outside/in

Because of Miss M, I've always had a soft spot in my heart for the film, The Little Mermaid. No, we are not Disney Princess people, per se, nor does Miss M perseverate on Disney movies, as many of our friends do. Nothing you'd expect.

You see, I've always seen her as Ariel.

When she was a wee echolalic tot, she didn't have her own words to express what she was feeling, so she'd borrow Ariel's. When she was frustrated, she'd intone, "Daddy! You just don't understand!," with the same inflection as the sweet teenaged mermaid. This is not news to many of you, my friends - I'm sure we are all well-acquainted with echolalia. She used lines sparingly, and in perfect context, and she always elicited a chuckle from us and we marveled a bit at how cleverly she compensated her lack of pragmatic verbal skills.

The echolalia resolved itself fairly quickly. Ariel would pop up every few months or so in other ways. Once, we were at the zoo and passed a large boulder. She climbed up on top and mimicked Ariel's famous emergence from the sea, positioning herself on the rock just so, tossing her hair back.

Just a few months ago, she expressed her feeling of freedom and exhilaration of attending her new school by comparing herself to Ariel's feelings of independence at the acquisition of her new legs.

So, suffice to say, she's had The Little Mermaid floating around in her head for quite some time. Just occasional glimpses. In there somewhere, you know?

At her recital the other day, her teacher had her sing the song, Part of Your World, the lovely ballad that Ariel sings when she expresses how she longs to be part of the human world.

The irony was not lost on me that my beautiful daughter with autism would sing about longing for and joining another world. Her teacher couldn't know what the song meant to her, to us. He just knew that her voice was sweet and well-suited to key.

Last Saturday, the historic and beautiful Castro Theatre, which houses some of the best vintage cinema around, opened its big gay doors and hosted the Sing-Along-Little -Mermaid. Hustling the girls and their friends through the legendary Castro district, we ushered into the theatre, received our sound effects goody bags, and settled in with our popcorn.

Looking around, scads of gay men wore tiaras and pearls and clacked clackers next to little girls doing the same. Everyone sang and hooted and cheered and jeered, and, of course, my favorite part was watching my girls watch the movie.

Miss M was rapt, paying careful attention to the directions and cues given by the ersatz Ariel in costume. She sang along beautifully, eagerly blowing bubbles and clacking and applauding when given the cue. She corrected me when I sang a wrong lyric, and downright snapped at me when I was supposed to use my clapper and not clap with my hands.

I watched her and the other children enthusiastically providing sound effects and dancing, and had a mini-epiphany, in that darkened theatre, that afternoon. People want to be included. (Most) people want to have that community, that feeling of singing in unison, the experience of a joint experience, clapping and clacking and whistling at the same time. Of all of the children I observed, Miss M was the most willing participant - the reason, I believe, is her strong desire to be part of that world, and having the added challenge of trying to figure out how. Events such as this are a delight to Miss M, as the expectations are laid out for her. There is no guesswork to contend with.

I noted that the parents around us smiled and nodded at their children, while Drama Daddy and I sang loudly and whistled and clapped and barked like dogs when Max the Sheepdog appeared. Autism has changed us, I thought, as I noticed the lines in my husband's face. There is no polite reservation in our family; it is our honor and charge to be wholly and organically present at all times.

A day later, back at school/work, I was in a meeting with a very large, morbidly obese teacher who was breathing heavily next to me. She was complaining that the majority of her students were "learning disabled" (they're not) and asked why she had to get all the "hard ones." In an aside, she leaned over and said to me, "They give me all the retards."

The room spun. I couldn't respond. The word shocked me, repulsed me, and suddenly the credibility of this otherwise fine teacher disappeared. I assembled retorts and responses and lectures in my head. I took in this woman, herself disabled by her own self-infliction. She wheezed, and struggled to sit up in the special extra-wide rolling chair she uses.

I stared at her, not with anger, or pity, but in disbelief. She looked at me, her eyes hard in her porcine face. She was challenging me. Baiting me. Making a twisted bid for my attention - hoping that I would see her. "I'm sorry, Drama," she demurred, "I forgot how you are about that stuff," she said, and hefted herself up. She struggled out of the meeting, clutching her keychain that I've seen so many times before. It features an acrylic framed-picture of her severely disabled brother.

Some might call him retarded.

As she walked away, I thought about her story; why she might have used that word, why she would slowly kill herself at 500 pounds, why she chose me as her unfortunate confidante. What was her story? Why so angry and sad and hurtful?

I might be out on a limb here, but I do think that my Little Mermaid experience had something to do with the morbidly obese teacher, her unfortunate use of the word retard, and perhaps the longing of one person wanting to belong to another world. Maybe she needed to be seen? Is that the reason for her grotesque claim to space - so that she doesn't disappear? Is she eating out of grief for her brother?

Let me make this clear: She is not to be excused for her repugnant use of the word.

But it does give me pause. And has me wondering.

Does she need to be lambasted? Absolutely.

Does she need to be included? Embraced? To be part of something whole - a bigger community to meet the vastness of her feelings?

Yes.

To be part of our world. Somebody's world.

I'm thinking that's why people grasp at base, primitive, ugly words.

Unlike Miss M, they haven't the grace to use someone else's words until they find their own.