Pointy Things

 My new paring knife is missing and I need it for the roasted potatoes I am preparing for our Sunday supper. I shout to my son.

“Allen! Where is my paring knife? The one with the black and gray handle!” I specify the color because two other knives--both with plain black handles--have been heisted from the utensil drawer by Allen, who says they are both his and now reside in, respectively, his tool box and his shaving kit. 

“Was it a pointy thing?” asks Allen.

Yes. Pointy and sharp and metal. A knife. You know, a knife!

But Allen doesn’t know. The concept of specific names for things is difficult for him to grasp. He can easily recall what we name articles of clothing--socks, shoes, shirts, pants--but other things have much more fluid labels. 

“What’s that wooden thing we use on the leaves, Mom?” he will ask me.

“A rake?”

“Ah, yes. A rake. A rake.” He’ll repeat it several more times, trying to embed it in his brain that has too many synapses trying to make connections. He’ll probably ask me the name again when the leaves start to fall.

The rooms in our house are, to Allen, defined only by their contents. The living room is, “the place where we watch movies”, the kitchen is, “where we keep the refrigerator”, and the dining room is, currently, “where the computer is.” I can understand his confusion with the dining room which has been, in his lifetime, “the room with the big table,”, “the room where we do our homework,” and --in the last year of my husband’s life--”where Dad sleeps in the funny bed.”

Not only are the monikers changeable, the use of the items in our house are flexible. I see a dented tea kettle with a melted handle and Allen sees a steam engine used to power a mini-bike. I fold up a box from Amazon and place it in the trash and he shouts, “Mom! I can use that for my safety stand!” I do not know what his safety stand is and I don’t ask. I just hand over the cardboard.

If I want to throw something away, I wrap it in a black plastic bag and bury at the bottom of the trash bin.

“Great grandpa Waltersdorf would have loved you,” I tell my son. “He liked to collect things. He had a ball of string--little bits he’d saved and tied together--this big.” I spread my hands the width of a pumpkin.

“Where is it?” asks Allen. I’m sure his brain is already thinking of constructing an intricate spider web he can use to catch energy waves.

I shrug. “Gone long before you were born.” He looks sad, probably at the loss of the string and not a great grandparent he never knew.

Like those of many people who exist on the autism spectrum, Allen’s thought processes are often difficult to change. Supper must be at 5:30, Friday is when we order pizza, and market day is Thursday. The predictability helps him stay grounded in a world that changes too fast. Social skills are not his strength; we work hard to prepare for any situation involving people outside his immediate family, laying the foundation weeks in advance and social stories to help him with societal expectations. “I don’t know why that’s important,” he will say when I ask him to comb his unruly hair before his grandmother comes, “but I’ll do it.”

His rigidity in some areas is a dichotomy to his creativity. He sees objects and their potentials in a way no one else can. The tangled copper wire in the basement will become the spokes of a bike designed for outer space. The 2 by 4 on the porch with the pulley and rope will serve as the support for the elevator of his sister’s new house. I see none of these possibilities in these items,  but, as he points out to me, I’ve got about a hundred skeins of yarn stored in my closet that I envision as blankets and sweaters.

It is the need to create--to DO something--that helped Allen come to terms with his father’s death last year. While his brother and sister mourned in more conventional ways, the additional synapses in his neurotypical brain provided him with excess information. He needed to see for himself that his dad, no matter how much he wanted it, was not coming back. I think of it like reading an encyclopedia that has no index. Allen doesn’t know how to pare the input down.

I’ve come to understand my son and his different way of looking at life. I, too, can be flexible. 

“I don’t know where the gray and black pointy thing is,” he tells me, “but you can use mine.” He obligingly brings me the black handled pointy thing from his Dopp kit, used to clean his razors. Resigned, I wash it in hot water, pare my potatoes, and hand it back to him. He watches me carefully, making sure I do not slide it into the utensil drawer. 

“Thank you, “ I say.

“Anytime,” he says before he carries it upstairs. “You can use it anytime. Just ask.”

I smile as he leaves the room. On my way home from work tomorrow, I will stop at the Family Dollar Store and buy a new pointy thing, perhaps red. I will stow it among my baskets of wool and mohair and cotton on the shelves of my closet, a place Allen never goes. He, poor thing, cannot see the possibility of creations among the rainbow colors.

He sees only yarn.

The Summer of Nothing. And Everything.

Remember that question teachers used to ask on the first day back at school?

What did you do on your summer vacation? 

I stopped asking that question years ago, too aware of the inequities among my students that allowed some to go to horseback riding camp at the country club and take cruises to Bermuda, while others needed to work a part-time job and babysit younger siblings. I also stopped asking because my own summers were usually rift with negative things: hospital stays, ER visits, complex surgeries, teaching summer classes, and the exhaustion that came from caring for a chronically ill spouse.

Nothing I wanted to share.

At our first back-to-school PD of 2019, the leader asked that question. I declined to answer. If I had, it would have been one sentence.

I buried my husband.

The weeks following Ron's passing were filled the complexities of a death. I had forms to fill out, finances to juggle, and an autistic son who did not understand the finality of his dad leaving. Then school started back up in September and Allen and I were figuring out our new normal when the pandemic forced us all into a virtual reality. Life was busy, busy, busy.

This summer, though, has been different. The What did you do on your summer vacation? question is one I would be happy to answer.

Nothing.

And in doing nothing, I did everything.

We Americans are oddly proud of our ability to work 60+ hours a week, eschewing our paid vacation days, and working at home on the weekends. Typically, we work 30-90 minutes a day more than our European counterparts. We wear our exhaustion like badges of honor. For all of our work ethic, though, we are only 5th for productivity among the developed countries. Know who's first?

Luxembourg. Tiny little Luxembourg. 

This little Grand Duchy in Europe is only 998 square miles but ranks as the most productive country in the world. They have a 29 hour work week, get 25 paid vacation days, and 10 national holidays. Except for the travel industry, there is no work on Sunday. And everyone in the country speaks three languages: French, German, and English.

Clearly, we've got this wrong.

The Italians have a similar concept when it comes to work/life balance. La Dolce far Niente, the "sweetness of doing nothing", is a sharp contrast to our American expression of "I can sleep when I die." Not to rain on your plans or anything, but when I get to Heaven I plan on doing much more than sleeping. I want to enjoy those streets paved with gold, visit loved ones, and eat a hot fudge sundae without counting the calories.

I Corinthians 10:31 tells us "So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God." (ESV). The Apostle Paul provides some motivating factors for his words in 1 Corinthians 6:12, but the basic point is this: Do it all for the glory of God. All of it. Is working ourselves into a frazzle pleasing God? Is it forwarding His kingdom? Or are we serving ourselves and our bottom lines?

When June 12th and summer finally rolled around, I needed a serious rest. Learning to teach high school students English as a Second Language on line and coping with the first year of widowhood following years of caring for an ill husband left me beyond exhausted. I felt like the limp wet noodle my grandmother--God bless her--would threaten to smack me with. We were still in the throes of the pandemic so a long vacation was not in the plans.

So I sat. On my back deck. In my living room. In the chair out front. I napped in the afternoon, and took evening walks to the river. Every Tuesday, my son and I went on a field trip to an open area: national parks, beaches, wildlife preserves. We played games and watched movies. For the first time in a very, very long time, I found myself feeling well-rested. I found myself reconnecting with myself. With my own spirit. With God.

I'd planned on doing a deep Bible study on the attributes of Mary during the summer. I even bought the book. But more often than not, I just found myself sitting outside with a second cup of tea, admiring my newly planted garden, and listening to the sounds of the morning. For the first time in decades, I became attuned to the still, small voice of God. I realized that my life did not have to be about activity 24/7. 

Susan Smalley, PhD, Professor Emeritus at the UCLA Department of Psychiatry, says, “Science is starting to show the value of spending time in silence, in nature, and in not engaging in constant external stimulation. We need time doing ‘nothing’ to be our best selves: well-rounded and creative human beings. The ‘doing’ side of our nature needs a ‘being’ side to be in balance.”

There is something in our brains that scientists call the Default Mode Network (DMN). When we are quiet with ourselves, this amazing network allows us to see patterns in new ways, to problem-solve, and to come up with creative ways to engage with the world. So, in doing nothing, at least for a short while, we are really doing everything.

This summer, I did everything. While I did nothing. I in no way regret the time I spent caring my my chronically ill husband. I'd give him another 19 years in a heart-beat. 

Let's face it, friends. God as the Creator of all Things did not NEED to rest on that 7th day. He did it for our sake, as a model for us frail humans to follow. He did it so that we might recover from the sweat of our brow and the carpel tunnel syndrome in our wrists. 

We've sort of blown it. But it's not too late.

I did nothing this summer. But I also did everything. And even as school starts again and my time is divided into 45 minute segments, I want to continue to build into my schedule this all-important, life-altering practice. I'm getting pretty good at it, but as with any art, I need more practice.

In the fine art of doing nothing.