The Ides of January have come, but not yet passed. So far it’s been a quiet Sunday. I’ve just got back from a walk in the crisp air. I took what is becoming my usual route, from my house,which is near the base of what Vernonites refer to as East Hill, up about 20 blocks to the fields at the edge of town and then a bit farther to the base of the hills that form the east wall of the valley. At this point I’m in a wooded area where nobody can see me as I stretch, bend and blow my nose. Today I watched four or five Steller’s Jays fly around in the trees nearby. They’re beautiful when the sun illuminates their iridescent blue-black feathers. Their low rasping caw; however, is not much more pleasant than the annoying yapping of the little condo dogs that inhabit the gated community I pass on the way up. I also saw a fairly large hawk swoop down into a field, rise with nothing and fly off. We had a bit of snow on Saturday, so all is white, but just. The roads and sidewalks are bare. When I sat with Mo and John in their hot tub yesterday after the first day of adaptive ski lessons, the snow began to fall in huge heavy flakes. I had to clear it off the car before I left, but by the time I got home it had stopped. I shoveled the public walk in front of the house right away, as did all my neighbors. It’s the only time we see each other and chat in the winter. We’re almost all out together, getting our civic duty done while the snow’s still fluffy, before people, prams and bikes imbed their prints into the pavement. Winter here seems mild to me, but we have just entered the heart of it, so we’ll see what that brings.
I think I’m going to learn a lot about autism this season. At the potluck last Wednesday night, I met Shea, one of the students I will have in the adaptive ski program. She’s a cute, seven-year old with long blonde hair; she looks and is great. We had some laughs. She likes ‘softies’ and wondered what Jay used to call his favorite ones. I wondered what she was doing in the program, but kept quiet about it. By the end of the evening, I had some ideas, and our first class on Saturday made it all clear. She’s been diagnosed with autism and ADHD, neither of which I know much about, but I’m learning. It’s her parents who want her to ski; she’s not interested at all. She’s extremely bright and talks and sings and makes verbal connections that are absolutely fascinating, but she can’t even put her ski boots on, let alone get the boots into the bindings. I was working with another woman, and it took the two of us to get her into her skis, onto the snow and to begin the slow shuffle to the ‘magic carpet’. She can stand and walk, but in skis, she either doesn’t want to move or can’t. I spent the whole two hours trying to figure out whether she lacked the will or the muscle control to do anything on skis. She couldn’t seem to exert enough pressure on the edges of her skis to make even a ‘V’ shape for a snow plow, which I tried to cajole her into doing by calling it a piece of rhubarb pie because she had loved the piece she ate at the potluck. Today I had a long talk with the woman I’ll be working with on Thursday mornings, and she told me that our student is also autistic, but fortunately, he likes skiing at least. I’m going to be learning as much as if not more than I’m teaching at this job. By the end of the Saturday session, I was so hot from working with Shea that my hair was wet under my helmet. When I took it off, my hair was an embarrassing mess. Today I spent a few minutes reinventing the ‘dew rag’.
I’m going to wear a cotton headband under the helmet to try to keep my hair at least a bit dry. Thank goodness the Immigrant Services work is easy and learning Korean may be impossible, but it’s fun and I don’t get in a sweat about it.
Dad with Matti and Lindsay's daughter, Cleo
Mom with Cleo
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