clay
Have you ever seen an autistic child with play-doh?
The pliant glob of clay transforming in his little hand. A ball at one moment to kick around, a doll without eyes and nose and mouth, a sun that shines, a flower that blooms or a television to watch. How readily the play-doh complies with his demanding fingers. Stretching out to accommodate the legs of an unfinished pet or contracting to become a steering wheel for a car that will race around the tracks. So willingly it fits into his hand as he infuses life into it, as he caresses it with his thumb to let it become what he intends it to be.
How easily he makes and mars, creates and destroys, without a hint of emotion on his face.
But when he is done he tosses it aside. Sometimes it lays there on the floor half doll half pet, half ball half bat, half animate half inanimate, unsure what it should really be. This or that, or maybe something else altogether. But till the child returns to mould it into another shape or size of his desire it lays in perplexed stillness, drying out in this state of incompleteness.
The pliant glob of clay transforming in his little hand. A ball at one moment to kick around, a doll without eyes and nose and mouth, a sun that shines, a flower that blooms or a television to watch. How readily the play-doh complies with his demanding fingers. Stretching out to accommodate the legs of an unfinished pet or contracting to become a steering wheel for a car that will race around the tracks. So willingly it fits into his hand as he infuses life into it, as he caresses it with his thumb to let it become what he intends it to be.
How easily he makes and mars, creates and destroys, without a hint of emotion on his face.
But when he is done he tosses it aside. Sometimes it lays there on the floor half doll half pet, half ball half bat, half animate half inanimate, unsure what it should really be. This or that, or maybe something else altogether. But till the child returns to mould it into another shape or size of his desire it lays in perplexed stillness, drying out in this state of incompleteness.
