Dec. 10: The audience

I had an audience of one for about 20 minutes while scraping a good 25 pounds of ice-caked snow off the car this evening. My son. He watched me from the upstairs window, never taking his eyes off me. I waved to him. He waved back. He's 11. Autism. 

Two days earlier, I performed for about 200 partygoers at the army base in Petawawa. It was a different kind of audience. In Petawawa, the audience was in search of entertainment. My son just wanted to observe me.

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I've heard it said that when a child turns 10, parents should begin the process of letting go. It is not a selfish thing; it is a painful yet pragmatic piece of good advice. A parent must prepare his or her child to live apart from them because - statistically speaking - the child will outlive them. This letting go must be cruel at times and surely one of the saddest and shocking revelations of life must be that the world does not revolve around them.

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I am my kid's best friend. At the age of 11, there is no one he likes to play with. He never asks me if he can go to someone's house and never asks if the friend can come visit. His playtime is solitary. He loves his iPad and his bouncy balls and that's about it.

This week, we will go swimming at the pool in Cornwall. He will ask for "Orange Pizza," which is what he calls the Pizza Pizza franchise. He will go to therapy earlier in the day. It is our weekly routine. At the swimming pool, he will spend most of his time playing with the water jets. It's called stimming. He stims a lot.

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So I have two audiences - one is my audience when I do my magic shows and the other is my kid when I live my life.

There was an occasion when the two met. I was doing a magic show for a youth group at my church and, as luck would have it, my kid was in the audience. He couldn't bear to have me onstage without him, didn't like having all those people watch me without letting them know that he is my number one fan. So he joined me onstage and pressed his face into my belly. The audience adored it and I adored it too and it might have been one of the best magic shows I've ever done.



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