Report From New England
I am in Connecticut for the weekend visiting friends, just a mile from the Quinnipiac River (I may go drink from it for luck). Yesterday we spent the day with the kids at Lake Compounce Amusement Park.
It was apparently Autism Awareness Day at the park and I spent some time talking to some of the volunteers (mostly parents). On the giant swing ride there was an aduly with autism that literally spent hours on the ride. Each time it started up he started grinning, rocking and making a loud rhythmic sound in his throat. It was a bit of a spectacle, but no one expressed disgust or anger. Instead, everyone seemed amused and interested. Here was a 45 year old man riding a ride for hours, expresing the sort of joy that we all feel when doing something we love. The difference is that we all filter our joy on the way out to the point of social acceptability.
In some ways, I am jealous of that man’s ability to take such pure joy out of life.
Your story reminded me of a conversation I had with my father when I was a teenager. I said I didn’t know how anyone could cope with having a child with Down Syndrome. I thought it would be so difficult to deal with the challenge of caring for and protecting him/her from the harsher members of society. My father said he could think of no greater joy than to have a child who was always happy in his life. I never looked at DS parents the same way after that. I see more stress and anguish in the faces of parents with so-called normal teenagers than I do in the parents of children with DS.
I know that DS and Autism are completely different, but I think the point is the same. There is something to be said about being uninhibited in terms of expressing joy and unencumbered by all of the nonsense (see: elections) that bogs down the rest of us.
A beautiful story, LG and a beautiful thought.
Dear lgeek,
As per our discussion after the SEU workshop.
When you return from your journey please call to arrange a post of my windpower interview with the MTV reporter. I have a cassette of that interview and I believe you said we could transfer it to a “podcast” or something of the kind. As a computer illiterate who just took 5 minutes to type that I am a computer illiterate you can see my need for assistance.
Just makes me smile 🙂
thanks for sharing that story!