Driving home after a family party, after bedtime and in the dark. We went up Mass Ave past the hill we sometimes sled on. From the back seat we hear M saying “Sledding. It’s sledding.” She had recognized the sledding hill in the dark, coming from an unfamiliar direction.
It’s good generalization to know a place in the dark – I’m not even sure that her brother knew where we were at that moment – but there’s more to it than that. This shows that M is rooted in the community; she knows places and people, and her world extends beyond a few rooms in our house. We worry about this, that autism has drawn an artificial horizon around her world. It’s a nice feeling when M shares her world with us.