Paul Collins and Jennifer Elder — Autism and Humanity. Videos of Ruffin (at age 3 and age 1. Center for Autism and Related Disorders website- -Journeys Through the Autism Spectrum and Back (documentary). Ruffin is twenty, a rising junior in Electrical Engineering and Robotics at Rose- Hulman Institute of Technology, and working this summer as a coop employee of Texas Instruments as a researcher in the Analog Laboratory, and living with his roommate in a long- term hotel suite. The narrative poem describes his autism and recovery to functionality. Mary Jane White (Ruffin's Mom)DRAGONFLY. MOON. A POEMA practiced love of sameness: As in this wild flapping and pacing . At all cost, avoid his tantrum. A persistent love of sameness: As in never move the salt and pepper . And avoid his tantrum. To wash his hair was some danger. He might thrash the tub wall with his. The Retreat represents a non-clinical, mutual help approach to the problem of alcohol and drug dependency. Founded by Rosemary Gladstar and family, Sage Mountain Retreat Center & Native Plant Preserve is one of New England’s foremost learning centers for herbs and earth awareness. Located on 500 wilderness acres in central. Head. How hard he hated any wetness,Or to change his shirt: led me to drip water. Down his back, on purpose, once. You can enjoy a variety of programs to help you to feel the calmness and wholeness within you and to express those qualities more beautifully in all parts of your life. Our calendar is continually growing as we add new programs. This NOT a criticism in the pejorative sense. But it's not praise either. For the program on autism there is mention of documentation suggesting familial connection of the disorder to parental occupations in science areas (and. Road Scholar, the not-for-profit leader in educational travel since 1975, offers 6,500 educational tours in all 50 states and 150 countries. Market St Spokane, WA 99217-6131 (509) 458-7450 Contact: Danielle Shawgo [email protected]. I remember: Once he cut himself on bottle- glass,And no more felt the pain than if his blood. Were water: was how I learned this. Blood was nothing until its wetness would. Somehow bother him, and he’d undress. To free himself from what? Nor run for comfort, nor cry, but only wet. Made him complain—not the cut. My son toddles to four swings,Pushes them until he brings. Them into a severe alignment that pleases him. How long his own severity attends him; How little he notices or cares for other children—Except their play disrupt his careful pattern. Of empty swing and empty swing,Of crossing arc and arc of thing. And thing, two pairs doubling. That leaves three other children out,but leaves him sing. One morning his crib is an open handful of pick- up sticks. Around his fallen mattress. In how many nights? He has unwound the metal bolts and nuts and washers. And drawn out the several rods that help hold it together . Sleeping. Or walking with a string’s end in his fist? I see he has walked from doorknob to doorknob. To cabinet door to doorknob to cabinet door, every one on the floor. His pattern of walking is woven behind him, so hard and carefully knotted. At each knob and handle and drawer pull, there is no advance possible. Toward him. It is a morning’s work to undo this. And a tantrum and a resistance not to be. Met with, I hope, too very often. I hope he does not repeat this. As I fear he will repeat this. I do not want to repeat this. We could not go out. He would not dress,Or be clothed, or stay clothed, or tolerate. So much as a sock, or stitch, or suffer. A single thread to cling upon his skin. Nor eat, nor let us eat, or sleep—Either of us . When. That bedtime came and he banged. His crib, paced all night in there,Babbling one syllable in his trance,Happy it seemed to me, but oblivious(I learned—oblivious), I read: the stacks. And books ordered in—in what scrap. Of time—by mail . Stepping into the car, with a realtor. And pointed it out. If I had my choice, I’d make my offer on that one. On the corner. Ah, yes, admired the realtor, that one will never be for sale. And said straight out, If it were, you could not afford it. Autism intervened upon this story . Every wall we saw. Second visit: we got no further than the glazed- over terrace at the back door. The woman of the house could not walk, and was seated there. Surgery on her heel. We glimpsed a dining room, behind the man of the house. He was very gracious, of course, but unyielding. So wonderfully solicitous of his hobbled wife. Third visit: my son and I stood under a low stucco outcropping—a second floor nursery, as it turned out, supported by two limestone columns—ornamented, but unclassically—carved with a double band of tulips: A band of buds, below a band of stone, open cups. We walked through the whole house, once,Once, room after room, all white, all with stunning windows . My son and I could only afford to live in one of them—downstairs. My son slept in the library, a north room with no closet. I slept in the original kitchen, another north room, without heat. Its attic—crow’s nest—was empty. The maid’s room was occupied—Do Not Enter—my renter’s storage flickered under a loopy neon ring, serviced by a run of stapled conduit. My son, my renter and I were in the basement, waiting out a tornado warning. I opened the subject of buying a house—her own home. Then it was empty enough to touch, to enter the master bedroom and linger before the octagonal bay of four double casements, twin to a formal dining room below. My son wants this room. It is becoming our house now. We do not always act as if we were in church. My twelve- year- old walks into his summer dorm room at physics camp. He says it is an ugly room. It is. He needs to live here, just a week. He appeals to me pointedly: It only has white walls. This is an argument he’s heard, and knows should sway me. They might have put a little color into it. I sit on the low, narrow bed. To talk. I say everyone who moves into a dorm moves away from home. I suggest now he could buy posters? He doesn’t care to. I suggest his roommate might bring posters. I remind him he will only sleep here. I insist it will be dark then. He is not philosophical. Summer’s end: my twelve- year- old and friend are camped on the second story side porch, with cats. They are eating up there. They have even dragged up the cat bowls. Also, a spool of kite string, and their colored plastic wheels, with snapping plastic sticks. One end of string loops down, across the yard, to a fence. There is an elegant second string attached, to facilitate retrieval. All afternoon the plastic wheels of a changing contraption travel back and forth, up and down, the singing string they call their zip line. There are no proper places in this house for televisions. All the proper places are taken by fireplaces. I take down our latest volume, to read a chapter aloud to my son and his fidgeting friend. Now that the renter’s entry is closed up . Wind. Will carry you. Away. Everyone. Who ever loved. Or remembered. You—though. They persist,Or do nothing—Will follow. Or go before you,The same way. Away,He learned to play. Within a baseball team,The year his teachers’Favorite, unfavored. Boston Red Sox,Won the Series. Baseball and golf! A blue and rather chunky bicycle. Propped at the innermost, blue door of the courtyard. Another. Unmoved bicycle with wide- winged handlebars in the monks- only,Quadrangle garden, into which we may only, but openly, gaze: These are The Rule’s customs of privacy and un- simple welcome. Our square refectory table placed at a window that opens onto. The dead garden. Our son, their student, and we, are here—are guests here,And this is their hospitality: Order, Benedictine of the Knights Hospitalier,Order of St. John of Jerusalem, Order of the Knights of Malta who fled, fled. To the Imperial Russian Navy, that extended them all a certain, welcome. Hospitality in the East, as Napoleon moved against them. A welcome. Of ancient and heroic tenor: One who comes so as to please another. At fifteen, he is become our perfect scholar,With good behavior—yet—As caution finds its expression. In this part of the Midwest . Croix, along the Great River, St. Cloud—Exits. Off I- 9. Marcel. Breuers’Sculpted concrete banner (spiral back stair) and honeycomb. Fa. John’s Abbey. And so am I, as I love, have my living Isaac: Who is learning ordinary, ancient Algebra,And new helical, chemical Biology—Dictating his assigned paper—on Fragile X—One genetic disorder I remember. He was tested for—This makes me laugh and sigh . No, I heard you read that. Leave. His head lie propped on a cushion—Heels—easily beyond now—the other arm’s end. Hell! Greek and Roman history are hard enough. For anyone—to dictate well, or spell. Theology is: Practical lessons in how to make time. For some activity you love. Ceramics: where he likes most to work,At length, entranced, seated at the wheel—Functional, centered spinning—his kicking, kicking. Heel—shaping lightweight cups, a set of plates,His glazed, shallow dish for loose pocket change,A vase that flows out and, breathing, closes in. Upon what is now—a nearly perfect lip. Fall again. We hike on marshland. With his camera. He found. A dragonfly at first,And then a toad, the exact. Sandy brown of the pathway’s. Ground—to draw attention to. Though I missed them,Digital captures in his camera. Showed me—the dragonfly—Slow, old, or hurt perhaps,It crawled, flipped over, righted,Wandered off into the grass . Still,He saw it, and placed it gently. On a bleaching leaf, for a good. Background, for contrast,As if it were an old, green. Screen for the cursor—when. A cursor was how we taught him. What a finger is to do in pointing: Make a path for the eyes of two,Or more, to follow. It dawned. On me that night—the first. Time—fifteen—he pressed. My shoulders down to bring. My eyes between the leaves. To turn them toward the moon—A crescent at his fingertip .
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