The Rainbow Connection

I am 19 years old, running haphazardly in between the human traffic that commands Broadway, Austin and St Marks place, the streets of Greenwich Village, NYU's playground. In hindsight, I could have just lifted the tremendous pad I dragged along above my head and windsurfed to class, but I have always been a bit "entertained" and delayed, so anything other than the most primitive of plans never develops. I nervously enter my color class. It was one of the first real art classes that I have ever taken. I am extremely intimidated. I am self taught, so immediately I feel the entire class has one up on me. With one look around, it is evident I did not get the dress code memo, and what is even more apparent is the disdain for anything ordinary that my classmates have. Their eyes register everything exterior about me, from my mousy brown pony tailed hair, to my non tattooed skin, my worn jeans and plain tee shirt, their conclusion, I'm in the wrong class. No uniformed rebellion equals no artistic integrity. They didn't get just how afraid of needles and how indecisive I am, or that my grandmother would kill me. I know where I stand, now to find a place to sit and listen. The first lecture was about Childhood Heroes. Everyone was asked to off the top of their head name someone whose life inspired you or changed you, or who you connected with profoundly. In a room full of old souls, this newborn was struggling. These people had serious hard core tastes at a very young ages. I was floored when I heard someone say Camus was an early childhood hit. That kid must have been something at the sandbox. But the most amazing thing happened when he got to me. All I had to say was Jim Henson, and there was a release of genuine open smiles, and the darkness and heaviness of that room was lifted. Pure joyous multicolor in just one name. He was the common thread, what connected us all. The rainbow connection. Immediately everyone sat quoting a favorite muppet, the mohawked Junior Camus loved Mr. Snuffleupagus, another suggested we play a game to see which character was most like us, and for the rest of the semester those would be our names. I was redeemed. It no longer mattered that I was lazy at artisfying my look, I was an Ernie at heart, I was instantly understood, and that is what they embraced.


I am now a 43 year old mother of 3 boys, sitting in my kitchen, mousy haired pony tailed, very worn jeans, tee shirted, stretched marked, and a bit disheveled by the bumps along the way... this time the ordinary has become my extraordinary goal..Still, after all these years I'm missing Jim Henson. Sesame Street and the Muppets are sweeter an experience the second time around. My first go at it was unrestrained wonder, the second, a homecoming of sorts, with a deeper appreciation for the sheer genius of Henson's humanity. My middle son, a member of the spectrum, in his most regressed and disconnected state was able to relate to the community of muppets on Sesame Street. For some reason many of our ASD kids are their biggest, most loyal fans. I suppose it's because everything about them is safe, open, sensory friendly, warm, funny, engaging and innocent. I suppose it's because the spirit with which it was created was about awareness, celebrating uniqueness, about education, about fun, with love, kindness, and belief in the power of imagination. It doesn't matter how you are wired, when something evolves from a place of goodness and YES, the response is always OK......Come and play, everything is a-ok.......

It's not easy being green......I understand Kermits lament and eventual acceptance of who he is and how wonderful that is......

But Green is a walk in the park. Try being grey. Gabe's favorite color is purple, but he is perpetually sporting the grey. In color class we were taught that white is the reflection of all color, black the refraction of all color, therefore neither are a true color. The irony lies in that every sensory processing disorder that my son has can be described perfectly by either the hyper nature of complete reflection, or the hypo innateness of total absorption, each leaving Gabe struggling in the blur of grey....grey and white matter...grey is what slips through the cracks....grey is being forever 20, not a teen anymore, but not old enough to be considered legally independent....The color of Hope? I'm betting it has to be grey, because it's that grey area that is never quite clear, quite defined, where nothing is definitive enough to be one thing or another.....it's pure suspension....pure possibility.....if not let go.....I sit here in my kitchen with the view of a sky coated in a rich magnese blue. Our world is about to suddenly explode into color around us as April waits with it's green grass, tulips and cherry blossoms.....and meanwhile, I can't see past the grey....Gabe is going into the Middle School next September. There are going to be changes in the way they handle all the kids that are marked in grey....Anyone who has a learning disability, or classified as my child is, would no longer sit in an inclusion class setting. So now, again I face the insecurity of change, dealing with a school district whose first concerns are always financial before educational, summoning the optimistic spirit of Jim Henson while looking for rainbow connections.....trying to find my son's place on it, enveloping him in purple......

"Who said that every wish would be heard and answered, when wished on the morning star.
Somebody thought of that, and someone believed it. Look what it's done so far.
What's so amazing that keeps us stargazing, And what do we think we might see?
Someday we'll find it, the rainbow connection,
The lovers, the dreamers, and me"

Jim Henson/ Kermit