a universal shoulder rub

While the last few weeks have been a universal ass-kicking to put me in the right place to be doing whatever it is I'm doing, this week has been the equivalent of a universal shoulder rub. A giant Hand reached down out of the clouds, patted my hand and squeezed my shoulder reassuringly. The Hand did not talk, nor did it tell me what to do next (because hands don't talk, silly), but it wiped my brow, and then it patted a few angels on the ass and sent them into the game.

I live in a very traditional Catholic neighborhood, that's full of large families, and many of them homeschool. Jim and I are not Catholic. No one here has ever looked down on us or left us out. To the contrary, our daughter's best friends are those families' kids, and they know us pretty well as a result. I'm sure we've always been (not disparagingly) "those people who park their Cadillac in the yard" and "those people with the daughter with the blue hair and the father with the braids" and "those people who sit outside and listen to their jukebox loudly." But now we're "those people who park their Cadillac in the yard, have the daughter with the blue hair and the father with the braids, sit outside and listen to their jukebox loudly and homeschool their son." As Truman and I took our daily walk around the 'hood this week, I literally had people coming out of their homes handing me math books that their kids had outgrown and offers of help. I had hugs and pep talks. I had angels that didn't even know they were on the field. (Or maybe they did. Their line to the Hand might be more direct.)

I have had Facebook messages, emails and blog comments. I have had texts, phone calls and conversations that left me teary with gratitude. I've had people reach out that I had no idea had homeschooled at one time or another. All of them had different things to say, but all of it was usually pretty well-timed to my most frustrating and vulnerable moments (the Hand likes to show off, I think).

Truman is participating in a really exciting study through Vanderbilt's TRIAD, its autism research department, about the effects of oxytocin in autism and how it might help social skills. This will be a year-long study and require lots of visits and interviews. This week we went in for our first appointment, and Truman was feeling nervous. Even though we had been sent a social story that explained every single thing that was going to happen at the interview, none of which was scary, hospitals are just generally scary places to a kid. But the Hand, who must've been feeling pretty smarty-pants that day, sent in an extra special player to be the first face we saw at the appointment. One that I have known since childhood, and one with an extra special gift for making kids feel comfortable. Truman spent the rest of our time at Vandy that day feeling like some kind of movie star. You see, it's tough to be "that kid" for most of the time. And when you're at a place where all of the kids are "that kid" and the people who run the place think that "those kids" are quite interesting and in fact they study them and know how to talk to them, well, it just makes you want to go back. And in fact, you might ask your mom over and over and over when you get to go back even though she already told you that it might be a month or so but you keep asking just in case the answer has changed to maybe something a bit sooner because it was such an awesome place. See? Show off.

The Hand is cutting me a break at the moment. The Hand is giving me a refueling time. I can see the Hand's hand, and I think I know it works. It can't all be shoulder rubs all the time. There will be plenty of times when I will yell at the Hand to send a shoulder rub down because my back can't take much more, but the Hand will say that I'll have to do some shoulder rubbing for someone else who could use it a little more right then. In fact, I may be rubbing a shoulder right now and not even realize it.

For now, I'm stockpiling my universal shoulder rubs.