Non-verbal, endlessly tantrumming to the point of self-harm, unable to toilet train, always the kid that got me the bad stares and the comments out in public. When Rowan was diagnosed back in 2004, I could never have predicted this moment. Wolf,” Rowan puts the camera down and smiles. Rowan’s camera snaps the image for posterity. As Rowan levels the camera again, one wolf, a large male, his blue eyes just visible at this distance, turns and looks right at us. We’re grateful they aren’t spooked, for along the ridge opposite, above the bison, are what we have come so far to see: the wolf pack, grey and black ghosts moving silent as thought between the tall pines. If they’re bothered by the whirr of Rowan’s camera, they don’t show it. We follow.īelow us, a bison herd roots at the thick snow, their huge heads like bulldozers, moving the white stuff aside to get at the brown winter grass underneath. Rowan – my autistic son Rowan – nods, takes the camera, and shimmies the last few feet to the ridge.
“Ready for the camera?” I hope that the thin, cold wind doesn’t carry my words down to the little snowbound valley just beyond the crest of the snowbank. Blue shadows and bright sunlight dazzle the eye. We are creeping up the snowbank on our bellies, speaking in the softest whispers, trying to minimize the crunch of our bodies on the snow-crust and the scratchy noise of our REI winter gear.
0 kommentar(er)
