The Mama Sutra by Anne Cushman

Author:Anne Cushman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Shambhala
Published: 2019-04-15T16:00:00+00:00

* * *

—

At the playground, Forest sits and watches the other children playing on the slide, like an anthropologist watching the activities of a tribe he finds intriguing but incomprehensible.

“Go down the slide,” I urge him. “Show me that you know how to do it.”

“I know how to do it!”

“Then show me.”

He pauses. “Do you know how to go down the slide?” he asks, cannily.

“Yes, I know.”

“Then why don’t you show me?”

* * *

—

Shortly after Forest started social skills training, he and I were sitting on a grassy slope above a playground overlooking the San Francisco Bay—dotted with windsurfers, sailboats, and ferries carrying suburban commuters to and from their jobs in the financial district. Rollerbladers, bikers, and joggers flashed by on the wide, paved bike path behind us.

As he pulled his peanut-butter sandwich out of his backpack, another mom sat down beside us, watching her daughter on the swing set below.

“What are you having for lunch?” the mom asked Forest.

“Well,” he said thoughtfully, “for solids, I am having a peanut-butter sandwich. For a liquid, I am going to have a juice box. Actually, of course, the box is solid. It’s what’s inside it that’s liquid.”

The woman looked over at me with a kind of recognition, like one member of a secret society meeting another. I almost expected her to offer me the secret handshake. “He reminds me of my son Jake at that age. That’s just the kind of thing he would have said.”

“Would your son go down the twisty tube slide?” I watched her daughter whirl down it, shouting with glee.

“Are you kidding? I’d have to force him. He’d be wailing, and I’d be there on the slide with him in my lap, saying ‘This is fun!’ as I tried to get through the tubes without smashing my head.”

“Forest would rather categorize by species the flowers next to the swing than actually sit on the swing,” I confessed.

“Jake liked to count the bricks in the wall by the sandbox. You know what worked better than anything else? Sensory integration training. You do it with an OT—an occupational therapist. It just seemed to get him inside his own skin.”

“How’s Jake doing now?”

She laughed. “Oh—he’s fine. He’s in first grade. He has a best friend. He’s still way more into astronomy than T-ball, but who cares? Call Children’s Therapy Services in San Rafael. Ask for Teresa. She’s amazing. I think she could get a robot to dance and fall in love.”

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