Underlining History

When I lived in New York City in the early 1990's I joined my first book club.  We were an eclectic group of women representing all stages of life; divorced, single, newly married, a new mom.  I vividly remember pulling together some form of peanut chicken for them when it was my turn to cook and wondering how I was going to fit 8 women in my studio apartment when I only had a loveseat and two chairs.  I was the youngest and newest member of the group and found the idea of sitting with other women to eat, drink and talk about books so cosmopolitan!   Occasionally, when the weather was nice, we would meet in Central Park after work and sit and talk about our latest read and my transformation to "single girl about town" was complete.  This was pre-Amazon, Kindles and Oprah's book list so most of our books came from newspaper reviews, book store recommendations or word of mouth and they were amazingly diverse.  Classics, historical fiction, first novels, science fiction, non-fiction - we read them all.  After three years the group slowly dissolved leaving my tiny apartment looking like an disheveled independent bookstore.  In many of the books I had underlined specific passages, because they touched me personally or moved me with the imagery, or both.  A more select group of them, Michael Ondaatje's The English Patient, Wallace Stegner's Angle of Repose and Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, for example, had quite a bit of shaky blue ballpoint and even some comments scattered throughout their pages.

Sadly, I can't remember the last time I underlined in a book.  The relationship between increased familial and business responsibilities and pleasure reading is inversely proportional.  It's incredibly difficult to underline in a board book (although Sandra Boynton's use of language is memorable!) and underlying a "work" related book feels too scholastic.  Since I've slowly started transitioning to e-books, I'm aware that there's a feature to highlight something on a Kindle but it doesn't feel the same.  When I notice that 138 people highlighted a section but only 4 found the one I just underlined to be important, my competitive juices start flowing.  And, ultimately that's not why I underline.  I underline for me. Because there's meaning to what I just read.

Upstairs in my attic I found a box of books and uncovered Angle of Repose and Crossing to Safety (another Wallace Stegner).  I started thumbing through it hoping this was the copy from New York and my eye caught a mark, and then another and another.  It was amazing to see and re-read these words that spoke to me so strongly so many years ago.  It truly was a small time capsule from 20 years ago. Here's a little of what I found:

"Touch. It is touch that is the deadliest enemy of chastity, loyalty, monogamy, gentility with its codes and conventions and restraints. By touch we are betrayed and betray others ... an accidental brushing of shoulders or touching of hands ... When one flesh is waiting, there is electricity in the merest contact.” 
- Wallace Stegner, Angle of Repose

“Youth hasn't got anything to do with chronological age. It's times of hope and happiness.” 

- Wallace Stegner, Crossing to Safety

“Hope was always out ahead of fact, possibility obscured the outlines of reality.” 
- Wallace Stegner, Angle of Repose

“There is another physical law that teases me, too: the Doppler Effect. The sound of anything coming at you- a train, say, or the future- has a higher pitch than the sound of the same thing going away. If you have perfect pitch and a head for mathematics you can compute the speed of the object by the interval between its arriving and departing sounds. I have neither perfect pitch nor a head for mathematics, and anyway who wants to compute the speed of history? Like all falling bodies, it constantly accelerates. But I would like to hear your life as you heard it, coming at you, instead of hearing it as I do, a somber sound of expectations reduced, desires blunted, hopes deferred or abandoned, chances lost, defeats accepted, griefs borne."

- Wallace Stegner, Angle of Repose

Recently I've been thinking about the 1987 essay Welcome to Holland by Emily Perl Kingsley.  A friend gave it to me shortly after we received my older son's autism diagnosis.  The essay elegantly, and succinctly, describes how it feels to raise a child with a disability.  The author writes about a long-awaited vacation to Italy that unexpectedly turns into a visit to Holland instead, artfully creating a metaphor for a typical child-rearing experience to that of raising a child with special needs.  How it would feel to exchange the Coliseum for windmills.  Or Prada for wooden shoes.  The essay resonated with me deeply at the time and over the years I referred it to others, as it did a better job of describing the confusion, grief, anger and isolation that one can feel.

We've been in Holland for over eight years now and time has truly softened my thoughts and feelings about the topic.  Which was why I was surprised that on a beautiful warm evening as I watched my 5 year old typically developing son and his teammates pounce on each other at a baseball game, that the idea of Holland and Italy rose again.

But this time it was different.  This time I was in Italy.

And it really is a remarkable place.  There is always something to do here -- playdates, birthday parties, shared carpools, invitations to outings with other families.  It's amazing how many things there are to see and do with a typically developing child.  You can go places that are noisy and crowded; places that involve competitive sports or unorganized activities.   My youngest participates in these almost effortlessly.  It's been an extraordinary five years.  At times I'm high from the newness of it all and, at others, teary eyed at what we missed with my older son.

Than there are moments like the one I had at the baseball game, where I wondered if Italy will make me forget what I learned in Holland.  If I'll forget to appreciate those small achievements because they come so easily in Italy.  Things like learning to swim, which happened so late for my oldest because it was hard to find a pool that was just the right temperature.  When my son finally passed his deep end test my husband cried.  I cried this past year when, at the age of eleven, my son slipped on his new sneakers, tied them himself and was ready to go in less than five minutes.  We started teaching him on his eighth birthday.  Or how last year on vacation he walked off and spontaneously joined two other kids on the beach for a pick up game of....wait for it...cricket.  For the rest of the vacation, my husband and I would mouth the word cricket to each other and smile giddily.

In her essay, Emily mentions that there are special and lovely things in Holland. But she doesn't mention the sheer joy that is there as well.  Joy from witnessing simple accomplishments.  Celebrations at reaching milestones that were thought to be out of reach for your child.   It's so important to treasure the big and the small achievements, the Italian and the Dutch moments.  Throughout the year I repeatedly glance at the tiny wooden windmill and ceramic leaning tower of Pisa on my desk. Reminders that it is possible and almost preferable to live in two different worlds simultaneously.