Magic Paper

"That is it for the magic paper!"

That's what he wrote, my ex. That's it. Nothing more, nothing less. And I really do not need cryptic email this week, or any week. He pokes hard near holidays - poke, poke, poke...sigh.

Magic paper???

And so my head started spinning and I emailed him back about what the heck the Magic Paper was, then I called him. This stuff can drive me nutz. Amazingly enough, he eventually called me, but not before I'd burned butter in the pan, knocked over a stack of folded laundry, and fed bird seed to the bunnies.

He was...well...tipsy. Luckily he was in a good mood - not the usual tipsy - and he responded to my curiosity with one of his deep roaring, WRaHA HA HA HAs. Very funny. More like...strange.
"Well, I guess you couldn't see what I was doing when I wrote that, " he laughed.

"Yeah, well, no..."

"I was wrapping Kiddo's Santa present, " the ex 'plained, " and I ran out of the 'special' paper, you know...the MAGIC paper. It's GONE."

Ah...yes... the MAGIC paper, the paper that the Tooth Faerie always used to wrap presents and notes in. And the same paper that a reindeer or two would leave extra goodies in. And that paper, that shiny white paper with gold stars and silver reindeer and flecks of holographic snow. THAT paper. He HATED that paper. He made fun of me when I bought it...maybe because I bought a dozen rolls of it? Could be. Ayuh.

But the ex, even though he won't admit to it, liked magic as much as I did. We just lived on different planes of, umm....happy. And our son, as if not overly susceptible to fantasy as it is, got a double dose of fostering in The Magic - faerie dust in notes, sparkling paper, shoebox-sized hologram machines, packages stuck three feet up (or down) the chimney, reindeer prints on the shed roof, the kitchen floor, the carpet...ai yi yi. Face it, we still live with Watership Down. Magic.

Kiddo is 16. And he is Magic, living in The Magic of fantasy and reality -- the trees, the river, the sea, the rocks all come to life. For one more year, though, the Magic Paper must also come to life and so today I cut the last roll of Magic Paper in half and put it in a Magic Envelope and put it all into the hands of that other magic wielder.

We only grow away from hate by finding that magical common place, and greeting it face to face.

I hate what Halloween does to my head. I wish for the lighter brighter constumes of a Twlevt Night Masque, those of Spring, and Space, and Ocean, or Sun...how about a little LIGHTness of being to replace the darkness of seeing.

The kid dressed like Garfield was really cute, and the one like Eeeeeyore. But that first awful face sends me back to places I no longer wish to go.

Their tiny faces float in front of me, their eyes empty and my heart as cold as what I see in them. And I feel the emptiness in the bed beside me, the fear of a small child bereft of her history, denied winter warmth squeezed between two others in the night. What of the light - and so I gave my lonely nights to the stars, where a part of me will always be, in day or night for fright of letting them float free and into insanity's quest. There is no rest.

And then the blue grey faces rise from the swollen river's fingers what catch the child at play when burgeoning star moss holds the flood no more. Two masks she spit, the river as she churned, vomited she did the lifeless hunks and chunks bereft of souls. At my door again...the nightmares sent me to the sky and I was only for the night - by day to sleep under a bush or desk or in the hay.

In the cactus garden...

There are a lot of pricks!!!

I wanted so badly to say that and fill in the blank as Nate and I were planting half a dozen needle studded plants. Yeow!

"Prickly day," he sighed.

I mocked a grin and nodded.

I'm not much for wishing other people dead. It's too bad that the one of two that I feel this nasty sentiment toward is my son's dad. Nice, huh? He's one of very few people who can pull the chains, push my buttons, that send me into silent screaming that just doesn't stop. It's as if he owns a chunk of my mind. My head fills with images, images that stream and swirl into the nether reaches so quickly that grasping any one frame is impossible. All that's left is that silence so loud and encompassing that I cannot hear anything else above it's scream. I wonder which it really is. I'd welcome the departure of either.

Tonight I ponder what Nate is telling me-not just the derogatory remarks made by his dad to him, but the result. "I'm not sure of my own memory anymore, Mom. He tells me that he never said the things that I'm upset over him saying."

"Such as?"

"He said that he never told me not to tell anyone about what happens."

"Hmmm. That's called gaslighting, Nate. Not easy, I know, I have a great deal of difficulty with it, but try to not doubt yourself."

"He said that he really didn't want me to go to school, just that you were trying to get money out of him for homeschooling. But he told the school, too. I heard it, didn't I?"

"Yes." Is validation enough?

"And he lied about what you said I said in the letter you sent him."

"You know that is true."

I try to hold my own brain together in regard to this stuff. How do I help him hold his own? Where is the line between tolerance and being a doormat? I'm told this is 'normal' divorce stuff, to be expected. Really. More difficult is the fact that that day's tirade was likely precipitated by my having stood up for myself, my son sacrificed, leveraged. So, my heart sank...and stayed low...and my brain went into overload again. My intention was to get me, get us, out of that cycle of emotional abuse and control...it didn't work.

"If you don't like it, leave," he'd say. "But Nate stays here."

I didn't realize that is how true that statement would be...no matter what I did, no matter what I do. Nate says he forgives me for that abandonment. How do I forgive myself as I still allow it.

The flashes escalate. A recurring adventure in Hell's Cactus Garden.

Why is it son...

that you don't know?

"I don't know."

If I hear those three words again, I think I will be sure to pound my own head into the already existing dents on the refrigerator door.

Why?

I don't know. I don't want to admit why? I just want to do it.

His wit and wisdom belongs, in his estimation, to him? Why? It's because he's autistic. By definition...it's his. Solely his. To give it up to us is to lose power. Lose parts of his loosely integrated self...and he can't afford to lose parts until what he knows and what he understands are tightly interwoven, so that he never forgets.

The realities of spatial thought include the lack of total synthesis until every part is understood, integrated....autism is about fighting disintegration...every minute of every day. And no one really teaches how to do that...and few acknowledge that it's necessary.

And there are people without autism who think this way, those whose visual and spatial imagery work well when the verbal and analytical centers of their brains are shut down...the ones I know are most often architects, designers, inventors, and other systems thinkers. One of the most notable example of this in the last century was Frank Lloyd Wright. He drove clients and bosses crazy because he 'didn't know' in design speak...he couldn't draw a single line or sketch until the entire design was complete in his head or...he'd have to start from scratch. Oops. And there he'd be, pencil in hand just hours before a design was due.

Winston Churchill, Sir Francis Galton, Tesla...Faraday...

There are days when he knows. And what he knows comes flying out of a can like one of those silly springy snakes from the gag tin can of nuts...or like a faulty Jack-in-the-Box what pops before the song is done. Whap! Right in my face. And it scares him so, that he's let an idea or thought or creation or analysis fly from the safety of his own space, that he never goes there again...never to the same place again.

Well, son...what of Tao? Does the Tao not apply to you? The universe is not a camera what captures your spirit in the sharing. It merely observes.

Please be observable.

Ya know?

"Yeah. I know."

What do you know? What do you know? What? What?

The seed was planted too deeply. And yet it germinates, and roots, and grows...deep in the earth and inching toward the sun...

"There is a season."

Ah.

Can you tell?

I've been blogging elsewhere. Trying here and trying there ....trying is trying. Doing is better, and in the doing department I've entered over 900 posts...elsewhere. Ayuh, somewhere there are a hundred photos and three hundred poems -some have been lifted (with my permission) to other blogs and web sites. Also posted is some art, some almost art, some musings -revolutionary and otherwise, and a few rants about spatial existence...living outside the proverbial box...and someday I might even post the link.

Now...back to jewelry designing and a few corproate tax returns. Multi-tasking rocks!

L

Hydrant plus Strange equals Hydrangea?

Wouldn’t Longfellow be proud?

“This is the forest Primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks, bearded with moss, and in garments green…” ( H W Longfellow)

Acadie never heard such songs.

Yet this is the Forest DeCordova!

Towering pines and flagged hydrant

Hug carvings intended to mimic Druidic

Reverence of nature’s offering.