LifeLights, LifeJoys: Illuminating the sparklings of childhood

(July 12, 2009)

Lights.2
(Toddler Memory)

still still still
stay very still
scratching scalp, stretching hair
Now I can see
button tugging, sweater shrugging
“Go out and play”

launched into sunshine
Ah mmmmm mmmmm
eyes closed, face upturned
fingers lead hands lead arms
Up into the Light
to OPEN
mmmmm Tree appears
in heart, feet moving

Woods, aah mmmmm, touch,
sniff, head caresses bark
palms squōsh crevasses
Ah Ah Ah mmm mmm
eyes wander upward
black spikes tickling blueness
(Dead tree to adults, not me)
bottom slides to earth, back leans on trunk
Breathe Love Light Happy

glittering light playing with
hundred leaves hundred colors green
hum huu huu mmmmm mmm

still still still
stay very still

LifeLights, LifeJoys: Illuminating the sparklings of childhood

(Explaining the wee big joys within autism: CarolAnn Edscorn, Jaffrey, NH; July 11, 2009)

Lights.1

(Earliest Memory)

Want
To
Be
Over
There

So warm, so pretty, little sparkies
Dancing
So far away, and I am so small
That square of Light
Glancing
Sideways to see better

Gray shadows, muted sounds
Meaningless, unabsorbing
Movement compared to
Light

Want to be over there
Not in this wood square bars
Breathe slow out
Light expands
Suck air in
Light flickers
Staying in place
Light gone to gray
Overhead, harsh ball of
Harsh light
Not the same, look away
Laying in another wood square bars
Darkness, so dark, missing light

Repeat

Change wood square bars

Want
To
Be
Over
There

So far away, and I am so small

30 days out of 35 cloudy and rainy--so we look for gladness

Hiding gray reveals other truths
The tempered light
Opens color to eyes
Which see twilight
But the daisies shine
Not gray sadness
But riotous gladness
As the ordinary
Now takes center stage
In bright glory
Like galaxies of stars
Hidden sunshine
Explodes in uplifting white
With purple loose strife
With deep blue delphinium
Accenting the joy

Gray
Light
Joy

Where is your focus?
(July 3, 2009; Jaffrey roadsides, NH)

Processing.12 The Final Beginning

Ice ship crushing through Arctic layers
City navigating through crush of people
Walls around them each one hard
Hurts to be human, I think

Chaos of colors of faces of postures
Cacophony of winds, car horns, hawkers,
Pigeon cooings, baby cries, screeching tires,
Filtering din, discerning images fluxing
Twirling and spinning reality

Wounded healers, wounded warriors,
Wounded hearts gaping with their pain
Making patches, band aids, plaster covers
Pretending the wounds are not there

But they are, sacred blood oozing unseen
Felt, perceived, recognized
This is why they build their Walls
On the outside so I am buffeted
Pushed around, bashed by walls invisible
Real like bricks, like wood, like cement
But imperceptible to The Normals

Yet they see my walls, my interior
Walls; they want me to come outside my
Walls; but their Walls are acceptable
Their wounded, bandaged hearts
Reeking of pain, of fear, of anger
Stop building layers of hiding

Let the wounds be
Through those gaping holes pours
Light; through the piercings shines
The truth of personhood

If you want me to come out
From behind my walls
Lower yours

Mybeloved Freedom Writer friend Doug wrote this for me.

To C


Your poem like the beach
at the end of the day
everyone else has gone away
before sundown tints the waves to gold
the tide takes back
what washed up,
a sparse verse of broken shells remain

the wind speaks of space too.
and clouds put on their
peach, gray, and lavender show

A dune bird sings a one note hymn
thanking its Maker for freedom.
§ Doug Ball, 06-17-09
Sunset Beach, NC

Processing 11 Boys Noise

July 1, 2009; CarolAnn Edscorn; Jaffrey, NH; Growing up different; each poetry unit is a childhood memory

Boys
Noisy
Grinning
Sneaking
Plotting

Cute
Mysterious
Hands in pockets
Shy smiles
Approach with
Caution

So
What do I do
I get into trouble

New saddle shoes
Black saddles
White
Shiny
He steps on them
I go home
Get chastised

Biology class
Blonde boy
Smiles
Pulls out my chair
It is gone
I sit on the floor
Hard
Laughter
Not mine

What am I doing
So different
So awful
Drawing their fire
Their ire
Their mire

Immature
No brains
No gains
They think they know
Playboy hiding
A quick shove
A quicker grasp
My gasp
My breasts are
Targets
I wish I were dead

This thought becomes a habit
I wish I were dead
Can’t erase it
Can’t make it disappear
Can’t change it

Boys
What do they want
Not me

Processing 10 Friendships

(July 1, 2009; CarolAnn Edscorn; Jaffrey, NH; Growing up different; each poetry unit is a childhood memory.)


Statuesque
Bright auburn
Blue eyes glittering
Pretty and I thought
Perhaps she could be a friend
She seemed friendly
Always smiling at her girlfriends

They clustered
As middle school girls do
Chattering, smiling
Casing out the boys
Across the cafeteria
So I stood nearby and
Listened

I smiled
Nodded
Tip toed closer
Almost touching
The cluster
Of young ladies

Talking about boys
Talking about make-up
Talking about hair
I am so not interested
But I listen and nod
I smile and edge
Closer

Pretty so pretty
Are her insidez pretty too
Nearly a part of the clutch
Now
Short brunette utters
‘You are so pretty’
Shorter blond murmurs
With shy smile
‘You are sexy
The boys like you’

My chance
Lean forward
Smile
Speak
‘I think you are pretty too’

Not what girls want to hear
From other girls
She smiles from her height
Pauses
Considers
I hope
Please accept me

‘I think-
I think-your elbows are
Sexy’

Happy, so happy
She spoke to me
I have sexy elbows

The other girls are laughing
No
They are sniggering
They move away
I recognize the snigger
The purpose of snigger
Rejection

Standing alone
In the middle of this
Great big room full of youth
Full of life
Smiling
Gabbing
Relating
Standing alone

She is right though
I have sexy elbows
She gave me that gift
She cannot take it
Away
Like she can take herself
Away

I am my own best friend

Processing.9A Lost Dreams Original

(June 27, 2009: The Original Lost Dreams...Nice to compare meandering hope)

Processing
(CarolAnn Edscorn; June 28, 2009; Jaffrey, NH. Growing up different; each poetry unit is a memory.)
Processing.10
Can’t make a living forming music
Can’t make a living building words
Can’t make a living dancing
(Fall down a lot anyway)
Can’t make a living petting pets
(Don’t have one anyway)

Can’t make a living growing birch
Can’t make a living smelling roses
Can’t make a living weaving Light
(Fingers cramp anyway)
Can’t make a living painting stars
(Titanium white isn’t bright enough anyway)

No

Can’t make a living crafting victuals
For imaginary restaurant
Can’t make a living designing villas
Can’t make a living conceiving new toys
(They are still fun anyway)
Can’t make a living flying far away
(Sigh)

Be a nurse
Be a teacher
Be a secretary

Listen to words
Build another inside wall
Darken eyes another point
Kill another heart stopping wonder making laughter creating joy inducing brain engaging living muse

Am I alive or not?
Can’t make a living being me?

Processing.9 Lost dreams?

(July 1, 2009; Growing up different; each poetry unit is a memory)

Denied

Can’t make a living composing music
Can’t make a living painting images
Can’t make a living touching trees
Can’t make a living splashing water droplets

Can’t make a living raising horses
Too expensive
Can’t make a living writing poetry
Too young, too unknown
Can’t make a living smelling flowers
Can’t even grow them
Can’t make a living touching hearts

Learn to be a nurse
Learn to be a teacher
Learn to be a secretary

Can’t make a living designing cars
Someone does
Can’t make a living fixing cars
Men do that
Can’t make a living designing homes
School is too expensive
Can’t make a living dancing
Klutzy

All I love
All I see
All I smell
All I touch
All I embrace

Gone

Well-intentioned advice
Limited insights
Lost dreams of
Their own
They take away
That which becomes the
Lost dream of
Others

Me

I claim my dreams
Love family
Love music
Love dancing
Love writing

Ah, yes
Reborn

Processing 8 Adolescent autism ack

Navy brat
Not pretty but
Had charisma
Loved not liked.

Rascal
Rebellious
Reckless
Rude

Blue eyes
Piercing my heart
‘You will never be cool
Because you are not cool’

Adolescent angst
A poor platform for
Prophecy
Her rejection wounds more
than her words

At fifty-five
I am cool now
Anyway
Who
Could
Tell
Forty years ago?

I am not yet done

I am not done PROCESSING but my indomitable spirit kicks against the pricks of painful memory so I make new laughing living loving ones.

The next poem is after John Masefield’s wonderful poem “I must go down to the sea again.” It was triggered by the new film release Star Trek, which I THOUGHT WAS WONDERFUL. But long ago in a galaxy far, far away, Captain Kirk recited a portion of the poem and I had memorized it in, oh, fifth grade, when I was just getting the hang of reading. I wish more time was spent on poetry in elementary school. It’s natural rhythms resonate with the natural rhythms of childhood.

I Must Go Down: CarolAnn, June 10, 2009, Jaffrey, NH

(After John Masefield, only shorter.]

I must go off
To sleep tonight
To dreams in which
I sigh.
And all I ask
Is a comforter and
A teddy bear nearby.

I must go off
To dream this night
To snuggle midst
The fleece;
To hug my love
And count the stars
And drift on seas of green.

I must go off
To cruise the thoughts
Of heart and
Mind and light;
And all I ask
Is a dream of love
And a new dawn
Breaking bright.

Processing 7

My story
Written of war
How can a child
Write of war?
Every night
On the screen
Flickering
Images of body bags
Children tossing bombs
How could I not write?
Accused of stealing the story
I argued back.
It was my story.
But I didn’t write again
For five years then
Again for twenty.
I lost myself in their stealing
Of my truth.

Music alive to every
Molecule, every
Atom of me.
My music
A symphony of
Trees, water, sky and stars.
Oboes, clarinets, flutes
Interweaving dancing
With violins
Layers of sound
Layers of color
Children cannot write music.
I did not compose again
For twelve years and then
Not symphonies.
Music stolen must be set free
There is so much music
I lost myself in their incomprehension
Of my truth.

Trees and woodlands
Too dangerous for children
Water, lakes and creeks,
Too dangerous for children
Horses, soft muzzles,
Hot breath blowing
On my face
Running, jumping
Too expensive for children.
Touching life, smelling life,
Hearing life
Too dangerous for children
They took all my love
And left me hiding
Not touching their world
Not allowed mine.
They stole
My truth.

All my truth
taken

I think they did not mean it.
I think they did not know.
I think they are stuck themselves.
Their own dreams lost or stolen.

I want my dreams back.

Leaping with horses
Leaping through words
Leaping through magical tones
Leaping through light

I sing MY body electric
I take MY road less traveled
A rose is a rose is lost

Cannot dwell on the lost
Cannot dwell in the past
Cannot dwell swimming in pain
Cannot dwell without stars

Why are people so alone
Because they steal
And haven stolen they hoard
And what they cannot have
They withhold from all

Do they?

Processing 6

tiny tiny tiny
small small small
big stupid body
longing for small
be a polka dot
be a cell
a molecule
atom proton dancing
armadillo self

poor dumb body
draws attention
finger thrumping
on anything
bottom skutching
rocking
sniffling nose
can’t breathe

body is too big
when I reach for small
body is too small
when eternal electric waves
call me out

arms stretched out
stretch stretch stretch
big thin evaporating
my molecules dancing
singing
with air molecules
with Light


poor dumb stupid body
I will reach past you
join the tingling
music of light
sparkies

CarolAnn
Stop daydreaming
Read page sixteen

what?

(quiet—
stupid
too big
too small
stupid body—

red face
red me
fast heart
tears sneak out)

be free

when?

Processing .5

I have words now
Oh yes, fifth grade words
No one listens to them

A new Tree, maple
Awesome twirly things
Play with sparkies in
The air

Play is screaming
Play is chaos color
Play is dumb

Bird sings above
Look, delight of glittering
Greens, bright sky blue poking through
True hide-and-seek

He comes from nowhere
He is not in my somewhere
Punch
Stunned
Hate on such a young face
No explanation

Teacher:
What did you do?
Why did he hit you?

No words from me
Boy spits
You are so weird

Stomach pain
No breath
Even the Tree cannot heal
Bell rings
Torture briefly
Ends

To be continued..

Processing .4

Screams high pitched
Piercing invasion
Come and play
No way

Chaotic colors
Blur no sense
No pattern
Screams
Pushing Falling Little People

The swing calls
Others command it
I cannot answer

I sing to the pine
A broken crackle
Invaded here
Smashed
A name, not mine
Intent understood
No sniffle!
Pushed

“Aren’t laughing children adorable?”

Acorns smack my head
Someday I will teach
I will teach Tree singing

Not today

Today eyes
Water pine
Just a little

( photo from fiveprime.org)

Processing 2

Finger
Mine
Miracle
Gray brown
Bark
Becomes me

What smell
Wet
New leaf
So bright
Touching it
Hurts until
I grasp it softly.

Voices blend
Wind
Tree boughs
Bird calls
Spring peepers
Plane! Shiny!
Voices
Gurgling water
So pretty
Voices
Found.

Why
didn’t
you
answer
us?

And leave
The joy
Of exchange
Vibrating
Color softness?

I go with
The voices
The Tree
Inside me
Deflects the pain.

Processing .1

I am behind my wall
The angered think they see me
They cannot touch me
Not with their red wounded hands

Phooshing air moves with
A paddle, a wooden spoon, a yardstick
Anger is a noise
My wall is dense, muffling

I watch from inside
Wasn’t I cute once
Anger is black, red forgetfulness
I am the Cause
I am my own fault

So small so far away
A worm, a bug of fear
Tickles layers of skin
Deep in the shadows I lurk
I dive into metal self

Anger surprises
Fear repels
Why should I respond
Can song words change them
Change the battering

Words from the outside become noise

No answer
Light flickers but not
Like sun through shiny leaves
Light shrinks
Small hole, mouse versus viper

I can be still so still
Invisible to myself
Still present to the wounded wounders

The strap, the yelling
Be still, be small
Make it go away

Can happiness be found in black?

Processing

These are a series of poems about childhood. For the first time I am sharing about the pain. Each unit of Processing is a specific memory, but not in chronological sequence.

Standing in the Yard at Night

[What is the speed of Light? A million galaxies, a quantum leap? The scientists tell us space travel is impossible. Truly?]

(April 21, 2009) Jaffrey, NH

Three fingers

Three stars

The scientists are wrong

Close, I see them

Close, I touch them,

Close, heart beats

Flicker in time

With their shimmer

Three stars

Touched

Home

McMommy

June 2, 2009

That quick pinging is the French fry timer. It is time to shake those fries so they do not stick together.

The longer ping is the basket on the left side of the fryer. Those fries are done and need to be drained and gently emptied into the bin. And that other steady bell that is a half pitch lower in musical tone? That is one of the alerts to let the grill team know that they need fresh-cooked hamburgers.

The shake machine has a soft low tone. The back grill buzzes when hot, when cooking, when done. The pie oven dings when the pies are baked. Near the front counter the reach-in refrigerator fan turns on, followed closely by the motor for the ice cream mixer.

These are the normal noises that flow through the day at my McDonald’s restaurant. They happen frequently and often in synchronicity. They have no respect for my customers. Through this noise I need to be able to focus on my patrons, I need to accurately hear their orders, direct questions to clarify their needs, and then speedily enter this information into the computer system so that their food products are communicated to the grill team.

Fast food, not instant.

Friends who know me marvel that I can not only survive but thrive in this sensory magnified environment. I regularly field the question “You are so smart—how can you work at McDonald’s?” It is true, I am smart. I have taught at the university level. I give workshops to professionals about autism. I am published. I am a member of the Freedom Writers’ Foundation and a contributor to their recent book, Teaching Hope. I have written dinner theater, acted, directed and designed for the theater.

Yet I love my “McJob.” After 3 hours serving customers during a busy lunch rush my hearing is compromised. It is difficult for me to filter out all the sounds, to filter and distinguish the vowels and consonants in shared speech between me the server and my customer, the served. If I am not cautious about creating a sensory break, about renewing my ability to discriminate sound bytes, then I fail in providing a quality service.

There is also the social side of working the front counter at McD’s. The rules of engagement are clear: 1. Smile; 2. Greet the customer, personally if possible, making eye contact (if possible); 3. Encourage the visitors and listen to their order; 4. Ask for and receive payment; Thank the customer; and 5. Present hot food with a smile.

Now that is a simple social pragmatics program! I get to practice this pattern over and over, changing my smile, my one line quips, the way I tilt my head to show I am listening, and enjoying every moment. The exchanges are short. I do not have to continue any complex social chatter. Dialogue is short so I do not have an opportunity to soliloquize about my favorite and arcane topics. Perhaps best of all my quirky mannerisms—quoting lyrics from 1970’s love songs, imitating famous film lines, creating goofy faces—invite laughter and easygoing banter.

This is great. I have had many types of employment. I have worked in accounting, data entry, marketing, personal care, and entertainment roles. I have developed curriculum, written and graded exams, and worked in desegregation programs.

Nowhere has there been a position where I can smile the entire time I am working and get smiles back most of the time. Not only do I have short but happy interactions with my customers, I work on using my unique way of thinking and perceiving to create relationships with my crew members.

Back in high school at my very first McD’s job, I was a social misfit who was good at the rules, fast with service, and shy. Eight years ago I took my children on a tour of my hometown. Unbelievable, but the store manager remembered me, and offered me a job. I worked at a store in Atlanta and in St. Louis. When I needed a bit of extra income (dratted car payments) I took on the store here in southern New Hampshire.

Of course I am much older, quite a bit heavier (was I really a beach bunny?), and my hair is so gray it no longer holds hair color. I have come to peace with my oddness. I no longer care if I fit in with people.

I do care if I fit in my clothes.

I do care that I fit the profile of a hard worker, and a compassionate co-worker.

Now, not only do I work at this restaurant, but when I first joined the crew my eldest son also worked at this restaurant. That was five years ago. He worked at a store in Pennsylvania where he attended college and now in Florida he works for a corporately owned restaurant where he is learning management. Now at the small McCafe in rural New Hampshire my daughter is an award winning employee, my middle son works in the grill area, and my fourth child who is 15 wants to know when he can apply.

We are now the McEdscorn’s. Where I once was the shy, cautious customer service crew member, I am now the laughing and playful expert. I am the oldest front counter person, and by that virtue (and the compassion and experience I project) I have been adopted as McMommy by my much younger cohorts. They confide their hurts, their worries and their concerns to me. They know they can get a hug from me. They know that if something goes wrong, I am logical, calm, and knowledgeable and that I take action to solve personal and customer relationships.

Somehow, the gangly awkward young adult, the peculiar young woman with language idiosyncrasies, has become cool.

I answer those who wonder how I can possibly work in the noisy, fast-paced environment, that this is the only job where I can smile at people for 4 or more hours straight out and have people smile back.

McMommy…I’m lovin’ it.

END

Civil RIghts and Civility

At the ripe old age of 55 I am finally reading To Kill a Mockingbird. I read the first half of the novel in 2 hours but found myself stretched between needing sleep and needing to mourn the departure of my eldest son, who left March 22nd for Florida.

My middle son is reading this incredible story for high school literature, and I am being supportive. He has the book on CD so he can listen to it while driving about town. I rented the film featuring the superb Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch. I am reading the volume so we can dialogue about the language, themes, characters and plot.

Wondering about this literary gap in my life I cast back through my memory: why should I have avoided this classic? Then I remembered that the premise of the book was a small town lawyer doing the Right Thing in a rape case involving a black man. My parents would not have let me read this book in 1970. I must have read a substitute assignment. And racism never came up as a discussion.

But I was not unaware.

He was a gorgeous shade of deep chocolate, the first black I had ever seen in person. An adult, he seemed to suddenly appear at my church one Sunday as a cantor. He introduces himself prior to worship, and then he sings.

I love singing in church, but I preferred to listen to him, enrapt, sure I was hearing echoes from Heaven. After a few Sundays I sang with him, inspired, and I promised myself that I would always sing. Then our family moved and I began a new life in a new school.

Moving from New Britain to North Haven felt like a total upheaval. On the map it is a mere 30 miles. School life was no better. I watched from the trees on the playground during recess, I ate lunch alone.

Then I met Garth. He was very dark, beautiful, with long fingers and I knew he could play piano whereas my fingers are short. I envied him. I adored his hair which he let me touch, and his deep eyes that glistened with an inner light.

My fourth grade classmates stared at him in a similar fashion as they stared at me, placing us in a relationship affirmed when Mrs. Burns seated us side by side. Garth was a meticulous artist, and he taught me techniques to improve my drawings. In return, I taught him to knit. I am certain that neither activity endeared us to our competitive peers. With hindsight, I believe prejudice was active and ingrained in southern Connecticut. A student boldly labeled me “nigger lover” when Mrs. Burns left the classroom one time. I had heard the word nigger, but had no framework for interpreting it. I knew the word lover. So the intent was not received, it actually had the opposite effect. I was happy to love this young man who accepted me and interacted with me in a gentle, kind manner.

In the mysterious manner of school boards, the school zones were redrawn and I went to a different school for fifth grade and when I returned to grammar school Garth had disappeared. It was years before I saw another black person.

My family moved to New Hampshire for a year, and relocated to Rhode Island for my eighth grade adventure. I was in tenth grade when Debra and her family moved into town. She was striking, poised and articulate. She joined the cheerleaders so I was not in her circle, but she was in many of the advanced courses with me so I got to know about her. Her parents were professionals, well-educated and involved in the community. In the spring of our junior year I discovered that racial meanness was strong in southern Rhode Island. When Debra did not show up for school one day it quickly came out that a large cross was placed on her family’s front yard and set ablaze.

This awareness set me on a path. I become involved at a young age in the Civil Rights movement, and this has remained close to my heart.

It is in The Constitution of the United States—all men are created equal. This includes the elderly, sequestered in institutions. Youth trapped in barrios and ghettoes are excluded from life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The population we brazenly label ‘disabled’ are the final frontier in Civil Rights, and this shall be a long battle as our society and culture is deeply embedded with presumptions, prejudices, fears and misnomers. It is one thing to choose to be a maverick, a loner. It is another issue when an entire mindset needs changing.

So I read To Kill a Mockingbird 49 years after it was published. It is the only novel that Harper Lee wrote. It is powerful, her characters full of life, of human glitches, of love. It is powerful, unafraid of exposing small town traits, small people, and large evil. It is powerful, using touch words, tightly Southern dialects, images built up in the heat of Alabama, the relentless slowness that builds decades of dark secrets. I can read and digest and glory in Lee’s written legacy.

I hope I can share that with my young son.