Melsville

Summer Plans

I  need to be totally clear about this;  I am not here to be “inspiring”.    I'm just here doing what I do.   I don't know  any people with disabilities who wake up in the morning planning to get out there to inspire the hell out of everyone they see. 

I'm married and in love.  I battled my way to a fine education, and literally hold more degrees than I've figured out how to use.  I've had two healthy pregnancies which resulted in two fabulous children.  Life is good.  And, oh yeah, I was born with Cerebral Palsy and I was part of a car accident that caused me to develop a seizure disorder.  That's my life.

I worked for a year counseling well-off collage-age kids with some pretty heavy-duty learning disabilities who wanted leave home for school and work toward a holding a good job and living in some cute little apartment in Cambridge;  and cooking for themselves, balancing their checkbooks and the many other things nobody thinks about when they're in their first two years of college.  Of course, the kids also wanted to meet other kids so they could hang around and blow things off,  party on Thursday and get laid; but all this goes without saying.  People ( like me ) could feel damn proud of all of them, but they just wanted lives.

For nine months, I took the morning train to Framingham with a cool young man called C.J. who had developmental delays.  We sat together, bitching and moaning about being on a train at 8:00 am. We talked about how we had learned to bake biscotti, and he insisted that my mother-in-law's recipe did not produce “real” biscotti because the cookies took less than eight hours to make.  We talked about what kind of jerks our bosses were and about what we would rather be doing at that moment.  C.J  knew more about my week than many of my grad-school classmates.  C.J. never tried to talk to me while I was writing in my journal.  Sometimes we just rode the train together and read.

The first time we met,  I was carrying a Tupperware container full of the much-disputed biscotti to a work-party.  “Are those biscotti,” he asked.  He didn't wonder aloud why I had them, ask me for one, or malign their authenticity.  The next time he saw me, we sat across from each other and had ourselves a chat.  Before we'd gotten off the train, C.J. told me to go to the people in charge of the public transportation system and get myself one of the special passes for people with disabilities, but I didn't.

I found out that I could not have gotten a pass if I'd wanted one; two brain-injuries and a seizure disorder isn't enough for the state of Massachusetts.   In the state where having a seizure disorder would keep me off the road, I'm “too able-bodied” for reduced transit  fare.  Does that make sense to you?

Hey wait, what was my point anyway?  Oh yeah, it was my Summer plans;  I'm going to learn to ride some sort of cycle.  Some sort of wheeled, vehicle with pedals powered by me.  Two wheels, three four, I'll try anything.  If you want to see what, in my dreams I can imagine toodling about on, look here:  http://www.incrediblethings.com/art-design/bicycle-design-for-people-with-disabilities/  .  I love this, and it's so pretty.  I don't know where to get it or how much it costs.  All I know is I want it as much as it wants me.  But I digress.

Like many of you, I tried learning to ride a bike when I was a kid.  I gave it up as one of those things I couldn't do.  Now, Emma wants a bright red bike, I mean she really wants one.  Now, Liam wants to give it another try.  I'm feeling spurred into action, so I'm giving learning to ride a go.  I've got the whole Summer ahead of me, and this is what I plan to do:

1.Write every day.
2.Start riding a bike.
3.Loose 5-10 pounds

Looking to be impressed?  Don't worry.  Those are just three things I'm gonna do.  If I'm going to be writing every day, you're sure to read about how I'm doing the other 2 as well.

New School for Emma

As we do on most weekday mornings, Emma and I walked off to her school today. Neither of us were simmering about the clothes Emma was wearing or about the amount of TV   she'd watched, or not, and we weren't late.  We shared a cozy journey under the water-color blue sky.  We passed the cafe which smelled like hot breakfast.  She'd greeted the dogs and their walkers along Holland Street.  We'd called out to friends in the parking-lot and in the hallway.

I know that, if I wanted to,  I could pull out a calender and count the days on which we'll make the same trip, but I don't want to do that.  Doing that would make me sad because  I would get ready to miss buddies and teachers, the well-stocked classrooms and the new playground.   Emma has been attending the Tufts Educational Day-Care Center since she was 2.9 years old.  When Emma was born, Liam had been in Kindergarten there, so we started counting the days before would start Green Group the week that she was born.   For me, her first day of Green Group felt like coming home.   I knew that I could trust the place the day that Emma first walked through the door,  and I knew I was telling the truth when I'd promised she would have fun.

Emma knows she will be going to Kindergarten in September, so we talked about taking a little walk to her “new school” this weekend.    She's looking forward to the new school already.  Her buddy Miranda from next door will be there too, and Emma loves this. I think that going to school with her must make Emma feel like she has one a prize.  I'm thinking happily about rides to school on cold, rainy mornings, but I don't think this occurs to Emma.

Miranda is the only friend of Emma's whom we know for sure will be going to her new school.  Some friends  will be staying at T.E.D.C.C.,  and others will be diving straight into private schools. Some kids will be attending the Somerville school known as the place to go for a little old-fashioned academic rigor. 

During the last week of school last year, the school Superintendent in this town announced that the Progressive program Liam has attended since Kindergarten would end next year.  He talks about how blending bits of what had once made the program almost work into the whole school would make it better for everyone.  This may be true, but I'm far from confident it will happen.  I don't trust the Superintendent ( Hell, he just canceled the choice I'd made!), and I don't know the Principal ( last guy cut out in May).  What they are planning sounds great, it could be the place to be, but I'm not sending my daughter into an experiment.  Liam wants to stay at the school another year because this is his world.  He'll stay with the same teacher because one aspect of the late-lamented program that they want to keep ( for now ) is two grades in each classroom.  We like his teacher a lot, so he'll stay.   In the 7th grade, he'll be at Emma's school. 

In September, Somerville will be full of five-year-olds coming into unfamiliar places, their new backpacks on their backs.  They might have one old friend in their class, they might have met other classmates at the events schools are planning for the young ones.  Some kids may find themselves sitting next to kids they see at the park but have never talked to, kids that live on the next street.  The classrooms will be filled with kids who wonder who will sit with them at lunch.  Everyone is going to be together in this; it's all new to all of them.

It will be new to me too.  In September, I'll still be walking her to school, but we will have to be there an hour earlier than we often come strolling into Blue Group.  I'll take her to the door, and hand her over to her teacher.  I won't get to walk in and check out what's going on in the classroom.  I won't learn to recognize the kids or their parents until some class event. I won't be able to watch Emma settling in to play with her new friends.

To Emma, new school may seem like nothing but a big adventure.  In August, she might not be so sure.   She knows it's happening, but it may still seem kind of vague.  Maybe it's not going to be fully real until the morning we go to the top of our street and start walking the further away from the day care center.  I know she will be fine, but she may have a shock coming.   I hope she realizes she's ready for it.  This weekend, she wants to take a walk to her new place.   She wants to really like it, and I hope she does.

Birthday Treats

Birthday Treats


Anyone who wants to know what flavor of funny little geek I am need only look at the birthday gifts assembled on my diningroom table.   At the front, we have Season One of Sherlock on blue-ray given by Liam who watched all these episodes with me on TV and can't wait for more.  From Emma, there is a graphic novel version of The Wizard of Oz.   Jamie gave me something neither of us knew existed; an annotated, unesprogated edition of The Picture of Dorian Grey.  If you have a copy of The Picture of Dorian Gray on your shelf (as I do), here's something you might not know: the Picture we've all read has been though the editing mill, twice.  Annotations?; oh what joy!  Pictures? Victoriana?  biographical bits?;  I'll take them.

So, what does this tell you about me?  It says that I read 19th century literature, and I mean that I do it for fun.  I've got an e-reader chock-a-block with novels so old that their copyrights have expires and that the Guetenburg Project makes available for free downloads.  I'm delighted, the thought of all those old words makes me clap my hands and shout, “oh goody!”  Some people only read these books for fun, but not me. 

 It reminds my readers who my childhood heroes were; one of them a character who moved though a world full of people who saw but, much to his frustration never really looked and one real person who whose life happened behind the screen his public persona had created.   Wilde's poetry was beautiful,   his comic timing peerless.  His fairy-tales gave up their happy ending to get-you-by-the-throat sadness.  And then, we have Dorian Gray,   you know that old story; a beautiful young man kept young and beautiful while his portrait grew as ugly as his tainted, rotting soul.   The story is the jumping-off point of everything from movies to New Yorker cartoons.  You can't avoid it.  One person created that plot-device, that cliché, that basis of so many stories by himself.  Think about that for a second.   No, I don't think Oscar Wilde's one novel gets all the credit its due.

You can't avoid Sherlock Holmes and John Watson either.  Many people already know how passionately  their creator,  Dr. Conan-Doyle  hated him.  He pushed one to his death  and in doing  silenced that one's Bosewell too, or thought he had.   Conan-Doyle tried, but the reading public wasn't about to let Holmes and Watson go.  Not only was he forced to bring Holmes back from his rocky grave,  other writers still refuse to let the characters go.  They are as solid, as real as Michelangelo's  David; once they'd been created, they couldn't be taken back.

And I do love the modern Sherlock and John.  Sherlock is still brilliant, still brittle and as difficult as he should be.  He's still a one-man force of unique and selective justice.  He continues to care deeply about stopping evil and keeping people safe, and keeps right on hiding just how personally he takes it.  In this version,  the audience truly sees just how much John has to put up with, living with the world's worst roomie.  I am glad to see that John Watson is young, vigorous, and smart.  The man is an army doctor dammit!; he was never meant to be a fat, old, dimwit toddling along after Holmes never copping-on fully.    This John Watson looks more like the great-great-grandson of the Dr. Watson readers always knew.

The last bit of what makes Sherlock so fun for me is that it was created by Steven Moffit, the man who wrote Coupling which I think is one of the funniest television shows ever.  It's often lude, sometimes awkward, and the characters aren't always even likable.  And, it's funny, laugh-as-you-repeat-bits out-loud funny.  

All my birthday gifts have one thing in common; they take a story I know, hammer it into something else, and give it back to me all shiny and new.  That is something I really love.

My love of the reworked old was what I wanted to bring with me on my Mothers' Day outing that never happened.  I wanted to go to something (someplace?) called “Steampunk City”.  Now all I know about steampunk style, imagery, etc. is that it takes the mostly-prettier bits of the Victorian Age and covers them with modern techno-trappings.  Well, that sounds like a fun way to spend a few hours on a Sunday.  I always did love the idea of a nineteenth-century garb-up.  Heck, I've been talked out of dressing like Sherlock Holmes or Oscar Wilde every Halloween since I was thirteen.  As I said, I LOVE that stuff.

I'm forty-four today.  Thirty years ago, I turned fourteen, and my parents took me on the best birthday outing ever.   That night, I saw my first production of The Importance of Being Ernest.  The four of us laughed ourselves nearly sick.  I knew then that this was the funniest thing I'd ever seen.  Life-changing?; why yes, it was.