Life, Animated (38 page)

But we’ve come around on that—a gradual acceptance, across years, that Owen is different, not diminished, capped by the debates over nuanced issues of villainy and virtue with him and his Disney Club members. It has affirmed for me and Cornelia the conviction that Owen, and so many folks like him, are, in essence, exactly like the rest of us,
only more so and less so
.

The
less so
parts for those like Owen with autism are conspicuous characteristics that separate them from the wider world, and bring swift judgment about their limitations; the
more so
parts are often subtle and opaque, hidden. With Owen and the other kids in his Disney Club, we’ve learned that each person’s chosen affinity, their passion, no matter what it is, can be a pathway to reach them.

Among the most surprising things we stumbled across was how important it was to Owen to accord respect to his affinity—no matter how seemingly narrow or arcane it may be viewed by the wider culture. It affirms his worth. To treat it only as a handle, to grab and pull him into something of our choosing, or twist his interest into an elusive reward, is demeaning.

There’s a reason—a good enough reason—why each autistic person has embraced a particular interest. Find that reason, and you will find them, hiding in there, and maybe get a glimpse of their underlying capacities. Authentic interest will help them feel dignity, and impel them to show you more, complete with maps and navigational tools that may help to guide their development, their growth. Revealed capability, in turn, will lead to a better understanding of what’s possible in the lives of many people who are challenged.
Affinity to Capability to Possibility.

As the Disney Club members now say, it’s about “finding the hidden ears” and soaring past judgment—in their own mind and, hopefully, in the view of others. It’s not all that different from what Sally Smith did by celebrating her learning disabled achievers. Views changed. The learning disabled were seen as different, not less.

As Cornelia and I were driving home from a Disney Club meeting back in late May, we discussed how angry we were at Smith—and remain so about Owen’s expulsion—but how we better understand her
going public
strategy.

If the world could visit a few meetings of Disney Club, Cornelia said, it would alter the view of autistics, and so many others who’ve been discarded. They’d be seen, she said, with new eyes and that could change everything.

As we enter Takoma Park, Maryland, and close in on Dan’s office, Owen says, let’s do “that love business.”

Lately, we’ve been doing this at least once a day.

“Okay, you do Merlin,” I say, which means I can do the young Arthur, who, thankfully, has only one line.

“You know, lad, this love business is a powerful thing,” he says in Merlin’s reedy, old man’s voice.

“Greater than gravity?” I respond as Arthur.

“Well, yes, boy, in its way.” Owen pauses, considering it all, just as the wizard does in, this, probably his favorite of all passages. “Yes, I’d say it’s the greatest force on earth.”

Romantic love. It’s running through him, first and fresh, which is what he tells Dan as they sit again in the magic office. “I’ve fallen in love with a wonderful, kind, beautiful, soft, and gentle girl, who likes the same things I like—animated movies, mostly hand-drawn, and mostly from Disney.”

Dan is giddy. He wants to know everything about Emily, and Owen lays it all out: the tale of how they met, their first kiss, her visit to Vermont.

For so long, in this cozy office and others around Washington, DC, we spoke with professionals on Team Owen about motivation. Whether it’s learning to read, understanding general and required knowledge, or engaging with peers, he has
to want it
; to feel enough satisfaction or affirmation in the effort—or the reward, just up ahead—that he can harness those self-directed energies. Again, just like all of us, only more so and less so. Who hasn’t struggled with deferred gratification? But we usually do what we have to, work hard each day in often a numbing or thankless effort for a distant goal. Our social interactions, though, don’t feel so much like work. We engage instinctively, with sensations and often satisfactions freely harvested in the search itself.

For Owen, much of that remains hard work. Despite him often saying to Dan his aim is to be popular—a catchall for the joys of connecting with other people—that goal, largely theoretical, has been like watery fuel in his sputtering engine.

Now, it’s high-octane. That’s what a first kiss can do. Again, like any of us, sure, only more so. His ability to hyper-focus, to systemize moments he remembers precisely, poring over them again and again, teasing out clues, means he’s been thinking about that day in Vermont every day since—maybe fifty times a day. Every look that was exchanged. Every word Emily uttered—and she can be quite talkative when she’s comfortable. The way they kissed. And they kissed often through the day, something they can’t do at school.

Emily didn’t bring her bathing suit, but they waded in the lake, nonetheless. On the dock, as she sat on a chaise lounge, Owen tenderly dried her feet. She didn’t have to ask.

The specific therapeutic yield of this awakening is an intense focus, at long last, on what most people do instinctively—social engagement—but at its very highest peak: the mysteries of how two people can be like one.

Again, he finds plenty to work with in his chosen affinity. He tells Dan that Aladdin and Jasmine have been helpful. “I need to give her space. That’s what Aladdin learns. Jasmine needs to make the choices for herself. She has to choose and he needs to know what she wants, with her asking.”

Dan, presses forward on his chair, his face close to Owen’s. “But how can you know what she wants?”

Owen nods immediately. He’s on it. “I have a song.”

He explains it is from a movie called
Quest for Camelot
, an Arthurian romance a few Disney expats produced for Warner Brothers in 1998, during the same summer as
Mulan
from Disney and
A Bug’s
Life
from Pixar.

Okay, got it, Owen, Dan says.
The song?

“Oh right. The song is called ‘Looking Through Your Eyes.’”

Dan doesn’t know it. Owen sings a few lines he likes the best.

I see the heavens each time that you smile.

I hear your heartbeat just go on for miles.

And suddenly I know why life is worthwhile,

looking through your eyes.

He explains that he listens to the song every morning, “to make sure I don’t forget to see the world through her eyes.”

For nearly ten years, he’s been coming to see Dan in this basement office, trying to decipher the subtle patterns of how people connect with one another. It’s clear Owen is now well along in doing that for himself, in his own special fashion.

“Owen, my good friend,” Dan Griffin says, his eyes glistening, “it’s fair to say, you’re on your way.”

Owen stands up, that little curly-haired boy, now a man, almost Dan’s height, and smiles, a knowing smile of self-awareness.

“Thank you Rafiki. For everything.”

“Is friendship forever.”

“Yes, Owen, it often is.”

“But not always.”

“No, not always.”

It’s later that night, and we’re driving down Connecticut Avenue after seeing the latest from Disney (and Pixar),
Brave.
What better way to spend our last night in DC.

The movie was fine, ending—like most of them—with an array of morals, precepts about faith and family.

I think I understand, now, from a deeper place, how he—and some of his Disney Club friends—use the movies and why it feels so improbable. Most of us grow from a different direction, starting as utterly experiential, sorting through the blooming and buzzing confusion to learn this feels good, that not so much, this works, that doesn’t, as we gradually form a set of rules that we live by, with moral judgments at the peak.

Owen, with his reliance from an early age on myth and fable, each carrying the clarity of black and white, good and evil, inverts this pyramid. He starts with the moral—a whole diverse array of them—which, year by year, he’s been testing in a world colored by shades of gray. That tension of his journey, testing whether these ancient principles (most Disney movies end with one) are real.

This is the reason he watches his favorites so regularly. It refreshes him in the daily conversation between black and white and shades of gray, between moral precept—
beauty lies within, be true to yourself,
love conquers all
—and messy life. It’s the many sidekicks who help him navigate that ongoing and eternal debate, as they often do for the heroes in their movies.

I let the exchange about whether friendship lasts forever hang, unresolved. “I know love lasts forever!” he says, filling the silence.

We’re approaching Chevy Chase Circle, five minutes from the house. I’m seeing some patterns now, too—how we’re always five minutes away from our street, moving in a quiet, vibrating car when his breakthroughs occur. This time I’m ready. I need to touch upon the fear, if gently, that making friends or finding love entails risk. There’s no guarantee of forever. There may be heartbreak. But we do it anyway.

I drop this bitter morsel into the mix, folding around it an affirmation that he took a risk when he went to an unfamiliar place on Cape Cod, far from his friends and home, and found love. The lesson, I begin, is, “To never be afraid to reach out.”

He cuts me off. “I know, I know,” and then summons a voice for support: it’s Laverne, the gargoyle from
The Hunchback of Notre
Dame
.

“Quasi,” he says, in the voice of his beloved Mary Wickes. “Take it from an old spectator. Life’s not a spectator sport. If watchin’s all you’re gonna do, then you’re gonna watch your life go by without you.”

He giggles under his breath, then does that little shoulder roll.

“You know, they’re not like the other sidekicks.”

He’s jumped ahead of me again. I scramble.

“No, how?”

“All the other sidekicks live within their movies as characters, walk around, do things. The gargoyles only live when Quasimodo is alone with them.”

“And why’s that?”

“Because he breathes life into them. They only live in his imagination.”

“Okay, I get that. But still they’re wise and they guide him, like the other sidekicks.”

He nods. I do too. Everything goes still.

“What’s that mean, buddy?”

He purses his lips and smiles, chin out, like he got caught in a game of chess. But maybe he wanted to.

“It means the answers are inside of him,” he says.

“Then why did he need the gargoyles?”

“He needed to breathe life into them so he could talk to himself. It’s the only way he could find out who we was.”

“You know anyone else like that?”

“Me.”

He laughs a sweet, little laugh, soft and deep.

And then there’s a long pause, giving space to the moment of clarity.

“But it can get so lonely, talking to yourself,” my son, Owen, finally says.

“You have to live in the world.”

T
here is a boy who is like other boys. He is happy and playing, with a mom and a dad, an older brother and friends. Until one night, he sees from his window a storm on the horizon. He is small, just three years old, and he’s scared. He calls for his parents and hears nothing. He thinks he’s alone and runs out into the night to find them and gets lost in the terrible rain and wind and lightning. He crosses a bridge that collapses behind him. There’s no way he can get home.

He finds himself in a dark forest. He wanders, all alone. Then he sees something in the woods and hears a voice.

“Hey there, son.” He knows this voice and turns to see a character. It’s Jiminy Cricket, who says, “Well, you seem to know me, son. Who are you?”

The boy says his name is Timothy and he’s lost and can’t get back home. “Where am I?” he asks.

Suddenly, a crab appears. The boy knows him, too. It’s Sebastian from
The Little Mermaid
.

They tell the boy this forest is the Land of the Lost Sidekicks.

“Why are you lost?” the boys asks.

“Because our heroes have already fulfilled their destiny,” Sebastian answers. “We have no purpose.”

Jiminy says that there are many sidekicks like them, wandering in the woods. But there is also evil in the forest. “There are villains, real villains, and we have to face them without heroes,” he says. “What we do is tell the stories of what was—our adventures past—to try to find the qualities of the hero within ourselves, or within each other, though we’re still sidekicks.”

Timothy says, “I’m a sidekick, too!”

And they take him in as one of their own.

In time they meet a villain. He’s Lord Fuzzbuch. He’s mischievous, in a destructive way. He wears a cape, has a small scepter. He can breathe noise and fire into your head. It leaves you foggy and confused and spinning in circles.

Jiminy and Sebastian try to protect Timothy from Fuzzbuch. He’s still small and they’re a type of sidekick—the protective sidekicks—that defend the small and the weak. When Fuzzbuch approaches, they have the boy look intently at them and sing songs, one after another, that makes him relaxed and full of joy. The power of the music blocks Fuzzbuch’s fire. Unable to breathe his fire into the boy’s head, he finds it backing up inside his black cape until he spins off into smoke and confusion.

But soon the sidekicks meet another villain, a large, clumsy beast, who wears armor that’s cold and steely. He’s called Graytron. He freezes whoever crosses his path. It’s hard to tell people apart when this happens. Their vivid colors vanish as they’re trapped inside this ice. That’s when he walks among them, seeing whether their shade of icy gray matches his shade, while he decides whether to shatter them with his sword. Which is what happens to the trio. As Graytron walks among them, trying to decide, new sidekicks emerge from the forest. They’re goofy and fun, and live for the moment, singing their songs, “Bare Necessities” and “Hakuna Matata.” Baloo and Timon create confusion around Graytron and tell the frozen sidekicks that fear is what gives Graytron his power; that thinking of the simple joys of the moment—as many moments as they can—will restore their vividness, their true colors, and melt the ice. Which is what happens just in time, as Graytron prepares to swing his shattering sword. The warmth they create is so great that Graytron himself melts.

There are now five sidekicks, including Timothy. They figure things out among themselves—the protective ones and the goofy ones—trying to find in each other the qualities of the hero. Then they meet a villain sidekick—a parrot—who says he’s turned from evil to good. At first they don’t believe him, but he’s very funny and Baloo says, “anyone with a sense of humor has to have some good in them.” His name is Iago and, before he leaves them, he tells the band of the fearsome Goretezzle, the most powerful villain in the forest, who can change form at will, and does. He can become anything, instantly. He’s a shape-shifter. He lies, but it’s impossible to tell what is true and what is not, especially when the lies become horrific monsters and scenes that seem to be happening all around you.

The stories are so scary the boy searches for sidekicks who can train him for battle, and finds two new ones in this Land of the Lost Sidekicks: Phil, who once trained Hercules, and Lucky Jack, the wily jackrabbit from
Home on the Range.
They’re
training sidekicks, the type that prepares you to meet the challenges of the world, by building strength and skill. They train the group—finding hidden strengths in each of them. But in a terrible struggle, the Goretezzle is too much. Timothy and the other sidekicks are overwhelmed. They flee in fear, running and running.

That’s when they meet Rafiki, who asks “what are you running from.” The sidekicks, a roving team of seven, are now far from the Goretezzle, and don’t have an answer. Rafiki says they’re running from “the truths within,” and introduces them to his partner, Merlin. The final pair of sidekicks—the wise sidekicks—has arrived. Those are the four different kinds of sidekick: protective, goofy, training, and wise.

To help Timothy find “truths within” the wise sidekicks introduce him to a girl who also wanders in the forest. Her name is Abigail. She’s just like him. Lost, with no way home, and accompanied by her own pair of sidekicks, Timothy Mouse, from
Dumbo
, and Big Mama, from
The Fox and the Hound
.

The group is completed—now ten sidekicks. With Timothy and Abigail, there are twelve. Twelve sidekicks searching for a hero. It’s Rafiki, meditating over the past—“trying to learn from it”—who asks Merlin, “How did you actually become so wise?”

Merlin responds angrily, “You should never ask a wizard the source of his powers. Surest way for him to lose them!”

But Timothy says to wait. He says that he and Abigail are alike. “We both remember too many moments, every moment. But we keep running through them in our heads, because some of them hold clues about who we are.”

Merlin is convinced. He digs into his book of spells, conjures one that will allow him to remember “the first moment I opened my eyes.”

In a swirl of fire, he returns to that very moment. He sees himself taking shape on the animator’s drafting table and he sees a mirror. “There was a mirror on the table,” the wizard says. “In it, I could see a reflection of the creator.”

The sidekicks gather and consider Merlin’s words. They’re facing a villain of overwhelming power, but they’re just sidekicks.

“If we can find that mirror,” Rafiki tells the group, “maybe we can find our creators and have them redraw us as heroes.”

And so the group goes, searching. Soon, they find themselves in a magical but ruined place. It’s dusty. The wind blows through it. They find Merlin’s mirror on an abandoned desk. The pencils and pads are discarded in piles. The creators are gone. All seems lost.