this is us
We walk down the tree-lined sidewalk, pilgrims to Knowing, our bodies dappled with sun and dark, blotting leaves, our feet climbing a shadowy canopy. The air is thick with rain that just won’t fall; we glance up at a few steel-colored clouds backlit and rimmed in sunlight. We have logo-printed ponchos they gave us at the start, but we don’t know whether to put them on or take them off, so we do both intermittently, punctuating progress with the rustle of plastic. The chancellor’s walk they call this at the college, because the thoroughfare passes between most of the academic buildings, those towers of warm red brick with their impressive columns and bold doors. Between stops, the tour guides casually gesture here and there with their hands; they answer questions calmly posed by those strolling closer to the front; they toss out interesting facts too specific for the brochures or the front page of the website. They pause in front of one of the buildings, and as a group we begin to form a wide half-moon around them. The guide most clearly in charge, an uber-involved junior who at every pause shares personal stories about a relevant club or committee or initiative, rattles off a few facts about the honors college. She asks if anyone has questions, lifts her hand in encouragement, and Adam quietly lifts his hand too.
The tour guide raises her eyebrows, as if to welcome the inquiry, but Adam just stands there, his hand tentatively raised, murmuring softly as he sometimes does. Zoe shakes her head slightly in dismissal, which seems to be enough to set the tour guide on her way again with only minimal awkwardness. We start off down the sidewalk, chuckling a little, Zoe and Kevin and I sharing a this is us smile. Adam doesn’t embarrass me, but in situations like this one, I do wish some easy explanation offered everyone some dignity. I want to label him, autism emblazoned on a t-shirt maybe, only an acknowledgment meant to signal a predictable departure from expectations. But I recognize that desire for what it is, some responsibility I’ve taken that isn’t really mine.
As we parade down the sidewalk, Adam leans in toward me the way he often does when he has something real to say, and says, his voice low and confiding, “Time to go to Zoe’s car.”
“Not yet,” I say conspiratorially, thinking how patient he’s been already, how good to go along with what to him must be a mostly incomprehensible ramble of foreign words in a place he doesn’t understand. What college will be for Zoe it can never be for him; his classroom, his knowledge, is different. Adam processes more information, not less, and the rustle of those leaves, the scrape of our shoes against pavement, the murmurs and sounds of all the other people on the tour, the feel of the breeze, the heat, the slash of light against stone, the cars driving by, the people who have nothing to do with this at all, all of it and much more than I am even secondarily aware competes for his attention. This whole time, Adam must feel five sentences behind, having entirely lost the topic by the time he deciphers the familiar words. He’s remarkably calm for someone so beleaguered, but sometimes it is too much, and that’s why he murmurs. The recitation of familiar phrases drowns out some of the sensory information, like white noise.
“What do you want to do?” I ask Adam softly. “What, besides this?”
He looks away, flicks his gaze out over the grass, before leaning close to me again. “I don’t know,” he says carefully, giving me a tender grin, and I feel a thrill that I get to be the keeper of Adam’s confidences. He swaddles his ordinary words in silk, like secrets. And isn’t it the greatest honesty to admit to feeling lost? I don’t know; that’s not an easy thing to say. Adam reaches up, lightly touches my ear, for the same reasons maybe another boy would drape an arm around his mother’s shoulders. He is in all ways lean, my son, sinewy of soul and strong, well-suited to the walking, which he does now with open hands, not even a grip upon his pride. In that one gentle movement, he says all the things I would say in sentences. I think of a line I read in a book recently, about how most of the time, the words that are not written down are the ones you need most. Right now, I feel as though I know all the knowing there ever is to know, as though I’m stepping across the sky.
