Finding Amber 2

It was Amber's 20th birthday - the birthday that straddles the winding river between teenage-dom and adulthood. My sweet daughter - true to nature wanted to go to Skate Country and spend the day with her sister skating and having icees and pizza.  We figured that on a summer afternoon on Friday the place would be open and didn't bother to see if was before we left the house. 

We drove up to a completely empty parking lot and learned that the skating rink was only open at night.  Quickly recalculating, I said - "Hey do you want to see Finding Dory?  I know I have Group-Ons for it."  Both girls gave a resounding "YES!" and we were on our way.  

I have blogged before about what the movie Finding Nemo had meant to me.  I had seen it with Amber in 2003 when she was seven and had been diagnosed on autism spectrum for four years at that point. Here is the link for the original blog.  Click here to read Finding Amber .  We had seen the movie again in 2012 and it touched me as a parent of a child with developmental disability and how far our journey had come: from Amber's first diagnosis as a toddler,  fearing that she would not be able to take care of herself, over compensating by doing everything for her and worrying about how people would treat her.  So here we were in a dark theater getting ready to see Dory's journey as a fish with short term memory loss and her flight into adulthood.  One of the really cool things was the audience was not so much composed of little kids but of teens who loved Finding Nemo and wanted to relive the magic of that first movie. 

As the young sweet little Dory works up the confidence to ask questions of her parents or other people - she must always preface it by "Hi. I'm Dory. I suffer from short-term remembery loss."   She also worries that she's constantly letting her parents down.  Of course, I got the feels immediately.  The sight of this sweet little thing trying to find her way in the world hit home and having to apologize for her disability was heartbreaking.   Her parents try to keep her safe but a rogue current carries her away and she is lost.  Unlike Nemo, young Dory can't remember exactly where she lives and as years go by, she starts to forget who her parents are.  It's a worst case scenario for any parent but for a mother of a child with a developmental disability it exposes your worst fear.   You then see Dory over the years - growing  up, constantly asking for help, explaining her disability and swimming further away from home.  Eventually, she meets Marlin and helps him find Nemo. 

It didn't dawn on my then, but in Finding Nemo, you had two characters with disabilities who had to take control and eventually help save the day when most people would have written them off. I was so focused on Nemo and his handicap that Dory seemed more of a comic foil than a character who was also struggling with her own challenges.  But her way of handling life actually made sense - she had confidence in herself because she didn't have any other choice.   When Marlin talks about wanting to protect Nemo from everything her response is a wake-up call to any overprotective parent:

Marlin: I promised I'd never let anything happen to him.
Dory: Hmm. That's a funny thing to promise.
Marlin: What?
Dory: Well, you can't never let anything happen to him. Then nothing would ever happen to him. Not much fun for little Harpo.

When I first saw this - Amber was a child and the idea of her

being out in the world was theoretical - it would be years before she would be on her own and it was just something I didn't want to deal with at that point.  I just wanted to keep her out of harm's way, keep her from getting her feelings hurt from kids who might make fun of her, keep her from trying something new that she might fail at and feel embarrassed.  But the reality was that I wasn't so much protecting her - I was protecting me.   The idea that the world would not embrace your child because they are out of the norm is scary so you overcompensate.   You answer for them, you do as much for them as possible to soften the blow of anyone hurting them.  

There are so many plans that you make from the time your child is born - the birthday parties, the dances at school, the first boyfriend, the prom date, the wedding day.  Then you are told that they are on the autism spectrum and will go on the special education track.  The idea of how they will be as an adult one day is sidelined so you can get them from pre-school, to kindergarten, to grade school, hoping they can make it through the challenge of middle school and then high school.  At graduation, they will get a special education diploma which means that after 12 years of school they still need to take a GED to get into a community college or get a job.  You see the posts from parents who spend the spring of their child's senior year on social media wondering if their child got into the college of their choice.  You are just hoping that your child will be able to find a job, find an apartment and make ends meet.  You worry that you need to plan financially to still support them in adulthood and provide for them in your will to help them when you're gone and pray that her sibling will keep an eye on her finances.  It's pretty heady stuff to deal with when your kid is just getting out of their teens.  

As time goes on - you realize that your plan was just that - an idea but that nothing is set in stone.  You have a chance to create something out of the norm and because there are so few books about girls with autism.  You realize that you are going to have to make it up as you go along.  A plan is not really something you can ever really count on and you have to take things day to day.  Dory exemplifies that and says rather forcefully at one point, "I've never had a plan in my life!" 

For us control freaks that line seems like heresy. How can you never have a plan - how can you go through life without knowing how to get from point A to point Z - there always has to be a plan for God's sake!   But as Dory explains further,  “The best things happen by chance."   So I reflected on that quote and having a daughter who has what the world perceives as a disability - autism.  She is in my life to teach me that the most wonderful things happen when God laughs at your plan, throws it aside and gives you something incredible that you might not be able to comprehend at the time.  

Amber cannot be simply defined as someone with a disorder, a disability, or a disease - she is my daughter and one of the sweetest, kindest people I've ever met.  While some signs of autism, particularly Aspergers, can seem like the person you love is not connected and can be obsessive/compulsive - we've been lucky that Amber's symptoms are pretty mild and how they manifest are different in girls than boys.   She gets jokes, has a sense of humor and loves animals.  She still has a hard time making eye contact but her social skills have come a long way since she was younger.   She's rarely given me any type of female teenage drama that most parents must endure.  I can count on one hand the number of times that she's ever rolled her eyes and said "Whatever!" 

In a recent interview, the director of Finding Dory Andrew

Staten explains how he sees Dory and how he wanted to bring in her back story and relationship with her mother and father.  "Her parents don't try to change her. They just want to help her own who she is. Being a parent and seeing my kids grow up and enter the world, I realize that all kids are born with certain temperaments, flaws, quirks — and it will probably be who they are. You probably spend most of the time worrying about those things as a parent, too — you don't lose sleep over the things they do well. The best quality I could give Dory's parents is that they never doubt her." 

At the end of the day, I think most parents worry if their kids can make it on their own.  If we've done our jobs hopefully they will be creative, independent and loving people you've always prayed they would be.  Dory, even in light of her short term memory, is strong, smart, loyal and can even speak whale.   To quote Dory, "You have to let go and see what happens," because despite your best efforts - you won't be around forever no matter how hard you try.   And when that day comes - hopefully you'll have a good laugh with God about your plan. 

My Father's Hands

My hands have never looked like they belonged to a real lady.  They are short, stubby and not very glamorous.   Even when I used to pay good money every two weeks to get my acrylic nails done, they never really looked all that feminine.    Genetically however, they are just like my dad's hands.     They have well earned calluses and little scrapes and scratches because I have a tendency to go full force with my hands, whether it's typing too hard on the keyboard or trying to pull a scared cat out of a bathtub that they accidently fall into and getting scratched in the process.  Like my dad, my hands are also there to hug my children and tell them they are great even if they don't believe it themselves.   One day, I hope that I can give them a hand up as adults in the countless ways my parents have for me and my brothers and sisters over the years.  

When I was a little girl, my dad was a lot like Kevin Arnold's dad on the Wonder Years.   He had a temper but underneath it all he was a guy with a heart of gold who would give you the shirt off his back if you needed it.   Like Kevin's dad, he eventually started his own business exporting office products to the Caribbean.   He would go out on business trips - usually one a month.  I remember back in the late 1960's and early 1970's, that he would come home smelling of ink and cigarette smoke.   He stopped smoking before I was born, but because people could smoke anywhere, anytime (yeah, those episodes of Mad Men are pretty accurate -  there was no Non-Smoking section -  you just inhaled that second hand smoke).   He would always bring us back gifts from the places he traveled - the Bahamas, Aruba, Jamaica, and Haiti (back in the days when it was Papa Doc and there was some tourist trade).   I remember his hands giving us small wood cravings, or woven art pieces, t-shirts or hats made from straw.   He would also get samples of pens before any of the stores would - so we could bring pens that had lollypop tops, or flowers to school.   We were the first kids to get fuzzy neon pens that had perfumed ink which in the mid-1970's was quite a coup - Walgreens and Zayre's were months from having them yet.    When he was out of town, it always felt weird.   My mom did a great job holding down the fort, getting us up for school, dressing us, getting us out the door, then fixing dinner, bathing us and getting us back to bed.    She always seemed happy to see him when he came back and he'd help with the "babies" as he would call me and my sister Sharon  - we were the last two kids out of five and were just 16 months apart.    We adored our dad and would sit on his lap at the same time. I remember the both of us putting our arms around his neck and saying in unison, "Aren't you glad we married you?"  Even though the decision for my parents to marry had happened 11 to 12  years before Sharon and I were a glimmer in anyone's eye, we still felt like somehow we had a say in the decision making process.    I remember that he loved the movie Gigi and would sing Thank Heavens for Little Girls to us which we loved - what little girl wouldn't?   I know that my older siblings memories of him are a bit more stern but I think by the time that we came along - he was getting his equilibrium.     I have two kids and have a hard time balancing - I can't imagine trying to do it with five especially if you had a short fuse which my father sometimes had.   

I remember my dad's hands as he held onto the steering wheel while we took summer trips with a 22 foot Holiday Rambler trailer in tow.   I remember him trying to connect the trailer to the hitch on the back of the white station wagon.    He always had the very undignified duty of hooking up the sewer from the trailer to the hole that was attached to the camping site we'd lodge at when we vacationed at Fort Wilderness which was the trailer resort at Disney World or the Red Coconut Trailer Park at Fort Myers Beach, as well as the electricity and the water.   The sweat would pour off his face as he would try to turn the wheel to get the hitch and the bumper to line-up so we could be on our way.    Once we were on the open road, my Dad's hands would relax and he would tap his thumbs on the steering wheel and would talk to my Mom while us kids would read or sleep in the back of the station wagon with the seats down and a flat area where you could move around freely.  Oh those crazy 60's and 70's when there were not those pesky car seats and seat belt laws.  A kid could be the king of the back seat - who needed safety when you were having fun?  

I also remember my Dad's hands when he would try to fix something around the house.    Being a handyman was not his strong suit and yet he wanted to be the go to guy for repairs so bad.    Grandpa Sanborn, his stepfather, was an expert craftsman but Dad just was not but he never was able to admit that until much later in life.   My mother would wait until he was out of town to get things fixed and then when he got back they were magically working again - that was our story and we stuck to it.   Luckily as my mother started working as a realtor, my dad took over the cooking and found out that he was pretty damn good at it.   My mother was a good cook but it was more of a means to get us fed not really anything she had a passion for so when my dad took over, she was more than happy to let him do it.  He would even do all the grocery shopping.  He loved finding new recipes and I remember him sitting in his easy chair with a cookbook in hand reading recipes and asking if he made something with spaghetti squash, would we eat it.   The first time I tried that stringy squash, I thought that is was an impostor for real honest to God pasta until I got used to it and now I love it.   I remember how my dad would fill out his grocery list and then rather than crossing out what he brought, he would tear the side of the list so that he knew he got it and didn't have to carry around a pen.   That always seemed so smart to me and it's a technique I used to this day when I grocery shop. 

As he got older, he would show his love more openly, giving hugs more freely and encouraged us to dream big.   I remember when I produced my first show on South Beach in Miami, my parents would let me use my grandmother's house while she was still in Boston as a rehearsal space.  My parents never felt that theater was a stupid pursuit - they loved it and took us every chance they could when we were kids.  So when I was out of college and decided to start my own improv group - The Eclectic Company - they were right there at almost every show and sometimes they were 40% of the audience.    When Max wanted to do his first movie Gentlemen in Black, my dad was happy to help and wanted to get the title of Best Boy on the credits because that title always tickled him when he saw it in the movies.   He even got a cameo as a prison guard and loved every moment of it.   When my brother Steve wrote his first book, Lying in State, my dad was there to help edit, proofread and offer anything he could to help.   The same thing when my sister Kathy started her consulting business for home healthcare and my brother Bill started as a disability consultant.   He was proud of my sister Sharon's photography.  He was there - ready to lend a hand to his kids - because above all else, he believed in us.   He would always ask if we needed money because it wouldn't do him any good once he was gone.   He was just that kind of guy.  

He loved taking us out to dinner or lunch - all his kids, his children's spouses, their kids, really anyone who wanted to go.  It could sometimes be a zoo but it felt like one big happy family as we navigated the brunch buffet at El Toritos at the Falls.    He really believed in us being close and being together.   But sometimes despite his and mom's best efforts, the kids get older, get married, move away and it's harder and harder to get the family to gather around the same table.   Sometimes their families have complications and things get in the way - pride, disagreements and the kids that he nurtured and loved so much just aren't as close anymore.  I think about my dad's hands and how they would try to fix any problems between us but sometimes love and a good lunch out on the town are not enough.   You see, the last time his kids were all together around the same table was the weekend of his funeral 10 years ago.  He had passed away suddenly from a heart attack.  As shocking as it was, I was grateful that it was so quick and he was not sick or in pain - my heart could not have handled that. It was a tough time, sure but at least the kids were there for each other talking about dad and all the things he did for us.   I remember being at the funeral home with the casket open while we joked about dad trying to fix things and for an instant I thought I saw a smile on his face.   I looked down at his hands which looked so much like mine and realized he would never hold mine again.    We went back to my brother Steve's house and talked some more about Dad.  We released balloons up to heaven with thoughts and prayers so he could read them with the angels - it was something that the grandkids could do to help them grieve for their grandfather.   My mother took a picture of us like it was the old days, but it wasn't really and never would be.  

I guess that Father's Day can bring stuff like this flooding back.   We're trying to do a family reunion to get all of us together for my mother's sake this summer.   She's not in the best health - Parkinson's has taken it's toll but having her kids together in one place would mean so much.   Being able to do that should be a slam dunk, but sometimes that distant baggage can get in the way and now one of us might not be able to be there.   I can imagine my father throwing up his hands and saying - "For God's Sake, sprout a pair and just do it - if someone doesn't like it too damn bad! You need to be there for your mother because the time will come when she'll be with me and you won't have the option - any issues you have you won't be able to work out!"   I hope that message is heard and we can all get together this summer and put our differences behind us.  

It's funny but this week I was going to write on the demise of bookstores and then I thought about Father's Day and my dad and all these ideas came flooding in.   It was like my father was channeling through me to get the message out to his kids who I hope will read this.  My hands are on the keyboard writing furiously - the hands that look like my dad's.   He wanted to be a writer too.   It's interesting that this week his is - inspiring me and asking me to write what needs to be said.   I've never appreciated my hands that much till now.  Today I'm glad that I have my father's hands.  

The Parable of the Cookie

When I first moved to Atlanta from Miami back in 1998, I wanted to find a place where I could practice my sacred art of improv.   I had been doing it since 1984 at that point - in college and then professionally at Mental Floss in Miami.   I had been taught by both good and bad improv teachers and like most actors had come to a synthesis of what worked for me - a good chunk of Viola Spolin with a few splashes of Uta Hagen and Stanislavsky.   By the time I was ready to start doing improv in the ATL, I had been performing it off and on for over 14 years.  You'd think that I would be able to audition and then start performing with a company but as in NYC and LA, many Atlanta companies have a "Pay to Play" (P2P) system.   Rather than just depending on ticket sales, subscriptions and corporate underwriting, many of these theater companies have found that there are plenty of actors, actresses, wanna bees and desperate housewives who will pay for the privilege to be on stage with their favorite comic improv actors.  What they don't tell you is that they can keep you in that P2P system for a long time until you're "ready" to go on stage and even then it won't be on a Friday or Saturday night but a Tuesday or Wednesday night when they can get your friends and family to  pay to watch you perform.  You can say that you are part of the troupe as long as you keep putting out for classes.  It's sort of like crack - you pay more and more to get a little bit of a high to perform.  Oh and you never really get paid - since what little money you get in your paycheck will go right back into workshops - uh show business!  Never underestimate how much someone will pay to feel like a star.  

I had researched the few groups that were around at that time and one improv troupe seemed to be the most reasonable in price. They had their theater in a very artistry enclave of Atlanta.   I had gone to watch their show a few weeks before to see if it was a good fit.   It was a very young college crowd but they seemed to stay on a pretty funny intellectual level.  I knew the sort of improv pieces they did (if you know the show Whose Line is it Anyway? there are standards like Irish Drinking Song, in addition getting a location and relationship from the audience and creating a scene the spot with your improv partner).  I found out after introducing myself to the class that some of the founding members of the group had actually gone to school in Miami and had been to see Mental Floss as students.   "You did Fluffy La Puff? Awesome!" said one of the young members.   Fluffy was one of my signature characters.  "I used to go to Mental Floss when I was in high school."    I was hoping that meant I was cool and not old.   So after about two years of not doing improv (being a mom of a toddler can put things like that on hold)  I found that I was back to where I was when I was performing on a regular basis after about two classes -  it's like riding a bicycle - you never forget.   

After about four workshops, I got invited to do "Micetro" which is a sort "Survivor" of improv shows.   You have 12 improvisors start out in the evening and only one makes it to the end.   Sounds like riveting reality TV - the audience decides who to vote off one by one based on how you did in each of the improv sketches.   Now, on those "scripted dramas" having folks voted off the island is just how it goes.  But for improvisors that are just starting out - it creates very bad acting habits.   Rather than learning to support their partner to create a great scene,  they try to out do their partner and undermine them to get the most votes.   The improv "judges" can give side coaching but let's face it, it's the audience that gets the final decision.    So if a new actor saw that they could get a laugh mentioning an jock strap, erection, boobs or cum - they would do it and get the votes.  Even if they got warned by the "judges" about being vulgar, once they knew that wearing the scum box ( box of shame that went over the head of performer who had gone too far) was a twisted badge of honor, it was hard to get them back to playing at a higher intellectual level.  It' s sort of like sharks that taste mammal meat for the first time - it's quick, easy and very satisfying.   Who cares if the blood in the water is your partner's?  

So I'd do these Micetro's and get voted out in the first half because I'd refuse to go code blue but I'd try to support my partner the best way I could.   After the show, we would get notes and usually Joe, my workshop coach and judge would compliment me and say that my scenes were some of his favorites.  He was sorry that I wasn't getting voted through.   Then the younger members of the class would pipe up with "But if the audience isn't giving you the votes it doesn't matter how good your scene was."   That's when I realized something sinister was taking place - the scenes became more about pandering to the audience - not working with them.

The nights I would get ready to do a show, Max could tell that I wasn't having much fun.  "Why are you doing it again - you seem freaking miserable every time you go?"  "It's one of the best improv groups in Atlanta and I can make some connections." I would respond - trying to convince myself as much as him that it was what I really wanted to do.   One night, one of the company performers decided to perform with us.   He was doing a scene and afterwards, Joe  gave him some feedback just like he did for all of the performers in the show.  The player became incensed, called Joe a facist and stormed off the stage.  We thought it was a bit, but he walked out in the middle of the show - I mean got in his car and left.   Everyone tried to make light of it, but good God, the guy pulled that right in front of an audience and embarrassed everyone including himself.   If it had been my company, he would have been gone or at least suspended for a few weeks.   But no, there he was back at a Friday night show like nothing had happened.  He did send a note which was read to us at the next workshop - by Joe.  

It was the holiday season and I had made my usual selection of cookies and decided to bring a few dozen to the theater before the show.  It gave me and the toddler Amber a reason to make chocolate chip cookies, sugar cookies, rice crispy treats, magic cookie bars and fudge.   Two of the guys asked if the chocolate chip cookies were the soft batch like the Keebler cookies.   "Actually, those cookies are loaded with chemicals to make them that soft but I just made these fresh this afternoon," I said with my best Bri DeCamp smile.  "Ah, I really like them soft - hey I bet if we nuke them, we can make them soft."  Again, I smiled and said "Enjoy!"   They took four of the cookies over to the microwave and nuked them for 10 seconds.  Sure enough, they were soft, but the chocolate was extremely hot and burned their hands.  When they cookies got cooler after a minute, they were hard as rocks - putrified by the radiation of the microwave.    They threw them out and shoved some sugar cookies into their pie holes and walked away without so much as a thank you.   

That night at Micetro, I was getting voted through and made it to the second half of the show for the first time.   It felt good as many of the other women in the show had been voted off.   Then the second part of the show started and I found that I really wanted to make it through to the end - which meant pandering.   I had promised myself I wouldn't -  but I wanted to make it to the end to prove to myself I could do it.   So I made jokes about my boobs or lack there of, groins, premature ejaculations - nothing was sacred.   I didn't get the scum box but I did get to the top four before I was voted off.   I had made it further than my past three attempts.  I should have been happy - but I felt empty.   I knew I hadn't done my best work and while the audience didn't know or care - I did.    I saw the box that I had brought the Christmas treats in ripped up and thrown into the garbage along with those ill fated cookies.   So quick, easy and disposable once it had been consumed. 

I thought about that as I drove back on I-85 that night.  I was that poor chocolate chip cookie.  I wasn't a soft batch - I was me and try as I might I just didn't want to do improv their way.  When I did and it made me feel as hard and tasteless as those sweet hockey pucks at the bottom of the garbage can.    I had gone as far as I ever had in Micetro, but I didn't want to go back to see if I could win it all - it just wasn't worth it if I was doing the sort of stuff I just didn't believe in.   I was sacrificing who I was for the instant gratification of an audience that only wanted dick jokes.   In an odd way, it felt good to walk away that night on my own terms.   

Now for you improv actors in Atlanta, I want you to understand that this is not a slam against that improv company.   They are good at what they do, it was just not the right thing for me.   That was over 13 years ago, and I'm sure things have changed.  A few years later in 2005,  I started with an improv group called Comedy Cobb which eventually got changed to The OTC Comedy Troupe.  I got to teach my philosophy of the art.  Now I would be a hypocrite if I told you that I never do a dirty scene - but when I do it's because my partner and I are working together - it's a mutual smut fest based on trust.  My group doesn't have eight shows a week and our own space like they do, but I love to perform when I can with like minded folks who make me laugh really hard.  When I get off of stage I feel good about what we've done.    Our shows can be geared to any audience from the edgy college student to kids who still watch the Disney channel.     I think we succeed on our own terms and really isn't that all any of us can ask? 

So the moral of the story is to know what sort of cookie you are and be proud if it.  If someone tries to nuke you to make you into something you're not, just take your treats and leave.  Because it doesn't matter how good their bakery is, if you hate their sweets, you'll never be happy.   Now go out there and blaze a trail - on your own terms with your own recipe for success - one that you can actually stomach.