Sunday, April 27, 2014


                                                               Aleister, My Aleister

 "A voice comes to your soul, saying, 'Lift your foot, cross over, move into the emptiness of question and answer and question."
                                        -Rumi

     This is how I feel when I am with my fourteen year old grandson, Aleister.  Question and answer and question.
     When I am with Aleister I feel as if I have just enrolled in some kind of "sublime university" for which I am not yet quite prepared, but I am eager to begin taking courses at because of the imaginative lessons which await me.
     Today, at lunch, Aleister began by looking me directly in my eyes and saying, "You know, I am seeing a new counselor now and I am able, in little little bits, to discuss my father and my grandfather.  I will tell you what I said about my grandfather[Jim] because these feelings are more on the surface, although they are not easy. I said, 'Grandpa Jim just told me 'what was what'. He said, "do this and don't do that" and I listened to him and understood and that was good. Whereas my mom sugar coats things. She means well, I know." (His voice went to a whisper, here). "Listen. I had a better relationship with Grandpa Jim than I have with my mom."
    At fourteen years of age, and autistic, Aleister's words strike me deeply.  He has been the target of unrelenting bullying.  His family (his mother, his other grandmother and myself) have moved in quickly to resolve these issues.  We know we are at war and we will do anything to lighten Aleister's load, which is to say we will do whatever we can do, and not one bit less.
     Aleister lives mainly in his mind.  Right now, in his mind,  there is a being named Fink who has no emotions except when certain buttons are pushed, and when the buttons are pushed his emotions are extreme. "Mama Kay,"Aleister says to me, "you know the phrase, "you are really pushing my buttons?"
     "I do," I say.
     "Well, that's how poor Fink lives," Aleister says.

     I know that's how Aleister lives, a lot of the time.

     Fink lives on a ship of multiple generations of technology, with a thin layer of indestructable layers of metal between each layer so if the shp crashes, nothing is destroyed.  "It's quite beautiful," Aleister says.
     I ask for more detailed information about Fink.  "How do you know so much about Fink?" I ask.
     "I can't tell you exactly HOW I know," Aleister responds, "but I can tell you that these beings come to existence in my mind when I am watching You Tube or petting my dog and they come to me complete with all the details.  Their entire stories are available to me, all at once.  I know what they like and what they don't like. I know who their heroes are.  I don't write them down, although I would say I am a better writer than most kids my age, because I don't write in what I call the 'Mary-SUe or Gary-Sue' tradition. That is, "Mary-Sue's are always happy and Gary-Sue's are always sure to be depressed. I rise above all that. I am the ship of multiple generations of generations, even in my own short lifetime."
     Oh, Aleister, my Aleister.
     When Aleister was five, and living with Jim and me, Jim wrote a book of Aleister's sayings. Friends caught sight of it and wrote to us, saying things like ".....so much for Socrates, we'll take Aleister!"
    We didn't know back then, that Aleister was autistic.
     Jim was Aleister's great advocate, his "beloved-beloved".  Jim took empty (big) cardboard boxes
and built a small town named Aleister-ville, expanding it from our family room down the hall through our living room. Shops, restaurants, each with a sign and windows and a door. When Aleister rode the yellow school bus to first grade, Jim drove his car behind it, making sure the bus driver made no mistakes.  We have, I have, a picture of Aleiser, glued to the window at the back of the bus, looking solemn, and waving.
     When Aleister was six or seven or eight or nine, and we would ask him what he wanted for his birthday or Christmas, he would say, "I want to buy a village a goat. Or a cow. Or two goats."You could take him to Target and he would yawn.  Now, he wants computer equipment.  Finely. Something I can wrap up.
     There is a being named Scott.  Scott grew up on the moon when the moon was lively and fighting for independence. Scott knew how to fix everything.  A collective of millions of species, including Prontius, who is completely robotic except for his brain, which remain his own brain...."you know, Mama Kay, I am saturated....what is the word?....overloaded!  I am overloaded with all this!"
     ""I know," I tell him.  "I know."
     I tell myself I must be willing to journey forward, to spiral as close to Aleister's center as I can.  I must be willing to be open, receptive and patient and remember that I am not always, even hardly ever, the teacher. I try to remember that this is a pilgrimage and I am caught in a labryrnth of sacred wonder and dedication.        

                                    "So to yield to life is to solve the unsolvable."
                                                 -Lao Tzu

     I don't think any of us are meant to be "solvable".  We are too complicated and nuanced for that.
It is surely enough that we listen to each other and enjoy each other and make way for the genius that we carry.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

How is your Aleister doing?