We Go With Him

The Insomniac Soundtrack

In anticipation of a visit from my parents, Charlie is having a bout of insomnia, proof that mind can work over matter -- over getting in miles of bike riding, getting up early and getting melatonin (even a bit extra).

He has not had an insomniac night in some weeks and (so far) is enjoying pacing the night away, iPad on. There's been quite a few playings of REM's Reveal, a touch of Feist and now it is Arcade Fire, 'Month of May,' 'Rococo' and all that and what do you know, but I just read this in reference to Wagner's Tristan and Isolde:

'Insomnia is a refusal to cross the boundary between waking and sleeping, a bid to outwit Terminus by hiding away in ‘soundless dark’, a zone beyond time. As garlic is to vampires, so clocks are to insomniacs, not because they tell of how much sleep has been missed, but because they bring the next day nearer.'

Maybe music is functioning as those clocks in Charlie's case, the passing of each song marking the hours till daylight, a 'soundful dark.'

On a more prosaic note, the intense emotionality associated Wagner seems present also with Arcade Fire -- a little too rococo.

My past attempts to request the iPad to change the music haven't always borne out so well so I'm letting the music run out as Charlie sits in the brown chair, hands over ears, and we seek Terminus and a soft cadence.

Spring Break With Something Besides Spring Fever

Charlie's spring break began with a (figurative) bang Thursday night when he did not sleep, at all -- something that happened on the eve of another break from school. He still got on the bus at 7.25am with a bag of candy for his teachers in his bookbag after I had made myself lots of coffee and headed off for 8am Latin class.

In the evening after a bike ride, we went to see the movie Admission; I saw the opening few minutes after we had sat through thirty minutes of ads for phones and the Borgia tv series and five trailers and Charlie wanted to go. Charlie then requested a long walk of the five-plus mile sort into a neighboring town, past a small golf course, through a parking lot and over the freight train tracks.

Saturday Charlie woke at 7.15am (just in time to catch the school bus that won't arrive for a good nine days). For the first time since I went to California last June for my cousin's wedding and returned to most of the contents of the kitchen, dining and living rooms on the floor, it was just Charlie and Jim while I went to work in Jersey City for an Open House event. Charlie and Jim brought some big thorny branches to the town dump, stopped for hamburgers (Charlie didn't eat any) and got stuck in traffic while en route to pick me up after which we went to Liberty State Park for a short bike ride because it was really, really windy and the park is nowhere near recovered from Hurricane Sandy.

Two more bike rides and two walks later and it's another no sleep due to anticipation (of grandparents arriving on Sunday) night. Fortunately I don't have classes on the passive voice of 3rd and 4th conjugation verbs or the late Roman Republic to teach tomorrow morning.

Reviewing the History

Saturday morning, Charlie woke at 4am, waited (fully alert) till I said 'walk?' at 5.45 and out we went. The bits of remaining snow on the sidewalk were already melting into slush.

We came home, I went out running, Charlie was out on the blue couch on my return.

He called groggily for a local bike ride when he awoke at 9am. Charlie has been hesitant biking these day and has been cutting the rides short. This time, Jim got him to improvise a bit so they still got in plenty of miles.

Then we went to the barber for a haircut and shave, and it was good and non-eventful.

Then, an unintended tour de Jersey, the northerner part, Charlie of late having a thing for chow fun noodles.

A solid two and a half hour nap followed after which we thought a groggy Charlie might prefer to ride local. Jim had been talking about heading towards Bayonne for a Hudson and we thought we could do it Sunday -- then Charlie said Bayonne and it was good to be back by the river and the bay. Though it has been a long time since he swam in the ocean, Charlie remains a water boy.

It was a good 15-mile day followed by a somewhat unsettled night. My parents are due to visit at the end of March and since that is two weeks away, Charlie has, with his usual impeccable sense of timing, started worrying and anticipating. On a walk in the evening he insisted on carrying an old laminate-and-Velcro picture schedule of a long past visit. He then displayed a bout of mercurial requesting and rejecting his own requests, saying loud no's to going into whatever place he'd asked for just as we were driving up to it.

We ended up back home. Looking more at ease, Charlie asked for another walk and didn't take the picture schedule. Despite having slept on and off, he fell asleep before midnight.

If I had not felt the need to get my knowledge of Henry VIII and Lady Jane Grey in order, and had posted this after he had gone to sleep, this would have been one in the genre of ends-with-an-uplifting-lilt posts. As it is. Charlie woke Sunday at the same time as on Saturday only, it is now daylight saving time, it was 5.30am by the clock. He went for a walk, I went for a run, he didn't fall back asleep and by 8.45am we were heading out to jersey horse country where, moodily, Charlie and Jim (cheerily) biked twelve miles in mud and alongside slush. Charlie only poked at lunch and said 'yes' instead of the usual 'no' when I, on seeing him pulling at his fingertips, said 'fingernails.'

Once home, it turned out that Charlie had a torn nail and he let me clip away. He put away all the bike riding gear, went up to shower and, with 5.30pm (which must feel like 4.30pm to him) nearing, has been (as they say) power napping for the past 3 or 4 hours. Likely meaning that we shall be night owls here tonight.

 

Further proof our car is actually a room of our house

For the better part of two hours on Wednesday night, Charlie and I sat in the white car in the driveway, awaiting Jim's return from teaching The Dead (Joyce's text and the film adaptation) to his class on Christianity and art. We were quite comfortable (I mean in the car, I can't vouch for Jim in his classroom!) but then we spend so much time in the car (in motion, more commonly) sitting in a standing (albeit heated) vehicle was rather comforting.

Charlie talked for almost the entire time, calling out declarative phrases of predominately proper nouns and quite clearly echoing some things I said, most of it on a properly upbeat note as he was indeed doing good, a phrase he says with relish.

It took some work, and experiences, earlier this week to get to that point. Charlie has had what could be called post-grandparents visit anxiety. Tuesday, after banging a bathroom door, he was not 15 minutes on the bus to school when he called for my parents and banged his head. That night he brought down the two suitcases that he sees as marking my parents' visiting soon (they will next be back after two months).

We unilaterally decided to drive Charlie to school the rest of the week and he was able to take the bus home all right Wednesday. He and I spent the afternoon driving around New Jersey a bit too much (on the first scent of in-the-car panic, I gave Charlie his calming medicine -- he'd said 'I see GongGong PoPo') and walking a bit, and then sitting in the car. First Charlie asked ardently for food of all sorts, then as I pointed out we'd gotten him lots to eat (and he hasn't eaten it all), he stopped asking but wanted to stay in the car.

We went to get Jim at 10.15pm. Back home, Charlie peaceably put away the suitcases and went straight to bed.

Boyo Anxius

Charlie having done the power nap thing for almost three hours after a morning walk and a snowy bike ride, and my parents leaving Monday after a nice week's visit, and there being a bit of paper-wrapped chicken in the refrigerator, is having an insomnia night that five additional walks in the afternoon and evening (two of which were mostly him getting me to practice my still-existing sprinting skills) have not assuaged.

I'm not planning on giving him the most exciting lunch as he may not be too hungry, anyways.

May as well include this perhaps à propos motto from Sir Francis Bacon, Faber quisque fortunae suae -- 'every man is the architect of his own fortune' -- it is getting crossed in my mind with il miglior fabbro.

 

Exercise is Our Family Thing

 

My grandfather, my mother's father, was quite the athlete. He played tennis and rode his bike into, I think, his seventies (unfortunately, he got into a car accident in Golden Gate Park and that ended his bike riding days; he lived into his nineties). My mom has been occasionally riding an old yellow bike of Charlie's; she's got a kind of natural coordination some of which I've inherited and Charlie too.

So you're going to ask, why don't I get on the yellow bike at other times and ride!

I have been known to take a little spin around the block; it's definitely fun and takes me back to my grad student days when I rode a bike all over New Haven and its environs. At the moment, Jim and I continue to divvy up our energies: He does the bikes (over 23 miles on Friday including a Jersey horse country bike path ride) and I'm on the ground control (mileage from two race-walk pace jaunts -- Charlie doesn't stroll, he does a very accelerated walk-pace, enabling me to run at a decent pace up a hill, with four books and two coffee thermoses, at work to be on time for 8am Latin class).

 

Monday Night

Sunday night ended up being an all-nighter for Charlie who nonetheless was smiling broadly before boarding the bus on Monday morning. Parents Night was great; Charlie is in a class of 9, they have a lovely room with windows in the new wing of the Big Autism Center, Charlie has a mat-fortified corner to work in and be apart when over-stimulated and unable to participate in some of the group activities. He was asleep when I got home at 9pm only to awake an hour later. I gave him some melatonin after taking a hiatus of a few nights. I'm not sure if he will sleep but this could be another long night because my dad fell in his garage earlier Monday and hit the back of his head and fractured a vertebra and I'm checking for the messages from my mom, sister and cousins. And thinking a lot about my dad now in a hospital room in good old Oakland Kaiser where he used to work the late shift a few nights a week when we were little.

 

Posted with Blogsy

Tornado Just Passed Through

 

Charlie stayed up all night on Friday!

At 7am, we all went for a walk. I think he'd wanted it earlier (3am) and it's a great thing that he could wait. He passed the time in his room, walking on the stairs, in the hallway, running into the kitchen. 

Once back from the walk, he went right up to his room and fell asleep with his shoes still on at 8am.

By noon he was up and wanted lunch. Once back, he was game for a bike ride with Jim and they did a good and steady pace.

The wind had been picking up all day. Some raindrops fell as Jim and Charlie took a spin in the black car to drop off some old clothes at a Salvation Army bin. They came back, Charlie sat in his chair and we learned that my parents' plane would be delayed. Charlie sat in his brown chair, Charlie got up, Charlie sat, Jim suggested another ride in the black car and out they went.

They measured the distance of their local bike ride and discovered that it's not 6 miles but 7 1/2!

In the meantime, we learned that, due to a tornado on the way (if not touching down), my parents' plane had been diverted to Syracuse. No idea when it would arrive.

Charlie said 'yes' to a fast trip to the local McDonalds (really local, as in 5 minutes away). He didn't eat any of it in the car.

We went for a walk with a cheery Charlie, especially when we passed through a block party on a block of our street (not our block). Kids whizzed by on automated scooters and music blared from a speaker. 

Rain drops were falling as we were almost home. 

One online source told me me my parents' plane was due at 9.57 pm so I set Charlie's timer for 4 hours -- better to overdo it then under. He sat in the brown chair, got up to give Jim the key, sat in the chair, went to the kitchen to heat up something to heat and work through a pack of sushi.

At 7.10pm I discovered my parents' plane was landing at 7.35pm. Still left the timer running as is.

Jim went to the airport and Charlie, who was smiling and cheerful, sat in the front window and waited and remained smiling and cheerful when my parents came in and darted up to bed. 'Gingerbread boy' has become the new 'type B ocean' equivalent so we did that. He frowned but I think he was tired, for understandable reasons.

Yes, he's still sleeping now at 9.31 am Sunday morning.

Yes, I think he couldn't sleep on Friday because he could feel the storm coming.

The Spirit of Anticipation

 

You won't be surprised: Aware my parents arrive on Saturday though we haven't told him the precise dates, Charlie is up at 3am. Shower on and off a few times, YouTube video watching (he somehow found the Barney Let's Play School video that was removed from the Internet a few years ago), various sorts of music (a preponderance of Disney with a dash of 'Brown-eyed Girl'). Eating something resembling a meal right now.

Yes, in past days I would have fought off the practice of frozen fries in the night's wee hours and worried about the disruption to Charlie's biological clock. As he has amply proved that he can get on a 7-something am bus even with less than two or three hours of sleep, I've let go of that worry.

At school, Charlie was upset on and off but held it together. He gave his teacher (and everyone) a nice surprise when, on his own, Charlie said 'hi' to a student who was in his room last year and now is not.

Nce-paced, non-balky bike ride. Two walks, the second one about 60% running at a fast pace.

(I believe it is thanks to Charlie I've got the stamina for six straight hours of teaching four classes on four topics in 90 degrees, sticky weather, to under-energized students. Certainly, it is thanks to him that I've gotten used to walk-runs in every kind of weather and with someone who's not always at his peaceful-easy feeling amenableness.)

I've been thinking, how do you explain 'anxiety' to s boy who can be deeply troubled unless language, what is said to and around him, is strictly of the present tense and concrete?

But then, anxiety, it occurs to me, is no abstraction for Charlie at all.

I don't think he has a stomachache per se but he seems to be feeling something like 'butterflies' or rather, he has real butterflies (if not exactly of an insect kind) fluttering in his gut.

He has said 'shopping cart' a few times. I decided just to take it as not having its literal meaning at all and being, rather, a buzzword for anxiety and in particular the sort you feel on walking into a big space loaded with commodities and it's all too overwhelming.

Fresher Air

Aside from noting that it is a shocking 75 degrees (still humid though; New Jersey must be true to itself), there is not so much to report today. Charlie had a decent school day ending on a bit of an aggrieved note (he tried to pull down the net at volleyball in Adapted Phys Ed -- he is tall) but he got over it.

In general these days, his grandparents anxiety seems to be evincing itself more in anticipation of their coming. I don't think Charlie likes the muddle of feelings he finds himself in regarding their visits. Just as his relationship with Jim and me has changed and evolved now that he is a teenager, so it is with my parents.

Charlie has been mentioning some old toys ('Alphabert,' his old toy computer), a sign that he has been thinking about his earlier days and being nostalgic. He used to get upset to talk about those toys but when he brought up Alphabert on walk #2 last night, it was with a smile, as if he wanted to show he could talk about formerly sensitive (practically taboo) topics and not go to pieces.

The seemingly non-descript bit of our street in the photo is where he took off running last Friday morning (leading to the altercation with tree #1) and where he had a 2nd arboreal altercation on Saturday morning. More than it being (for the moment) under 90 degrees, miraculous is the word for how it felt to walk past this spot without any drama, as if a spell had broken.