Parenting Neurodivergence

It is sky, and ice, granite ridges, denuded, unsoiled,

As foreign to their evergreen-cloaked, warm-glow-windowed feet as falling is to flying,

And there, again, are two ways to go,

At the turn of the pasture into the wood,

At the last gate, of the last enclosure,

At the base of the first gushing fall,

At the crest of the first false peak, and again, and again, and again,

Always, there are two ways to go,

And the engine has laboured hard and long and improbably

But to ease would be to feel the slip, slight at first, a point of slowing, a moment,

barely a moment,

Of pause, then the visceral reverse, the gathering speed, a deathly plummet.

The third way.

And so no. The engine labours and and the road divides and they said just keep driving up,

Down in the valley where the wind blows softly and the earth is rich, just keep driving up, it gets steep, but it's worth it.

Was there a different way?

On the backseat, squinting with fatigue and the shadeless sun,

Pieces of my heart beat faster, faster, in the thinning air,

Up is unmade, sliding grit and treacherous stones out along the granite ridge, towards the ice, towards the sky,

And at the end? Will we fall or fly? Or lay this starved heart out to die

While I watch,

And think about how the engine toiled and tell myself I did my best.

Oh, but my darling, what if you fly?

But the road divides.

Drops steeply down,

And steeper still

The cliff below,

So far to fall,

And barely a lip between path and empty space.

But is that the steady grey of stable ground, glimpsed between the evergreens? Is that the gold of turning leaves?

Is that a lamp, left on to guide us home, is that a laugh? A gently winding brook that flows,

And isn't trapped in frozen twists, strangled, contorted, pushing into crevasses

With slow determination, for far too many winters.

We left the whispering trees behind a long time ago,

Telling their story over and over. Just keep driving up.

We tilt.

For a second it could all be undone.

Breathe out, and empty, look your last at that peak.

Knowing all that you know, is it all it should be?

It is sky, too thin for breath.

It is ice, to cold for growth.

It is granite, barren, and hard and comfortless.

And the view is to die for.

Ease off the pedal, and it is quiet. It is still. It is breathing in deep,

Hearing the the the beat of my heart, slowing.

As up gives way to down,

It is the sickening gut plunge of second-guessing.

Perhaps it is feeling the ground, not slipping.