My daughter is a sweet mystery to me, a beautiful work of art that I somehow had a hand in creating. I know my DNA is in there somewhere, but when I try to think of where and how, I feel wrapped in clouds; I feel like when I was visiting Japan and was high up on a mountain at a Buddhist temple on a misty day. There is a feeling of awe, of reverence, of holiness, of difference, of alienness, and of mystery in the unfamiliar blurring lines and soft shapes in the fog.

When I look at my son, I see my reflection. I see me, mirrored back to me. Like a mirror, things are backward, reversed, not quite as they are in life, yet they are fully recognizable. In many ways, we are very different. I'm a woman; he's a boy. He is biracial with dark eyes, golden skin and lush brown curls; I'm clearly the descendant of my Aryan ancestors: blond, blue-eyed and fair with bone straight hair. He's autistic; I'm not. He's a math genius; I'm, um, definitely not.

Yet I share some of his sensory issues, some of his anxieties, some of his fears. When I was maybe eight years old, we were on vacation and went to visit one of my mother's friends. She had a son the same age, and we were set loose to play together. He wanted to ride bikes or roller skate or do something else involving bodies on wheels. I do not like the sensation of speed, of wind in my hair, of being off balance and out of control. I do not bike and oh boy, do I really, really not ever strap anything on my feet to make me go fast: not skates, not skis, not anything. And it's hard for me to talk to new people; I do it now, always at the cost of great energy, but when I was a child, I didn't do it at all.

So, when I was asked to put my body on wheels, with some child I did not know, I ran away and locked myself in the only safe place I could find: our station wagon. It was hot, and I was sticking to the vinyl seats, pretending to be asleep. I didn't dare open the window a crack, because I didn't want anyone to speak to me. I sat roasting in the car until my mom came out and let a blast of icy 80 degree air into the car and peeled me off the back seat and explained that I did not have to ride a bike or play with Strange New Kid; I could go sit in a corner of the house and read a book. My mother is not without her issues, but like I understand my son, she understood me.

Whenever my son is screaming "NO!" when we ask him to say hello to someone new or to try a new food or to allow a new toy in the room that looks like it might make noise, I see that little girl, sweltering in the back seat of that old wood paneled station wagon, afraid she might have to get on wheels, afraid she might have to talk to someone. I see my reflection, and I let him know that I get it and I want to help.