I went to see the movie It with my daughter and her boyfriend this afternoon. I ended up with a huge tension headache. If you're wondering what caused it, I will confess: I have a huge clown phobia. They have terrified me ever since a close encounter with a Benjamin Franklin clown at the Ringling Brothers circus in 1976. It wasn't pretty. He was drunk and threatened to throw me under an elephant.
I'm sure I will be having flashbacks for the rest of the evening. I may even sleep with the lights on.
Tonight, I'm going to be preparing for teaching and work. Making lunches. Doing some reading. Maybe some lesson planning. Picking out my outfit for tomorrow. My wife will be making lunches, as well. My daughter will be doing the homework she's put off all weekend. My son is taking his bath right now.
Things change, and things stay the same . . .
September 10, 2016: Locust, Down's Syndrome, Complex Innocence
In 1921 a Russian naturalist named Uvarov solved the mystery. Locusts are grasshoppers: they are the same animal. Swarms of locusts are ordinary grasshoppers gone berserk.
Grasshoppers gone berserk. Creatures transformed through drought or other natural calamity into something dangerous. Great hordes of locusts swarming over farmland and field, pillaging and marauding like shoppers on Black Friday, leaving behind shreds and stalks. Nature can be cruel. Locusts and tornadoes, tsunamis and earthquakes.
I have a sister with Down's syndrome. All my life, she was a loving presence. Everybody loved her. When I was in high school, the members of the football team loved her. I never went to a game, whether it was homecoming or playoffs. My classmates came to my house, picked up my sister, and brought her to the football games. Like I said, everybody loved her.
As people with Down's syndrome get older, they can sometimes change. Alzheimer's disease and dementia are fairly common. There's a genetic link between Down's and Alzheimer's. Over the last few years, my sister has become a different person. She asks the same questions over and over. Although she's always been stubborn, she was never mean about it. Now, she will become downright physical if things don't go her way. She's punched me on more than one occasion.
I'm not sure if that means that my sister is developing Alzheimer's. She's certainly not the girl who went to high school football games with my friends. It makes me a little sad. Sometimes she's the sister I remember from my childhood, but, more and more often, she's belligerent and downright mean.
People who are not around her on a daily basis don't recognize how different she is. In small doses, she is still sweet and funny, hugging everybody, saying, "You know, I love you." To those closest to her, however, she is just not the same. Of course, I know she's still the sister who I grew up with, but I miss the simple innocence. Her innocence now is more complex.
I love my sister. It's tough to see her aging and changing.
Saint Marty prefers the grasshopper.
And a poem for this evening . . .
The Miracle of the Bus
by: Martin Achatz
My son stands curbside, coiled tight. Waits for the
bus to appear in the morning light like some mythic mammal with beaver fur,
kangaroo tail, pelican mouth. He cocks his head, listens for the stampede
of diesel in the air. Distant at first. The way, I'm sure, buffalo
herds sounded in the Old West. Tremor. Tremble. Rumble.
Roar. Avalanche of back and horn and hoof. When it appears at the
end of the street, my son knows a miracle is about to happen.
He jumps, claps. If he had palm fronds, he'd be waving them, singing
hosannas with the rocks and trees. The bus groans to a stop. Its
door exhales, opens. My son ascends the steps. Slow. Heracles
climbing to Olympus, joining the other gods in this yellow chariot. The
door sighs. Closes. The bus coughs, moves off into the blue air,
leaving me, mere mortal, jealous, hungry for the ambrosia of chalk and crayon
and recess.
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