Life Without Mountains



Spencer & Logan Mighty Explorers: Colter Bay Summer 2013

When I was a little girl I used to climb to the top of our tan couch and stand like a mountain goat on the sagging cushions while I pressed my face against the cool glass of the living room window. From the safety of my perch, I would stare wide eyed at the snow capped mountains surrounding me from every direction; a fortress of safety circled like wagons. I can still close my eyes and see those ethereal peaks; stark against the fluttering dark of my eyelids, still experience the wash of warmth I encounter every time I remember the tangible comfort I experienced living in their shadows.

The summer before my senior year in high school, I had grown decidedly restless. My older brother was in college; many of my friends had already graduated and were moving on with their lives. I felt stagnant. I felt trapped. I wanted movement. I wanted to drive without stopping, (I wanted land lots of land under starry skies above….stop freaking fencing me in!!!!!) I wanted to feel the brush of tumbleweeds scrape against my legs. The mountains to me became symbols of my incarceration, stumbling blocks in the path of escape.  I think I even wrote some -obviously pathetic - poetry about being a bird with clipped wings, longing to rise up on a beautiful (certainly cologne scented –duh I was 17- ) current and be carried away to where finally I could see beyond (dramatic pause) my gilded cage. (No, I couldn’t be considered a true poet because I didn’t wear black mock turtlenecks, or style my hair in stringy, dyed black dread locks or keep my lips lined in a thick layer of black cherry lipstick….isn’t that a requirement?).

I turned 18. I moved away. I got married. I had kids and suddenly I found myself in the desert without a brown sagging couch to climb, or mountains to write bad poetry over. The great sea of sand and rocks did not provide balm for my soul the way I supposed space would. I spent my days cowering from the exposure, slathering my boys with sun block, hating the emptiness of heat. I would watch the sun rise from the dirt, and return to the dirt (I’m sure a pathetic poem rising up in my soul, that if I could have located a crayon that wasn’t broken or melted, I would have titled, “My life in a Tomb.” And probably the first line would have read, “The heat has turned my dreams into cremated ashes…”) 

Grand Teton National Park June 2013

And so, some eight years ago, when we were able to return to pine trees, seasons, and the carved out (by God Himself?) mountain valley of Jackson Hole, Wyoming, I felt at once swaddled, contained and safe. The boundaries I had once resented eased my mind.  The world didn’t feel so imposing. Life felt like it had been sectioned like an orange and fallen open into perfectly encased bite size pieces, something I could swallow without choking.

Boundaries play an important role in my life; but I confess I frequently forget this hard earned knowledge because of the short term memory loss I’ve suffered  from all the times I’ve hit my head against my limits, willing my boundaries to budge by sheer force.  My boys, on the other hand, are often wiser than me, and while they are sometimes as rigid and unyielding as granite in their desire for routine, predictability, hard lines, rules and order, boundaries have kept their lives consistently cut up into bit size chunks.   (The dramatic poem I would write today would probably be called, “Hard Lines; Life in a Gilded Cage” but if I wrote it, then I might really give in to my desire to wear black turtle necks and embrace the poet lifestyle and I don’t know anyone who braids dreadlocks so that doesn’t really work for me.)

Jenny Lake, Grand Teton National Park June 2013

My boys know they have to take one step at a time, they don’t try to skip ahead; C follows B which follows A, which is the beginning of the alphabet. Duh! Was there ever a question as to the order of things?  Whereas my impulse is to skip from b to q to x and back to c because there was traffic at A.  Because of years of intensive therapy and coaching, my boys have learned to come to me when they are feeling overwhelmed and say things like, “I’m feeling a little overwhelmed, and I think I need a break.” Or Logan will say, “Stop rushing me like a race horse you devil woman!  And will you please communicate what your plans are before you drag me out the door?” They often know their limits. They want to finish one section of the orange before they move on to the next piece, and perhaps if they are satisfied they may be content to NOT move on to the next piece. Meanwhile, I am the one who is thinking, “Oranges again??!  -As I shove piece after piece into my mouth-.

For Alex especially, having order in the universe is the ONLY way he can function; the sun always sets at night, the moon rises predictably like clockwork. It waxes, it wanes. The stars appear and fill the night sky with pin pricks of light.  There is order to the universe; in his preferred world he has breakfast within a half hour of waking, (takes a break) walks the dog (takes a break) asks to go somewhere (sighs when I say no, asks how long until we can go somewhere) goes somewhere (says he’s done and wants to go home within 45 minutes of going somewhere) drives home, lunch, (takes a break) walks the dog (takes a break) waits for dad to come home. Calls dad and ask why he isn’t there yet. Sits by the window and waits. Flops with dad, makes dinner (takes a break) asks to go somewhere (asks to come home) gets tired, melts down, fights with his brothers, argues with his mom and dad, refuses to brush his teeth because we didn’t remind him early enough and besides he isn’t going to go to the dentist anyways anymore because dentists are liars… takes his melatonin, climbs in bed with an IPad to unwind, watches a documentary on Hawaii, lights out, fan on, wrapped like a mummy, four pillows, two underneath his head, two on top. Sleeps. And. Repeat. Deviation from the charted course like staying fifty minutes when we “go somewhere” instead of the pre-arranged 45, is cause for mayhem, renting of clothing, stopping of clocks.

Leeks Marina: Spencer & Logan Walking Off Some Pizza, June 2013

Order in the universe equals a happy boy. But sadly, the laws of motion don’t always work out the way Newton intended. The moon rises, the stars come out, and sometimes a storm wakes you up. The sun rises and sometimes the dog’s leash breaks. Winter comes, but it doesn’t always snow. Sometimes there is homework, sometimes there is not. Dinner may not be what you expected. Clothes may be scratchy. Brothers get loud. Fire alarms go off. Mom’s say no. Dad’s come home late. But as long as those main parts of the routine stay consistent, there is a place to go for order (his room, the family room, his house) but when he leaves his Island and order in the universe is displaced by chaos in the universe, then the resulting fall out is as predictable as the sun setting in the west.

The ramifications of living with autism…oh, who am I kidding? The ramification of living with life –especially a life where I jump from letter to letter, choking on orange slices with one child chasing me across the alphabet yelling they need a break while another child is lost somewhere by the letter S and I’ve already tripped twice over the child catatonic next to the letter B, has left me feeling like a wide eyed deer standing- ears perked - in a meadow; (Bambi be careful! Man is in the forest…. And then that creepy violin music starts and all that’s left to do is wait for the crack of the gun to go off).  Meadows -my life without boundaries- (as much as I seem to crave it) never seems to work for me. I get so distracted by the seemingly open, soothing, non-uphill grassy nature that I miss the sniper hiding in the brush.  Mountains and their unyielding foundation, creates order in my universe. I’ve learned I need to know my starting and stopping points; my limits. I need something to bump up against and  I need to be smart enough to know when I reach my wall of rock; to stop (especially because I’m still paying off those cat scan bills for my past head banging against the wall incidents). I’ve learned mountains are not always beautiful… some mountains are scorched like the tortured scarred hills of Arizona in July, some mountains carry heart ache; their knocked down charred trees spilled like matches in the crevices of the rocky terrain. And some mountains are still covered in ice when they were supposed to be covered in wildflowers, but they create valleys to tuck me into, mapped roads, pharmacies, and fenced yards.

My Favorite Drive; Even A Picture From My Phone Is Sighable; June 2013

My boys and the way they courageously navigate their lives has taught me so many important lessons, and the one I’m working on implementing now is finding my north, creating order in my universe, implementing boundaries that help me to function at a higher –non concussion- level. I am also working on remembering that wherever life takes me –even to the mountain less terrain of Texas, that I don’t need to deprive myself of swaddling, I don’t have to be exposed like an infant who has perfected the startle reflex.  I can draw my line in the sand wherever I am, I can carve it on the rocks or write it in the snow.  I can be unyielding when it comes to my sanity. My boys have taught me the importance of knowing your limits, of setting perimeters.   And so, I am closing my eyes more often, closing them so I can see those ghost like peaks rise up again sentinels against the dark of my fluttering lids. I’m closing my eyes so when I open them I remember all I have to deal with today is a valley and that I can worry about the conditions of the road leading over the mountains tomorrow.

And the best part of metaphorical mountains is they only give metaphorical concussions and metaphorical medical bills, which I can metaphorically shred without an ounce of metaphorical guilt. (And the dramatic poem rising up in my soul to commemorate this lesson learned will be written just as soon as I can pick up a black turtle neck from the GAP and some hair dye from Target).



Loggy Bear @ Colter Bay June 2013, Love that cub!