I got to preview this video for review here, and I want to tell you: Dylan Kussman canact. Dylan Kussman can write. Dylan Kussman can direct. And? Dylan Kussman can sing. Seriously, folks, have a listen to his latest single, Sailor.
Love, separation, reclaiming what matters–this song is about life, and it’s brought to us by someone seriously talented. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.
I was not financially compensated for this post; I received a preview link to the video in exchange for a post with my honest opinion.
Baguette has a phenomenal memory, and she remembers songs and TV episodes and books with no trouble at all. One day she’ll suddenly recite part of a Sesame Street episode that she hasn’t seen in months, and act it out with character dolls.
Just recently–and I mean just in the last two weeks, she’s gone beyond reciting, and has started singing. For the most part, she’s been singing the songs from one of her apps. But last night, as we were playing in the front yard, I heard her sing “Let it go, let it go.”
We’re late to the Frozen party. All of her classmates were completely immersed in it for months, and she showed no interest. We bought the DVD, and she paid not the slightest attention (Mr. Sandwich and I both enjoyed it, although we’d rate Tangled higher in a number of ways).
But last night, she started singing. And when I joined in, she snapped her head around with a smile. So after her bath, I pulled up the video on my laptop, and she stopped asking for her iPad and sprinted across the room to watch it with me. Twice.
I know the rest of the world either still loves this song, or is sick to death of it. And I get that. But you know how your kid does really irritating things, like ask “Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?” Ours doesn’t.
She can sing, though. And I don’t want her to stop.
Mr. Sandwich wrote this on Monday, and we both wanted to share it here.
Last week we got the news we had been both expecting and dreading. Baguette was formally diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder. This was not a complete surprise, we had been looking at symptoms and ‘benchmarks’ to one degree or another for at least a year. There was speech therapy, there were visits with the principal at daycare about her behavior and class integration issues, of potty training, and the need for her to have further help. To the friends I’ve talked about it with, I have likened it to a punch that you can see coming. You can brace for it, but you’re still going to feel it.
So now we have a doctor’s diagnosis. We have a downloaded packet of steps to follow and paths to pursue. As I read my packet I see that I can expect to go through the stages of grief, which I don’t know if I am, or I don’t know if I started months ago when it became so clear that Baguette was different from her peers. I’ve talked with friends whose children are affected too. I’ve felt at alternating times that I am dizzy and steady, even keeled and bowled over. Today Baguette bowled me over, and I haven’t quite gotten up yet.
I picked her up from daycare late and was rushing to the pool. We’ve noticed how she seems to respond positively to the water, both with speech and behavior and for the past several weeks I’ve been trying to get her into the pool every day. When I buckled her into the carseat she asked for her Sesame Street CD like she always does, but that was in the other car, so all I could do was turn on the radio for the 3-minute drive to the park pool. Of Monsters and Men’s “Little Talks” was playing on the radio and we heard most of that by the time we hit the parking lot. I was running late, and we would only have 12 minutes worth of swimming so I was hustling as fast as I could. As I scooped up Baguette, she was reciting to me. She frequently recites, she doesn’t speak directly, she reiterates whole passages, whole verses of books and songs she knows and keeps as her friends and repeats them to me and Mommy and the World. While I was initially distracted as I fast-marched through the parking lot, she reached out and grabbed my face to turn me towards her and I heard clearly what she was reciting.
“Listen word I say. Hey. Scream sound same. Hey. Truth vary. Ship carry. Safe shore.”
She was repeating to me the lyrics she had heard on the radio just moments before. She’s heard that song played before, but not recently, and even if she did I’m not sure I’d expect any three-year-old to mimic lyrics like that. For a brief moment I was struck dumbfounded in the parking lot, trapped between wanting to laugh and congratulate her on her razor-sharp retention and cry over the fact that she couldn’t tell me things other little girls can. The fact that the lyrics are about a woman whose mind is at war with her and the man who still loves her despite this is just the brass wrapped around these particular knuckles. I didn’t have time to process the moment completely. She had started singing “The Farmer in the Dell” and time was ticking away. We only had a few minutes to get in the pool and that was the reason why we were there, for her benefit, not mine.
Hours have passed now and I can’t shake that refrain she recited to me. I can’t help but think that she was trying to tell me how the wheels in her mind were turning, how she needed me to communicate to her, how she hears the world. “Don’t listen to a word I say. (Hey) The screams all sound the same. (Hey) Though the Truth may vary, this ship will carry our bodies safe to shore.” That song will never be the same for me. Nothing will ever be the same.