Making Walk With Will
Will and I go on walks when I work with him. The whole time I worked with him are almost all of it, will holds my hand. I tried to use the opportunity, every opportunity, for communication practice, and I realized on the walks, about Will’s hands. His hand is alive in my hand. It’s like no hand holding I’ve ever had. The hand talks to me. I try to let him make all the decisions about how far we walked, when and where we turn around and go back. Before Will finds the words, his hand starts telling me. His hands are soft and sensitive and pale, like an aristocrat Will looks like an aristocrat, happily, chubby, a hot tea, Italian face, blonde hair and nice blue eyes. His heart shaped face is now emphasized with a second chin because his meds making him fat. That’s one of the reasons I have instructions to take him on walks. Honestly, he takes me on the walks. I have leader house disease, which means recurrent plantar fibroma growth, and I’ve had two surgeries and I still I’m trying to get the scar tissue under control. My walking is very off-balance and uneven. But I discovered that will is the same off balance that I am, his inside foot flops down hard and the outside foot lingers too long in the air. Every time I shower, I work on shaving down the calluses on my feet so that I can live out my life without wheelchair stuff. Will also has a pretty big callus on his outside foot on his heel. Since I’ve become a debridement expert, I wish I could offer to shave it down. Who knows why we both slam down on the inside foot and avoid the outside foot. I noticed that when we get into a rhythm, it’s like no one could beat us in the three legged race. Leaning on each other, we can get into a walk-in groove. Sometimes there’s no groove and he’s dragging me along or I’m limping pathetically to keep up with him. I say a few things in my normal voice to him on these walks things I wouldn’t say in front of his family. I try not to say too much or he will get confused and upset. The risk is that I make too many references at once. But I told him about my foot and I thanked him for helping me walk. To say where we’re getting into our three legged groove, and as usual, I was focusing all my attention on trying to make my feet walk the same, and I noticed that between our two hands, there was a little bit of pressure that was almost like a crutch where we were pushing off each other for our weaker points of our step. Her hands really talk to each other and here they are forming a crutch that helps us speed up, rather than being left behind, which is always my fear. I mean, I feel like I have been left behind a lot. Or, I feel like people would leave me behind. I’m slower than most people realize. Besides, holding hands the thing I do the most with well that I’ve ever done with anyone is eye contact. If you didn’t realize that he’s considered low functioning autistic so none of the interactions really follow normal social rules, including eye contact. Sometimes we stare at each other, and I do a little low-key rocking that imitates his rocking, and I almost get lost in his eyes. I think, oh my God, I can see you in there and you can see me. Our ages don’t matter at all because he’s never gonna have a normal relationship and I’m close to 50. I don’t wanna date well, but I can’t help but notice the levels of intimacy available even from just staring into someone’s eyes for a long time. Or finding your rhythm, walking together, linked physically and spiritually. Not mentally. Mentality isn’t everything. Compared to a computer we’re all slow and stupid. The smarter you are the more you put your eggs in the book basket. But there are things to experience that are outside of it, and outside of any prescription, beyond and beneath words. If Will says anything spontaneous, it’s usually a really strange sounding wow, whoa, etc. If he makes a genuine request, it said in a tiny whisper. But when he plays the tapes of conversations, he’s heard it sounds like fast-forward on loud. I like when he rocks, flaps, and reviews conversation tapes, which is how I think of it. Intermittently between the sound of a fast forwarded tape, little phrases come out that let you know what it’s from like, “thank you, well, congratulations, you’re right!” things people sat at the dinner table. I’m nosy sometimes they’re an interesting family. I’m like a fly on the wall. Sometimes they drive me crazy overall I think they’re good people. Of course his mother ruined him and is also the person who loves him the most, and would do anything for him. She spoils the fuck out of him. She made him the head of the family. She’s an aristocratic queen, and she made him the prince and also the baby, forever. I love Will. I won’t even put it in any type of category. I’ve never had such a moving hand holding experience where every little movement of the fingers was so important. Sometimes I feel like he’s Helen Keller. But he’s not blind. It’s like he’s language blind. It’s like he’s an animal, an elephant or something we don’t understand.