Some may be thinking about getting a PVC-free lunchbox and new shoes as the first day of school approaches (or maybe it’s already here for you and your child). Charlie has newish shoes: He got his first pair of size 10 black slip-ons at the beginning of August. We’ll probably get him an extra pair but we’ve gotten a bit more into a “wait and see” mode, as Charlie seems to grow up into the next half-size of shoe about every month or so. (I’m not kidding, some size 9’s and size 9 1/2’s are sitting around here virtually unworn.) But hey, if we get an extra size 10 pair, and Charlie needs a 10 1/2, the shoes will be worn----Jim is a size 10.

When Charlie started middle school (6th grade) last September, he was just over 5 feet tall. He’s now more than a half a foot taller than he was a year ago. It’s generally agreed that such a massive growth spurt, and the onset of puberty---Jim got Charlie his own electric shaver several months ago---had something to do with Charlie’s difficulties at school last year. These aren’t the only reasons, but, given (1) how hard it is for Charlie to communicate his emotions and what he is thinking and (2) how sensitive he is, finding yourself no longer child-size but adult-size must be beyond baffling---must be a metamorphosis as shocking as when, in Greek mythology, the hunter Actaeon found himself turned into a deer.

Actaeon’s metamorphosis (at least the way the Roman poet Ovid tells it in his Metamorphoses) occurs after he unknowingly glimpses the goddess Artemis bathing in a forest pool. To punish him for committing such sacrilege (though he doesn’t know that he has), he is transformed into the very animal that he hunted. As Actaeon’s own dogs attack their master, he tries to cry out but, being a deer, has no voice: Those who were his companions, followers, “man’s best friend,” kill him.

Metamorphosis of humans into animals, plants (Daphne into the laurel), and other natural phenomena (Echo into...... echo) suggests that there’s some kind of connection between us and nature “out there”; that there’s some kind of animating spirit that inhabits the rocks and stones and trees. There is change, but there’s also a kind of permanence in all that change, that flux, and this is reassuring. But myths like that of Actaeon also suggest the scarey, even terrible, aspects of changing, and the losses.

New lunchboxes and clothes, spanking brand-new backpacks and unscuffed, shiny, still-stiff shoes: For many, these signal the changes at the beginning of a new school year. I don’t think I’m alone among parents of children on the autism spectrum to consider these sorts of things quite far from the orbit of my thoughts with Charlie going back to school. Last week Alex Barton started at a new, private school in Florida, as WFLX.com reported on August 23rd. It was over a year ago that Alex was voted out of his kindergarten class by his fellow students under the direction of their teacher, Wendy Portillo. As Alex’s mother, Melissa Barton, is quoted by WFLX.com:

Alex’s parents are planning to file a federal lawsuit against the St. Lucie School District and Portillo.

It’s hardly the sort of thing most of us parents want to find ourselves thinking as our children start school. Yet, as parents needing to support and do our best by our children as they grow and change, we find ourselves doing what we have to do.

And I for one know that I’ve been thoroughly transformed in the process, in ways that I would have been scared even to imagine years ago.