After working with Jacob today, I took a walk on the beach, and found myself seeing and then seeking patterns.  I realized that I had been doing that all day with him.  Looking for little chains of movement, sequences that made some sense of the collage that is his movement.

At night, I am reading, studying, trying to figure it out.  What am I seeing? How can I enter that world in a way that makes sense to him.

Tonight, I had a little breakthrough.  I mirrored him meticulously, in as much detail as I could.  The dynamics of his movement, the tension in specific body parts, the sounds, the sequencing of his gestures and the direction and shape of each movement, each stillness.  He felt the difference and guided me, sometimes taking me by the hand, through a series of about six little dances.  They were patterns! I felt like a visitor to his museum, his continent, with Jacob as the guide, helping me to navigate.  He seemed happy that I was finally getting it, and when I got it wrong, he showed me again.  I had to stop myself from crying.  At the end, he drifted away.  Perhaps the exertion, or maybe he had just found the end of the dance and I did not recognize it.

Jacob, looking.