I am still fumbling with my latest draft of the memoir. It is close to complete but still does not completely hang together. It needs two or three more pieces written to make the story complete as I have imagined it, but those missing pieces are not going to hold the whole thing together.  I don’t seem to have the will to write them. I am not giving up, but the process is stuck right now.

Come to think of it, I am fumbling with way too much right now. I am painting poppies. I finally have an idea for a large watercolor—finally figuring out a way to use the big and lovely paper that Ed gifted me with. Should I have put that paper away as soon as I got it—saving it for a time when I feel . . . . what?. . . competent? . . worthy? . . . at least not wasteful?  It was not his intention to intimidate me with good watercolor paper, but nonetheless, it has. I have shunned the idea of taking some formal lessons, opting for coping online videos and relying on my own ideas. Perhaps it is time to change my plan, but this is not to decide today.

I am having a challenge to read what I want to read and write much of anything. I want the balm of spring!

Fumbling and scattered.  Some notes that may not hang together:

Because I have a Wednesday afternoon class at HILR for the next ten weeks, I cannot pick Julia up to do her library volunteer work on Wednesdays. The easiest afternoon is Fridays, but if she does that, we will drive right from the library to her dance class. That is a lot for her in one day.  We tried it last week, and it went well.  She was game this morning to try again. She is still loving the dance classes.  I have not managed to steal a peek in to see her dance. Trusting the process that she is moving and not sitting watching.

Two weeks ago, Ed and I were at a gathering of parents/siblings/caregivers whose people had been at the Price Center for a year or less. Julia’s year mark was a few days before the gathering, so Julia’s experience was longer than most of the others.  It was an informal, meet-and-greet kind of evening. We wore name tags that had our name and our person’s name noted. We introduced ourselves, talked about challenges, talked about the relief of finding the Price Center, talked about housing fears that everyone has, about dealing with DDS and the other lettered agencies. The CEO and board members were there, and we all talked to them as well.

Reading that paragraph over, it might sound anxious or depressing, but I tell you it was not!  Good food didn’t hurt, but it was all that talking, the inkling of community that was feeding some very hungry souls.  So many of us told the CEO and board members that we wanted more of this kind of gathering, that we needed this kind of community.  

And I left more optimistic than I have been in months, perhaps years even.

Two parents I met recognized Julia’s name and told me how very nice she had been to them when they toured the Center. How friendly she was!  I had to ask the first parent if they really meant the shortish, Chinese girl. Julia has not reported back home of her friendliness at all. She is, in fact, quite surly when I ask her about her days. 

Then another parent told me that his son is still pretty new at the Center, and that he mentions Julia all the time. He is shy, and apparently, Julia has been kind to him without being intrusive. Julia has mentioned this young man, telling me he is shy and doesn’t ever want to be touched, but I had no idea that she was befriending him. When I asked her after the gathering about him, she told me what Shane’s mother had told me.

Do you know how rare it is for parents who have neurodivergent offspring to be told lovely things about their children/young adults?

I found it hard to connect this impression of Julia to the person she sometimes shows at home. She can be loving to me and can be somewhat attentive to Ed, but she does not talk about offering any of that to those outside the house. Even her therapist, who comes to the house weekly, has to go through part of every session with Julia rejecting her. 

I wonder and hope that Julia is showing another side to herself when she is out of the house.  Would that it be so.