Sparkle- Week 3 Brigits Flame (followup to previous entry)
Sparkle
My intern and I sit in front of my trauma client Ikaika’s Hawaiian Kindergarten class. Kumu (teacher) Wailana introduces us. I don’t understand anything she says but our names-I just nod and smile a lot.
We’re there to do a Character Education lesson, and my intern is stationed behind the portable puppet theater and has her hand-puppet out, a sparkly fairy. The sight of the theater has brought the kids boiling over, bouncing on the rug in anticipation.
I notice Ikaika at his desk, drawing. He doesn’t come join the other kids until Kumu tells him to. His face is blank as he sits in the back row, looking at me without a sign of recognition.
I read The Berenstain Bears Forget Their Manners animatedly, and my intern uses her puppet to ask questions like, “But what if someone’s mean to me? Can I just call them a bad name?” The kids are rapt, chorusing responses, eyes glued to the storybook or the puppet or both, waving their hands frantically to be called on with an answer.
All but Ikaika. He’s lying on his back, looking at the ceiling-crawling around in the back row, or hiding under the desk. He doesn’t speak or interact with the other children, but neither does he draw attention to himself by misbehavior. He’s just quietly doing his own thing.
After the lesson I take him out for our session. No smile, no greeting, but he comes readily enough. As we go upstairs I ask him,
“Did you like the puppet show?” No response. “How about the story?” No comment.
In my room the play therapy toys are invitingly displayed, as well as crayons, pens, watercolor, clay, and a stack of paper. My intern sits on the couch where she can observe, a clipboard on her lap.
He beelines over to the art supplies. I sit next to him. He opens the brand-new Crayola watercolor set, sticks the dry brush in the paint.
“You might want to add some water,” I say. He does, and as I observe out loud, he progresses from painting colored circles on the paper, to pouring the cup of rinse water over the watercolor set. He then pours the water off the set onto the paper, spreading it around with a brush.
“It’s so interesting that all the colors together make green,” I say, commenting on the vivid swamp shade he’s created. No response. Throughout this whole experimentation he has not once looked at or acknowledged me. I sneak a glance at my intern. She’s shaking her head in bafflement.
Pouring the water off the colored disks has washed them clean.
“The paint is all clean again,” I say, as he examines the tray of colors. He takes the scissors and uses the tip to pry the pans of watercolor out. He puts them in the puddle of green water, rubs them around with his hands.
“That looks like it feels nice,” I say. He holds his hands up. They’re swamp green, with colored ovals on them from the tablets of watercolor.
“I need more paper,” he says distinctly. My intern gives a muffled gasp. A whole sentence, unprompted!
He hops off the chair, marches over to the box of old-fashioned computer paper (the kind that’s attached with tabbed sides) and pulls off a five-foot swath. He goes back to the table, and lays it over the colored puddle, smacking it hard. Watercolor flies out the sides. I’m grinning.
“That looks fun,” I say. He looks up at me. There’s a sparkle in his eye, but I couldn’t call it a smile. He peels the paper up, shows it to me. I clap my hands in delight.
“That’s amazing!”
The watercolor has somehow made a butterfly shape, and the tablets of pure color are making a beautiful design. He picks the tablets off, and hands me the paper.
“I’ll put it over here to dry,” I say, setting it aside. He puts the tablets in the water cup. He’s used up all the water in his pouring and experimentation, and I’m not going to solve the problem for him. He looks at me, stirring the tablets around in the empty cup with the brush.
“I need more water,” he says. Another whole sentence!
“What should we do?” I ask with the exaggerated shrug from our last session. He shrugs too, then spots a water bottle on my desk. He points. I shrug again, act confused.
He hops off the chair and goes and gets my water bottle, pours a little of it carefully into the cup, and stirs all the tablets together. He spreads about three feet of fresh computer paper out, and with a flourish, pours the whole cupful out on it. He takes two paintbrushes and stirs the color around. Finding that too slow, he puts both hands in the paint and slides it around, swirling and mixing. It looks like so much fun, my hands tingle watching him mix the jeweled color into one big purple blob.
Hands thoroughly covered, he finds an empty corner of the paper and smacks handprints down repeatedly. Splats of paint dot his cheeks, shirt, and hair like a tiny, slightly crazed Jackson Pollack.
I peek over at my intern. I see all the questions she’s holding back trembling on her lips. I wink as I say,
“Rats, Ikaika! It’s almost time for school to be over. We have to get you cleaned up, and we’ll do some more art next week.”
Immediately he hops down from the chair, holding his hands up. They’re purple to the elbows.
“We have to go wash,” he says.
“I know. Let’s go!” I lead him down to the boys’ bathroom. We soap up his arms and he lets me dab the paint off his face with a damp paper towel. Serious face, very little eye contact, but he’s letting me touch him. I follow him back to class where he grabs his backpack off the hook and rejoins the group sitting on the floor for a closing song. He doesn’t look back at me once.
I go upstairs. Paint covers the table. Yards of computer paper litter the room, decorated with evidence of his fearless exploration of the limits of a Crayola watercolor set. My intern is gazing at the mess with one small napkin in her hand.
We look at each other and burst out laughing.
“Oh my God!” she says. “I can’t believe you just let him keep going! I could hardly handle the mess that was happening!”
I shrug. I’m starting to like shrugging.
“No harm was happening. Except to the paint set.” I toss the discarded plastic shell into the trash.
“I’ve never seen anything like that! He was so confident! Some of what he did looked autistic, but he’s clearly not. What was going on with that whole thing?”
“I think he was both exploring what he can do with a watercolor set, and testing us. Are we safe? Are we going to accept him no matter what he does? Plus, I just think he might be an artist someday.” I have a bunch of paper towels from the boys’ bathroom and we mop at the watercolor.
“We’re going to have him talking in no time!” she says. She clasps her hands in the classic gesture of the converted. “I couldn’t see it last week, but I can see it now. He’s going to get better.”
We clean up together, laughing and talking, completely energized. He’s not the only one with a sparkle in his eye.