, watch for that.) Most of the time, Schuyler is just like any other kid.
But then, like yesterday, something else will appear behind her eyes, something a little dark and a little sad, but also wise beyond her years. When it does, Schuyler doesn't try to express it to us, but instead she moves through her world like a shaman. I watched her yesterday as she poured out her compassion and her sad love for the idea of someone suffering oppression, a concept that I doubt she could even express if pressed.
Schuyler is like any other kid you might meet, and Schuyler is like no one else in the world. In her mysteries (and she has so many), she is a puzzle and a source of immense pride. Schuyler is my most inscrutable enigma, and also my most perfect muse.
January 13, 2008
Worst Email Ever
My friend Michael Malice has a new site that has a lot of potential for fun, Worst Email Ever: The Internet's Inbox. I made tonight's cut because of an email in which I told him that when I saw the news story about wrestler Chris Benoit murdering his family, I immediately thought of him. (Michael Malice just saw a collaboration of his published, an autobiography of pro wrestler Matt Hughes, so it wasn't an entirely random thing to say.) Michael is responsible for the description-defying Overheard in New York, after all. And how many people make this kind of impression on someone like Harvey Pekar?)
I met Michael about a year ago, when we both spoke at a panel on published bloggers in New York. The first thing he did was give me a gift for Schuyler. The next night, he found me at a book party we were both attending and hung with me for the rest of the night. If he ever felt his style cramped by the tag-along yokel, he never let on, and my impression of Michael is that he doesn't do much in this world that he doesn't want to do. That was refreshing, as was his attitude (similar to mine) towards using politically correct language where disability is concerned. I think we shocked a few people standing around us, and I couldn't be happier.
My impression of Michael Malice is not that he's some kind of terrifying narcissist, but rather that he has the ability to size up a person almost immediately and know what he needs to know about them almost instinctually. That clearly doesn't bod well for a lot of the people he meets. For me, it worked out pretty well, I think.
January 10, 2008
SCHUYLER'S MONSTER: The Author on God
Transcript:
Rob: I think a lot of parents with broken children find God, and they find religion. They find a spirituality that sustains them. I certainly understand that, and I certainly respect it.
For me, I've always been an Agnostic, and I think I'm more agnostic now than ever before. You know, Schuyler's situation certainly raises a lot of questions, and it shakes any faith that you might have. But I've never given up on the idea of God. Julie says that she thinks the reason I could never be an Atheist is because then I wouldn't have anyone to blame. And I guess maybe that's true.
I do have a lot of questions that I would put to God about Schuyler, about all the kids like Schuyler, the kids who have it so much worse than Schuyler, about how that could happen. How a God of love and compassion can do that. But I don't have any answers.
My faith is in Schuyler, oddly enough. Watching her struggle and watching her fight. And I don't attribute faith to some invisible person in the sky, but I do feel very strongly when I observe Schuyler.
It's funny. I'm not sure if I believe in God, but I believe in Schuyler.
January 7, 2008
SCHUYLER'S MONSTER: On Language
Transcript:
Rob: You know, one thing I have taken some heat for in the past, and will again in the future with this book, I'm sure, is the fact that I don't really have much use for "gentle" or "correct" language where disability is concerned. And I know that's very important to some people. You know, terms like "special" or "challenged" or "differently abled" instead of disabled. And I understand why that's important. It's never been a good fit for us. I refer to Schuyler as "broken" and her disability we refer to as her "monster". So I guess it's different for us.
I guess the thing that I don't understand completely is, how that type of gentle language helps the person with the disability. I suspect that it is more for the rest of us, the rest of society. It helps us integrate them and deal with it, deal with something that's hard.
And I don't know that it should be easy, actually. I don't know that it should be something that gets to be sugarcoated, because it is difficult, and the things that these people go through every day, it's not something that we should easily deal with. It should be something that we're always aware of how hard that is.
You know, in the past, people have asked me, they'll say "How do you think Schuyler will react one day when she reads that you thought she was broken?" You know, that she'll take some offense at the kind of language that we've used. I don't think she will react at all. I certainly don't think she'll be surprised. I don't think she'll feel like she's been deceived all this time.
We are very straightforward with Schuyler about her disability, and she fights it. She brings the fight every day, without any illusions, but also without any expectations that there's something that she can't do. She knows what she has to fight, and she knows that a thing that is broken is a thing that can be fixed. And a situation that requires this kind of work, she's exactly the person to do that kind of work.
So I think if Schuyler reads that one day, she's going to know that I understood, and I cared. I loved her, I loved her enough to take up this fight with her.
January 3, 2008
SCHUYLER'S MONSTER: Advocacy
Transcript:
Rob: You as parents and family of broken children and disabled family members, you are the absolute best advocates for your loved ones. And that's hard. It's hard because it's... we want to defer to experts. Julie and I were both music majors. We had no experience with children. All that we knew was what we, what we felt in our gut about Schuyler.
And, you know, the experts and the doctors, they've been amazing, they've been great for us. But the one thing that they can't do is they can't tell the future. And we want them to, we want to hear that everything's going to be okay.
But the future's not written. You're writing the future, and your child is writing the future. And if you feel like the information you're being given isn't correct, isn't right, you have to go with that instinct. Because nobody knows your child like you do, nobody senses the things that are true and real about your child like you do.
There were two points in Schuyler's life that had we followed the advice we were given, by experts, and really "expert" experts, had we listened to that advice, Schuyler's life would be nothing like it is now. It was the fact that we didn't, we didn't feel right, and that we, we kept pushing for better answers that we finally got them.
So believe in yourself. That's hard, but it's absolutely vital, and in the end, in the end you'll be so glad that you did.
January 1, 2008
SCHUYLER'S MONSTER: Making a New Kind of Family
Transcript:
Rob: Being in a family with a special needs family member, particularly a child, it's very difficult. It's very hard on a family, it's very hard on a marriage. The divorce rate amongst couples with a disabled child is incredibly high, it's very depressing. And it's... it's hard because I think when you're in a relationship, you know, sometimes when things are hard you want to have that person you can turn to. But when that person is also in that same situation, you think that that's an ideal situation. And you know what? Sometimes it's not, sometimes it's the opposite. Sometimes two people fighting the same demons, they just, you know, it's so hard to be sympathetic, so hard to get out of your own head and out of your own world. And it's very difficult for families.
I think for a family to make it work, for a family to work out the issues inherent in having a special needs child, I think the secret is you just have to take all the narrative that society's handed you, all the expectations, and you just have to blow them away, start with a clean slate. Because the rules for your family and the rules for your child are going to be completely new. They're going to be, they're going to be... You've got to find your way, you've got to find your way, because they're not going to apply to anyone else.
I can write this book. I've read a lot of books, and I'll continue to read books, by other special needs parents. But the thing that strikes me is how every one of these stories is different, every single person has a different reaction, every single person, every single family member has a different way of dealing with it.
And that's fine, that's the way it should be, but you've got to find your own way. Because the standard rules aren't going to help you, they're not going to help you at all. They're just going to make you feel bad, they're going to make you feel like you're doing it wrong. But you're NOT doing it wrong, you just have to find the right way, and no one else can tell you that but you.
So it's hard, it's hard to find that, but it's also very rewarding. I can't think of anything in my life that's challenged me more or has made me grow more as a person. So it's worth it. It's hard, but it's worth it.
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