Elizabeth J. Grace www.tinygracenotes.com I haven’t seen my friend Eric in years, and we are not in touch right now because our friendship, our communion, is about hanging out together. He’s not much of a talker at all, maybe ten words? and not a writer. (And even if he were a talker, I am heinous on the phone.) Next time I am in his town, and we see each other, it will still be easy to hang out with each other as if we just left off, because we both love to sit in our sea cliff hangout hidden by sea grass and watch the ocean. We like to do this quietly. Eric is on the ball and understands what people are saying and doing. I and some others find this obvious, but not everybody does. For one thing, he knows your name if he likes you, and if he…
Month: October 2012
Shannon Des Roches Rosa www.squidalicious.com Parallel exploration is a very reasonable and comforting way to socialize We’re not a family that stays home. We’re a family of excursioners. Still, there are places my eleven-year-old son adores yet which we avoid completely, because our usual techniques of “go early or go off season” can’t guarantee him a good time. One of those local places is the sensory and exploration wonderland known as the Children’s Discovery Museum of San Jose — there is no time in which it is not thronging with tiny shrieking moppets, and kids Leo’s age are generally perceived as Too Big. Which is why I am so glad the CDM recently held their second after-hours Play Your Way event — essentially a private party for Leo and his crew. As my co-editor Jen Myers wrote about the evening at Dandelion: “It is an almost obstacle-free evening…
Karla Fisher Karla’s ASD Page I was a single autistic parent with 1 neurotypical and 1 ASD child to my care. I “get” how tough parenting can be. I remember many a night lying in bed weeping for the alone/helpless feeling that I had. I had no idea sometimes how I was going to physically survive. My life was completely different after children. My “normal” was completely redefined. I could not keep relationships. I had no money. And yet through all of these tough times I never once had the urge to blame my children or anything about them for my broken relationships, my career failures or even my hard financial life. I had made the choices that got me and them into the tough spots that we were in and I had to make different choices to get us out. And that is what I did, all the while…