Of Names and Noses

Of Names and Noses

I gave my daughter a blog name first and foremost to respect her privacy. Oh, I’ve told her that I write about her sometimes, because she is so awesome and amazing and interesting and people need to hear about things like that. I’ve asked her permission as well, and she has, in her way, given it. Her understanding of the implications of having her name “out there” along with some of the stories of our life…well, it’s limited. So I prefer to provide an extra little cushion between her life and my tellings about it, and thus the pseudonym.

Why Bink?

Some years ago on a pretty blue and green star in a galaxy near you, a child was born. No ordinary child, this! She came with the requisite parts, but her mind was put together ever so differently, woven in complicated abstract designs. There was no instruction manual.

This child was given a beautiful name, and she was loved very, very much. As she grew, it was pretty clear she was not a mainstream sort of child, and the collection of anxieties and oddities, interests and delays and symptoms she embodied came to be called autism. She grew some more, and some words came, but she was not able to tell the world what she felt and what she needed, at least not in the regular way.

Her anxieties were growing, too, and they were super-sized and showed up in myriad ways. One of those ways had a lot to do with touching people. Not your standard hug or shake-a- hand kind of touch, but rather little fingers ( hers) darting out to bop a baby on the head, or touch a nearby nose. That kind of touch became something like compulsion, and that need got bigger and stronger when she was anxious, and that in turn made her more anxious. So there was the urge to touch, and then the anxiety about the urge to touch, and that made the urge even bigger, and round and round it went. She passed through the bopping babies on the head phase, but the urge to touch noses never did fade.

The child’s Chief Interpreter and bodyguard ( that would be me) was always looking for ways to make lemonade of the bumper crop of lemons that grew up in and around the autism, and the anxiety, compulsions and fears. Somewhere along the way, the child and the Chief Interpreter began to assign sounds to certain touches. It was a collaborative effort, and one day the fingers touching noses elicited a “Bink!” from the child, and CI laughed and smiled and this became a good thing, a fun thing. It was also a teaching tool about whom to touch, and where, and when, and so the child began to touch noses of family members and caregivers with a definitive “Bink!”, and that was OK or even good.

The next learning was about permission, a challenging concept for a person who had little sense of others having their own preferences and feelings and thoughts. The child learned that strangers and other non-caregiving types did not make that bink sound, and in fact made scowly faces and sometimes got upset and had what she came to call a ‘dangerous” voice. She also learned when and where the binks were not OK. In the car, for example, not OK to touch the driver’s nose unless stopped at a red light. Super Guy, my husband and Bink’s stepdad, and I had the whos, whats, and whens covered.

And so, the unified gesture and sound that is a bink moved right into the child’s life and became a permanent part of the lexicon. Sometimes the touching noses came when the child was anxious. This happened especially when she was in school and with people whose nose did not make a bink sound. When she was with her Chief Interpreter, though, and other assorted family members and understanding types, the child began to seek out binks for reassurance.

There even evolved a nose-to-nose bink, whereby she would touch the tip of her nose to another understanding sort of person, and a bink would come. This happened most especially with her CI, yours truly, though she sometimes would approach a select few with a request, “ Nose to nose?” Her CI hastened to assure the chosen few that this was indeed an honor, and they’d best partake.

Next came a variation where her nose would meet CI’s cheek or vice versa, and thus a cheek bink was born. This bink is and was reserved for CI alone. There is also a specific sound that precedes a cheek bink. It sounds like an awwww one might coo at a baby human or sweet little animal that embodies cuteness.

When Super Guy and Chief Interpreter had a talk about a blog name for this child ( who is now 24), no one or two words instantly arose in their minds. As they considered, over days, this young woman’s utterly unique ways of being, her quirks and her rituals, the bink thing began to rise from the mist. It just seemed so right, especially because it has evolved into a happy, loving thing.

So there, in a nutshell, is the background of the bink. It’s grown more nuanced over time; it now sometimes paired with a need to touch CI’s hair. For the record, the hair should be symmetrical, an equal amount of the left and the right. This is known as “two sides.” and in fact the day cannot begin without this sweet ritual. But that, my friend, is a story for another time.

–Melinda Coppola