We are pausing on a bridge
over the dwindling stream
that crawls through our large,
local dollop of green, Bird Park,
because we always pause, she and I,
on every little bridge
that spans any river anywhere,
so she can look down
from first one side,
then the other,
at that liquid light
which is water in the daytime,
one of many rituals
that string our days and months
together
like a prayer flag.
I watch her watching water,
wondering if she notices
how much thinner the stream
than just last week,
and my ear goes towards the toddler
just arrived and
tumbling in the grass nearby,
which calls my gaze there, too.
The child laughs and spins
as her female loving presence-
Mother, Nanny—tosses a little pink ball.
Too quickly to stop,
ball is rolling into stream.
Just as fast,
the child’s laughter turns to wails,
improbably huge, garish sounds
from such a small body,
and my gaze shifts back to daughter,
who is now squinting,
now covering her ears,
turning away from bridge and water
and back towards the safety of the path
leading away from wailing child.
Now daughter is tense,
and each person, each dog we pass
might be a reason to become undone,
an insult to the tightly wound
system of nerves and cellular memories
ticking in linear, illogical time
and I think of all of us,
everywhere,
living with and without Autism,
carrying years of triggers,
a hundred reasons to become undone,
and how we are each,
at any given hour, maybe
a few breaths away from meltdown,
and the marvel is
how we hold it together,
or pretend to,
in a time when mass shootings
are just a few more storms
punctuating the news cycle,
and everything seems cracked,
precarious.
We find the safety of the car,
she and I,
and an hour later she is
singing in the market,
luscious bluesy notes
in perfect pitch,
and my own triggers recede,
and I think yes,
yes, this is how we go on.
This is how we’ll go on.
-Melinda Coppola
