Wampum

At one point on our walk around the freshwater lagoon at MacKerricher State Park Jonah stopped and looked up, an unusual direction for him, and after 10 or 15 seconds looked back at me and said "white clouds".

Narration on the natural world observed is unusual for Jonah. Experiences, "hot", "cold", "hurt" and its cognate "bandaid", and occasionally "bird" are more typical, though still rare.

A day can pass with very few words. "Jungle" meaning the wickedly overgrown verdant boardwalk around the freshwater lagoon, the first mile and a half of a Jonah circuit, "bridge" meaning the second and third miles, towards town and then back along the grass, berries and wind pressed pines of the headland, to the seal haulout, and return on the boardwalk. "Rebecca" meaning lets go back home for {breakfast | 2nd breakfast | tensies | lunch | 2nd lunch | tea | dinner } and "scooter" meaning repeat the prior physical phrasing (he scoots, I walk and jog).

There is a lot of other language, "goodbye" this and that, meaning we're done with say, hanging around at the tidepools chucking rocks into the water or sand into the air while Grace, Sam and Kezzie perservate on hermit crabs and star fish and such. That's "goodbye ocean". Jonah sings too while walk/scooting, and he's getting better, in the sense that one of us, I or one of the kids, can decode or recode Jonah's current ouvre to some known, and expanding, body of works.

But it isn't narration on the natural world observed. That's pulling teeth. Still, I get sensible and correct answers when I ask "What is that?" Pine tree and fern and coot and so on, just as if we were at Shaws in Portland, or Giant Eagle in Pittsburgh, where we name all the veggies and all of our groceries.

After we climbed up the bridge to start the second half of a circuit I gave Jonah a "this way, go look" instruction, in the wrong direction. Rather than the expected program interrupted transition, verbalized by a howl and physically by a sit-down, Jonah was compliant. After he scooted past the point I wanted him to look down to the hidden escarpment below, I again gave him a "this way, look down" instruction, and he was again compliant. Below was a spike buck, and after looking Jonah said "reindeer", and with that we returned to the usual execution of the circuit, past the point were we usually see a doe and a now spotless fawn on our last lap of the day.

Jonah unexpectedly varied the bridge lap too, choosing to return on the abandoned road, rather than along the bluffs, with me helping by carrying the scooter. Approximately 10 reps over three days before we got a variation on the theme. Before going up the road to the camp area I asked Jonah to look up, and he was compliant, and after 10 or 15 seconds looked back at me and said "pink clouds".

These are good days.