Eclipse

My friend, Jason, recently talked to me about my blog.  He didn’t ask me why I haven’t written in it for so long.  I suspect he knows that is not the way to get an artist to start producing again.  Instead he simply told me he has read every blogpost I have ever written.  Then he stood up in front of a bunch of his friends and gave away over a hundred (at least) of his own drawings, while he talked about how important it is to put beautiful things out into the world.  

Jason is one of the most powerful examples I have ever known of what it means to be an artist. 

I hadn’t forgotten that I am an artist or anything.  I draw or paint or garden or write nearly every day.  In fact, I have recently become fascinated with space - with the moon and the planets and stars - and I have been experimenting with some science fiction writing.  Short stories mostly so far.  I would like to, one day, write a story about a group of people that live on a generation spaceship as they make their way to another star system.  I would like to explore the psychology of deep isolation in the face of the unknown.  

But after seeing Jason, I realized I HAD forgotten the ‘putting beautiful things out into the world’ part.  I haven’t shown anyone my science fiction writing.  In fact very few people even know that I am doing any.  I can get a bit self-centered I’m afraid, and I have a tendency to forget that at least a part of the point of making art (of living life too) is to share ourselves with others.  Thank you for the reminder, friend.  And please, do stop by and see the rings of Saturn on your way home.  I have been obsessed with them lately.  The rings of Saturn aren’t solid ice.  They used to be a moon, which shattered into billions of individual shards that now float separately in space, yet are all fixed in formation by the system’s intense gravity.  AND there are MOUNTAINS around the edges!  Vertical structures of sparkling moon guts that suddenly rise up to over fifteen times the height of the Rims!  (the Rims are the sandstone cliffs that surround our home-town)

I am absolutely obsessed.   

My curiosity about space started when I bought a telescope during the pandemic as a way to spend time with Shane and the kids.  Our oldest, Alden, peered through the eyepiece at Saturn a few times, feigned mild interest, then shuffled back into the house to finish whatever video game he was playing.  To be fair, Saturn is tiny and rather unimpressive when viewed through a telescope.  Shane and our middle child, Isabel, didn’t even make it through the re-alignment process most of the time (I don’t have an automatic tracker on my telescope - and planets are always on the move) before they went back into the house.  And Cale couldn’t be torn away from  his water pouring.  He is still non-verbal and lives in his own world much of the time, so I’m not sure he even knows space exists.  

I found myself watching the sky by myself most nights.  Which was just what I needed I think.  It did get me through the next few years.  Our best friends of twenty-plus years had divorced each other by that point, and one had stopped talking to me.  If I understand things correctly, it was because I couldn’t take sides.  I can understand this point of view (if this point of view is even accurate).  I mean, image having to walk through one of the most difficult things a person could walk though, and through it all your best friend doesn’t take your side?  I would have stopped speaking to me too.  At the exact same time, I really couldn’t take sides and still live with myself.  It was one of those no-win situations.        

Then our oldest son, Alden, graduated from high school, joined the Marines, and suddenly flew off to boot camp.  Isabel moved in to an apartment with her high school sweetheart.  And they bought a puppy.  My grand-doggie, Juno.  Then Shane’s dad passed away.  My father-in-law was one of my favorite human beings on the entire planet.  We spent the next several years taking a lot of trips to Disneyland - a place we all love, which also happens to remind Shane of being with his dad.   

Then my grandma passed away.  On a day when the moon blocked the light from the sun.  She was my mom’s mom, and I was her only granddaughter, so she spoiled me with her attention the entire time I was growing up.  When I was in kindergarten, my best friend convinced me that a particular house I had to walk past to get to school every day, had kidnappers living it in.  I was terrified to walk to school.  So, one day, my grandma picked me up from school, walked me right up to the front door of that house, and rang the door bell.  We spent the next hour having milk and cookies with the nice lady who lived there.  And I didn’t have to be afraid anymore.  

On the day my grandma died, I watched the eclipse with my little pair of solar glasses on my face (I don’t have a solar filter for my telescope).  And I missed my grandma already.     

A couple of months after that, we had to put our dog, Gus, to sleep.  Kidney failure.  Then I had to put one of my ducks to sleep.  Neurological failure.  She was old.  Then my other two ducks, who were also getting quite old, died, one at a time, in their sleep.  

It was around this time that I ended up in the hospital with vertigo.  I literally couldn’t physically sit up, let alone stand up.  That night, in the hospital bed, I had a dream about a bear.  I was inside the bear.  Or maybe it wrapped around me somehow, like a cocoon.  

All eight of my great-grandparents were there.  They stood outside the bear, their faces peering in through the shaggy, brown fur, and they all tried to coax me to come out.  It took all night, but I did eventually come out.  And when I woke up the next morning, I could walk again.  It was probably because of the medications they gave me in the hospital.  But I also started thinking about my great-parents a lot, and I started seeing bears everywhere - on t-shirts and coffee cups, on greeting cards I received, etc.   

After this I began to realize that I am going through menopause.  My daughter recently bought me a pair of socks with words embroidered onto them, which say, “Menopause.  What the FUCK?”  What the fuck indeed.  But I’ll spare you the details about that, other than to say that I just haven’t been myself lately.  And I’m finally coming to accept that this isn’t just some temporary glitch.  I’m not going to be turning back into the person that I was before.  I am becoming someone new.   

Through it all, the planets shifted back and forth in front of the stars.  The moon rose and set, and rose and set again, sometimes multiple times in the same day (I still don’t really understand the movements of the moon).  And in the winter time, I pointed my telescope at the tiny drip of stars just below Orion’s belt (I call it Orion’s penis) and watched the Orion nebula, suspended like a little blue cloud in space.  

Cale sat in the hot tub beside me, pouring water back and forth between two cups, then pouring it back into the hot tub again.  In fact, now that I think about it, I almost never watched the sky alone.  Cale was usually there.  I will probably forever associate star gazing with the sound of water pouring onto water.  Or the sound of water pouring directly onto the deck boards underneath us, creating a slick sheen of thin ice for me to slide my giant telescope across to get it back inside.   

During the last blogpost I wrote, I talked about how Cale’s caseworker and psychiatrist had started looking into group home placement for Cale.  Which confirms just how long it has been since I have written a blogpost.  Cale’s psychiatrist and caseworker did, briefly, look into group home placement for Cale.  But then they both lost their jobs because the state of Montana gutted its case-management program for people with developmental disabilities.  This was during some of the first shifts in our county’s political climate.    

If I understand things correctly, the state did away with case management for people with developmental disabilities altogether for a little while there.  Then the state was sued by somebody for its lack of case management, so it implemented its current “case management” as a substitute.  All I know for sure is that what used to be a monthly meeting during which Cale’s case manager coordinated and focused a team of specialists in assisting Cale with his life, has become a yearly meeting during which Cale’s “case manager” fills out some paperwork ensuring the state that Cale still hasn’t changed and that he still needs the few remaining services he has left. 

             

Still, we really can’t complain.  Cale has two loving parents to advocate for him, so he gets most of what he needs.  But I can’t even think about all the people with disabilities who have been left without real advocacy.  Not without dropping into an immediate and overwhelming depression anyway.  So I’m just going to change the subject for now. 

It was shortly after this that we found a private psychiatrist for Cale, who, fairly quickly, diagnosed Cale with a form of Pandas.  Here’s what happened, in a nutshell.  The last time Cale ended up in the hospital (it happened every now and then throughout his childhood), they diagnosed him with serotonin storm like usual (even though none of his medications really affect serotonin levels).  They sent him home afterward with no further clarity about his condition.  The one helpful thing they did do was draw his blood and see that his strep titers were obnoxiously high.  Yet he had never shown any symptoms of a strep infection. 

Cale’s new psychiatrist later noticed these strep titer levels as she examined his paperwork.  This happened just after Cale had screamed and cried, non-stop, for fourteen days straight.  He was experiencing the most intense bout of OCD symptoms I had ever seen him have.  He was literally stuck arranging his clothes and shoes and anything else he could find, into different patterns on his bedroom floor, screaming and crying throughout the process because he couldn’t stop.  If I took the stuff away from him, he attacked me.  He HAD to keep going with it.  This continued all day and most of every night for fourteen days straight.  He was absolutely exhausted.  He had long, bloody scratches all over his body where he kept digging his fingernails into his own skin.  And, at one point, he got so frustrated that he shattered his bedroom window (and he somehow didn’t get more than a few cuts from it).

After fourteen days of this, I had finally lost my nerve.  I called all of Cale’s doctors and told them that I was going to drive Cale to the Children’s Hospital in Helena, drop him off there, and refuse to go back and pick him up until they finally figured out what in the hell was wrong with him.  I remember this moment like it was yesterday - I was on the phone with Cale’s pediatrician, who was trying to sell me on the idea that adolescence is simply just a really difficult time for children with Autism, when the call waiting beeped through.  

Cale’s new psychiatrist was on the other line.  She told me to go to the pharmacy and pick up a prescription for penicillin, give it to Cale, and see what happened.  I rolled my eyes, went and got the medicine, and gave him one of the pills.  A PENICILLIN tablet.  

Half an hour later, Cale walked out of his bedroom, smiling, and he wanted something to eat.  He has been on penicillin ever since, and he has never again had one of those melt-downs.  He has never again scratched at his own skin.  He has never again screamed for hours at a time.  And, most importantly, he has never again attacked anyone.  Okay, he did attack his sister one time because she had cookies and she wouldn’t let him have one, and he was starving.  But other than that, we have grown quite accustomed to Cale being one of the easiest and most amazing people to be around.  

None of Cale’s doctors can really tell me why the penicillin has had such an affect on Cale.  Cale’s psychiatrist says it is because his immune system over-reacts to strep bacteria, causing his white blood cell count to sky rocket and eventually start attacking the dopamine receptors in his brain.  And I guess the penicillin tricks his immune system into thinking it has help with the strep?  I don’t know.  I don’t really get it.  But I do know that Cale’s psychiatrist’s explanation causes all of his other doctors to smirk and shake their heads.  

So I guess no one really knows why it works.  And no one really cares, including myself, as long as it keeps working.  I do have to be diligent about giving Cale a pro-biotic and making sure he gets plenty of fiber, to keep his digestive system as healthy as possible.  But that’s a small price to pay for having a happy boy.  

Cale still doesn’t talk, and he still has his little Autistic fixations.  He re-arranges the Tupperware drawer every afternoon for example.  But this is drastically better than the intense OCD he used to experience.  He is also still a wandering risk.  We have to keep our doors and gates locked so he doesn’t wander off.  And he is still obsessed with water.  If he sees an unguarded water faucet, he will flood that room.  We are on our third bathroom remodel in one bathroom, our second on the other bathroom.  

But, in so many ways, Cale is so much easier than he used to be.             

Cale is nineteen years old now.  He graduated from high school last June.  The super heroes that worked in Cale’s self- contained classroom at school helped him participate in the school’s graduation ceremony.  He wore the robe and the mortarboard, complete with tassel, and everything.  He had to wear his headphones because of all the noise in the stadium, and someone had to walk with him up to and across the stage to receive his diploma (thank you so much, someone!).  But he did it!  Shane and I had NEVER expected Cale to be able to participate in his graduation ceremony.  Tears of gratitude and appreciation leaked uncontrollably out of both of us throughout the ceremony.

And the best part?  I got to take Cale home afterwards.

I never thought I would say this, but I am so thankful that Cale will be staying with us for as long as we live (or until we’re too old to handle it I suppose).  Our nest is otherwise empty.  It is so quiet at our house these days.  The kids aren’t fighting.  The dog isn’t barking.  The ducks aren’t quacking.  It is just Cale and me most days.    

Cale and I take long walks together in the afternoons.  We listen to the breeze drift through the treetops.  We crunch the crisp, fall leaves with our shoes.  We often stop at a small, neighborhood playground that has a swing set.  People do shoot rather strange looks at us as they walk by, while I am pushing my giant, giggling boy, who is now taller than I am, on a swing.  Then, as the sun begins to sink down behind the mountains, we walk back home again.  Cale climbs into the hot tub with his cups, and I slide my giant telescope out across the icy deck and wait for the dark to come.  

God speed, Jason.  I’ll be looking at Saturn, watching for you.