Opening Walker’s heart and mind

Cliff and I were buoyant on the day we came to suburban Washington, D.C., to meet Greenspan. The morning before we came, we had visited a café, where Walker hung over my shoulder, looking at a woman at the next table, smiling at her. We were proud that Walker could smile at people, that he could at last crawl, that we'd been able to teach him some simple games. Walker didn't stare at light much anymore. Yet I saw now in Greenspan's office, in this new room, that he was struggling to keep himself together. A baby nearly a year old (by now he was eleven months) would typically explore a new space, yet he didn't. There seemed to be little room in his mind or awareness for the new, for the toy or the window or the loose paper. Instead, he was just trying to manage the massive weight of the newness, trying to find out where he was in space. He rocked his head back and forth, back and forth; struggled to control his body, his arms flailed. A thin pattern of light fell across the Oriental carpets, though he looked at neither the light nor the rug.

Greenspan reappeared through the hidden door in the wall, seated himself, picked up a video camera, loaded it with a new cartridge, and gently suggested one of us get down on the floor.

"Dad?" He looked at Cliff.

Cliff got down on the floor and began to play with Walker. Cliff began trying to interact with him, yet Walker stayed largely mired in his own world. He picked up a block, knocked it against Cliff's block, and crawled away to play on his own. After a few minutes of Cliff trying to somehow catch up, Walker began frantically creeping toward the ends of the Oriental carpets that lay across Greenspan's floor. At the sides of the rugs lay long white strings, unraveled parts of the rug. He flew to the strings, grabbed them, sucked his thumb.

"Mom," said Greenspan, inviting me down. I went to the floor, eager to show what Arlene and Dawn had taught me. Yet Walker was difficult to reach.

I worked hard to entice him away from the Oriental rug strings. But the more tired Walker grew, the more hungrily he pulled at the strings, which he rubbed in his palm like a rosary and flicked against his upper lip.

Still, Walker and I made some progress. Together he and I played "Row, row, row your boat." Back and forth we rocked in front of Greenspan, and I, as Arlene had taught me, stopped my motion after each cycle, until Walker began to rock again to show me he wanted more.

Dr. Greenspan was happy to see that Walker was somewhat engaged, that he could creep across the floor to knock down our standard tower of plastic cups, but he wanted more. He steered us toward understanding that Walker's problem-solving needed to be not so much with toys, but with people. Walker needed to be constantly looking, laughing. "There are several levels from which we need to approach this. You want to get a level of juiciness into your play. Make it fun, joyful. But you also want to get the rhythm faster," he said. "We don't want him spacing out." Greenspan explained that we needed to keep Walker in a constant flow. If we made a sound, he must make a sound — that's one circle. We laugh, he laughs, that's another circle.

The point was: It wasn't just about reacting and staying focused. It had to be about people. It had to be about us first.

"No, no, no!" Greenspan called out to me. "Now you've lost him."

Cliff came to the floor again, and appeared to think for a moment about this concept ... play through people ... people being more important than things ... and then lay down on the floor and put the plastic cups on his eyes.

"Now say, 'I bet you can't get them' to Walker," said Greenspan.

I chimed in enthusiastically like someone at a horse race, "Go get them, Walker."

Greenspan turned to me. He was still the gentle man with the slightly sleepy eyes, yet somehow I saw something fierce and unrelenting there. He grew sober, serious, admonishing, and made it clear that I must never do that. Never. I must be careful not to tell Walker what to do. "Instead inspire him. No one tells a novelist what to write — they need to inspire you. Right?" he said.

Cliff hid himself behind a piece of cardboard. Walker smiled. Cliff peeked out.

"Now make him work for it!" called out Greenspan somewhat whimsically.

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