We Go With Him

Soundtrack to Saturday Morning (Reality Show Version)

 

Charlie was up at 5am this Saturday morning. Actually, he may have been up since 2.30 am as I heard sounds from his room then; he'd gone to bed around 9pm and been soon asleep after a good day at school, a solid 12 miles of bike riding in cold spring weather, and a great deal of dinner.

He and I have already done a walk, I've gone jogging, he's consumed several apple slices, I've made coffee and I think I've heard about dancing with Henry the Octopus and Slim Dusty in the country where the atmosphere is great about three times, Noah building the arc once and K.D. Lang talking to herself and having great distress for her health at least twice. And now here's the business about tying me kangaroo down sport, a song Jim heard some time around 1963, when his family had just moved from Pittsburgh to Cheshire, Connecticut.

On the Wiggles version (the only one I know), Rolf Harris (who wrote the song) is himself singing. Charlie also had the song playing in the car last night and I asked Jim, ha, when you first heard this song did you ever thing you'd be hearing it about 50 years later under these circumstances?

Obviously, Jim said no. And he also said, he's very glad to be hearing it with Charlie.

Sleeping In on a Saturday

 

At 10am on Saturday, Charlie ran down the stairs to check in on Jim and me, and then promptly wrapped himself back in his blanket and slept until 2pm.

Two 12 mile long local bike rides (Jim revised his revised estimate of the distance); a great deal of eating reasonably healthy, non-greasy stuff; a lot of music sampling (with a good bit of the Pogues and a taste of K.D. Lang and the Skatalites): These filled out the day.

Charlie, on waking, had asked to go to Jersey horse country but he had that troubled look on his face and grabbed once at Jim, so we opted not to go. It was a decision for the better, as, on the first mile of the bike ride, Charlie stopped for so long that Jim called me. I drove hastily over, sighting Charlie's blue sweatshirt readily. After a few moments they were able to pedal on.

No idea when, if Charlie will sleep tonight after his long Friday/Saturday sleep. But at least he finally got some extended slumber time.

Music, Always Music

I went to see my students performing 'Hairspray': An hour and a half of near-straight music.

I came home to Charlie standing on the sidewalk looking for me, the Wiggles 'Morningtown Ride' train song playing when I went into our house.

'Charlie Brown, Charlie Brown, Charlie Brown,' sang the iPad after Charlie went up to his room. He played the ocean song, the Kinks, nature sounds, Disney, the ocean, and 'What's the Frequency, Kenneth?' at 1am.

I went upstairs and suggested 'ocean' might be a better idea, so he wouldn't be so tired getting up in the morning. Charlie changed the music and I went back downstairs to read about the Peloponessian War.

About 10 minutes later, I could only hear the sound of the ocean.

 

Teletubbies and Jimi Hendrix, All In One Post

Sunday is always an anticipatory day for Charlie as he readies himself for Monday and the return to school. Charlie being Charlie, the anticipating starts about 18 hours before the actual event, i.e., 7.30am Monday when the bus arrives. He calls for his meals early (dinner becomes more like mid-afternoon snack), as if doing so will speed up the day and pouf, it will already be time to get onto that bus.

He slept in a little (past 8am) Sunday morning. Keeping in mind his weepiness in the car Saturday morning, we decided to 'stay local,' at home.

Charlie didn't object. There was a morning bike ride, fast and strong, though he was edgy on returning home and until after lunch. He spent a good hour wandering around the house, standing, staring and making curious (and distinctively Charlie) noises.

By the latter part of the afternoon and after a run-walk, Charlie was far more at ease and ready for a long bike ride of 11 miles on a course he and Jim had not done since the fall, on a bike path that starts in our town and takes them past a golf course in another town and, somehow (I guess they went quite off the path), beside the exit for the Garden State Parkway two towns over. Charlie wanted to keep going but Jim was not sure of the streets (and didn't want to call me should they end up in some unknown place and good thing because my Jersey driving skills are far better than they were when I came out here to college 25 some years ago but hardly at any sort of masterful level). So they came home.

After some dinner and a walk (that was more of a walk), Charlie headed up to his room. He asked me to help him type in the YouTube search box for some Teletubbies videos.

Then, until just before he went to sleep, the sounds of Jimi Hendrix (including a bit of an album I just added to Charlie's iPad, Axis Bold As Love) could be heard. Indeed, when I glanced in Charlie's room, he was stretched out with the iPad to his ear and Electric Ladyland blasting away.

How he is growing and growing up!

Feeling the Music

Jim has a sixth sense for Charlie's internal states and moods and always has one eye on the rear view mirror when driving with Charlie in the back seat (whereas Charlie seems irked by what seems like such scrutiny on my part). In the car on the way to Jersey horse country Saturday morning, Charlie started crying hard. Jim immediately said, 'hey pal, how are you?'

Charlie had been playing a Wiggles album on his iPad, 'Wiggle Bay.' He used to have the video -- it's about the Wiggles in a beach setting having the usual silly adventures with lots of singing and dancing (c'est Wags, c'est bon, etc.) -- and Charlie had been playing the opening song over and over. Then he let the music go on and on. I was listening and remembering watching various parts of the video with Charlie years ago when he started crying.

Memory pangs of what was and now wasn't?

The acne on his nose?

Jim's and my vigilance levels went up several notches and we both took note of how many more exits we had to pass before getting off the highway. It took a few requests, but Charlie handed me the iPad and I turned off the Wiggles and turned on 'Jazz and the Abstract Truth' with Oliver Nelson and Eric Dolphy. It's a favorite of Jim's and Charlie has listened to it in the past. Just sounds and rhythms changed everything in the car and we proceeded to the general store to get Charlie his habitual piece of carrot cake and thence to the gravel parking lot.

He was smiling by then and eager to get on his bike. As it was in the 70s, there was no need for yellow jackets and really not skull caps or heavy gloves, but Charlie preferred both (while being ok with Jim not wearing his matching heavy gloves). They did 14 miles and 6 later at home and I made soy sauce chicken and butterscotch pudding (the latter on a total whim), not that Charlie ate any of those.

As I stirred the milk into browned butter and sugar while Jim and Charlie both took a much-needed rest I thought about how it's not just that music reflects Charlie's feelings and possible mental states. Very often it seems there is no filter at all between the music and what Charlie is feeling; that he can't screen out whatever the music is making him feel and it all just comes out and he is... paralyzed? to change it -- maybe doesn't realize at that point that he can.

Charlie went to sleep listening to another favorite thanks to Jim, jazz violinist Sugarcane Harris.

 

After Minimal Sleep and Maximum Exercise

 

I'm afraid I spoke a bit too soon about Charlie being up so long and late for two days running Friday and Saturday nights and remaining very cheerry. At 1am on Saturday night we heard two soft thumps from the second floor and hurried up the stairs. Charlie had been listening to iPad music -- Wiggles; I had been going up intermittently to check on him (though too much mom-checking-in can annoy).

The music, on a second day of minimal sleep and maximum exercise, must have over-stimulated Charlie. He did not protest when I took the iPad and said we'd put it on the floor. He stayed on his bed; we turned off the lights and I went to sit down the hallway, which is not actually very far away. Charlie said 'bye mom' and 'mom stairs' (i.e., 'mom go downstairs) a couple of times, but didn't otherwise object.

Sunday, he slept just past 8.30am and, soon as we he was dressed, wanted a walk. He was somber on returning and eager to get in the car and go ride bikes on the Jersey horse country bike trail -- but then he let out a few cries and whimpers and his eyes got very big as he stood in the front yard.

Jim had him sit in the new brown chair and we told Charlie we'd go, if he were calm, in an hour. Charlie indeed sat for almost all that time and thereby, on arching his body back, discovered that the whole chair back reclines and that the chair rocks, in a slow and steady kind of way.

And then he was calm, though worn-looking, and we drove out to the trail and Charlie and Jim did a quiet 11 miles, the last bit of with some teariness.

Charlie did cheer up in the car -- we were driving to get him a coveted burrito -- and, after helping to put away the bike gear and cringing when I clumsily dropped some chopsticks, went up to his room and to sleep, before 4.30pm.

Yes, he was really tired

Yes, he might wake up any moment tonight: midnight, 1 am, 2am. But am glad Charlie is finally getting some real sleep after too much wakefulness.

 

Switching the Music

 

Wednesday was the third day in a row for Charlie not feeling so good and having a tough day at school and, after a good bike ride, strugging at home. He's seemed caught in a glum rut; it's certainly happened before, that he has had a series of tough days and sometimes I think the only thing to do is to wait for things, for time, to pass.

After getting suddenly, very upset in the early evening, we found ourselves all sitting in a rather tense way, Charlie in the black chair. He kept saying 'iPad' and it seemed time for him to hear something besides the few albums (Disney in particular) he has been playing over and over (a sign of him being troubled). I turned on 'The Who, why not and we all sat together for several minutes, just listening to (as Charlie echoed our words) 'different music.'

'It's the Who,' said Jim.

'Who,' said Charlie.

Good, if not easy, to introduce a break in the order.

A Rage For Order Can Get In Your Way

On yet another gray, humid, rainy day here on Friday, Jim texted me that Charlie had successfully boarded the bus (and would go on to a happy school day after a one day holiday), and that it sure was good to hear Desmond Dekker again.

Variety in musical choices is back for Charlie after, like a needle stuck in a scratch on a record, playing the same thing again, again and again. A good reminder for us that Charlie very often needs a bit of a prompt and push to shake up his rage for order.

Return to Jimi

The result of removing that 'blue Disney' album from Charlie's iPad and the resulting storm and house clean-up?

He did still ask for the missing songs on Thursday. As he was home due to Rosh Hashanah, he had extra time to use his iPad, and therefore got started earlier moaning about he music. Jim and I were both home and, between a number of very heavy rainfalls, he and Charlie got in two very fast-paced bike rides.

Inbetween that, Charlie played some Wiggles songs (even the one about Wags the Dog dancing the tango that he calls Wango sounds good after umpteen hearings of Julie Andrews and Phil Collins), a little nature sounds + guitar strumming, a little Gregorian chant (echoes of the opening of 'Out There' with Quasimodo?). Then -- after watching Jim walk to the train (to go to New York to see a production of a student's play), getting gas with me (just $43.00 for a full tank fill-up), a little shopping expedition to a supermarket that's not your usual supermarket that we used to frequent (I'm sure one of the clerks who we used to see all the time did a double take on seeing how tall Charlie is now), a speedy sprint with a little walking that ended with Charlie looking consternated (Jim was still not home and the field that we cross during the last stage of the walk was riddled with puddles) -- Charlie turned on an old favorite.

Jimi Hendrix.

There was stamping and worried moaning, running back and forth in his room, a softer stomp. 'Burning of the Midnight Lamp' came on. I folded laundry in the next week and said to myself, well, that's what you Jimi Hendrix is for (among other things), teenage boy hormonal angst.

By the time 'In From the Storm' came on, Charlie was curled up quietly on his bed and all the sounds of 'Rainy Day, Dream Away' played on as he fell asleep.

 

Tumult In the Inbetween Time

Charlie's working through a change (an increase) in dosage for one of the medications he takes, along with transitioning through ESY ending and anticipating going to camp on Monday. I didn't realize how serious and solemn his expression was when I took the above phone in Jersey horse country Friday morning. Jim said he was solemn on the ride, a good 22 miles following a 6 mile morning wake-up ride.

In the white car after the 22-miler, Charlie started being ultra-OCD about a crumb and where we'd placed our elbows and then, for three minutes, was super-upset, to the point that Jim pulled over the car and turned it off.

The ride home was quiet and we decided to take the Byrds' off Charlie's iPad. Something about that 60s surfer music (the Beach Boys too) seems to get Charlie in a bad way.

He remained in the same frowning mood the rest of the day, through two more bike rides, a fast trip for a few amusement park rides ('you come every Friday, don't you?' asked one teenage worker; we noted we actually come quite a bit more), a swift-paced night-time walk.

I'm pretty nervous about how Charlie will fare at camp. The staff were very friendly and said they've seen their share of the sorts of the sorts of behaviors Charlie in distress can have. But there's not a lot of staff -- nowhere near as many people as at Charlie's school -- and I'm back to thinking, best to try the "short but successful" route and just have him there for a few hours on Monday and then increase that by a bit if he does all right. 

I've made Charlie a simple hand-drawn calendar noting how many days till school starts after Labor Day, when he has camp (provided we get through the whole week there), when my parents are coming. It's not as many days as sometimes in the past but still plenty. Charlie has set the calendar on the living floor near where he leaves his shoes, a place of honor and  the better to consult it and count the days till September 6 before which, we'll be at work prepping him for the return to school.

There's always some transition or other, isn't there? And being in that 'inbetween' stop -- it's like standing on two tectonic plates and sending maybe there's an earthquake brewing, or maybe just a resettling of order.