The Martian

I’ve just finished reading Andy Weir’s best seller “The Martian”. It’s now a hit movie starring Matt Damon. What a ripping yarn. Classic holiday reading; breezy, humorous, tense, and gripping. It’s hardly what you would call great literature and is a bit cringy in parts but I wasn’t looking for great literature, and the cringe was relatively brief. If you can put aside an afternoon or two you’ll get it read because it will hold you in its grasp. The hammock in the backyard, a beer, and The Martian. Not a bad holiday retreat.

 

Without giving away the plot it’s about an astronaut called Mark Watney who, due to some catastrophic circumstances, gets stranded on Mars. He needs to find ways to survive until a rescue mission arrives, though he is not even certain if one is coming. His “home” is a pressurised inflatable “tent” called the Hub. If it loses pressure he’ll, well, explode into millions of bits in Mars’ thin atmosphere.

 

Watney has a multitude of hurdles to overcome. Most seem insurmountable. All are life threatening. He uses his expert training, his human instincts, his tools and equipment, and his raw courage to persist. Its compelling stuff. As I was reading it I wondered how I would react in that situation. Would I give up? Would I persist against the impossible odds? As the chances to survive decrease would my tenacity go in the opposite direction? Or would I crumble? Do I even know what real hardship is?

 

Over the holidays we’ve been trying to teach Kate to catch public transport to MSAC (Melbourne Sports and Aquatic Centre), which is located on the opposite side of Melbourne from our house. The only way to teach her is to undertake the trip repeatedly until she gets comfortable. And I really mean repeatedly.

 

She needs to catch two trams which traverse the familiar streets of our suburb, through little Vietnam in Richmond with its bustling noise, exotic smells, and eclectic characters, through the CBD which must feel like Mordor to a Hobbit like Kate, and across South Melbourne’s multihued streets. The trip is about an hour each way if all goes well and if trams connect (which they never do). She needs to know this trip backwards because in 2016 she is doing a (very rudimentary) sports and administration program as part of her school year. It only takes place at MSAC. She’ll be making the return trip weekly alongside the flotsam and jetsam, and the ill-at-ease, who travel on Melbourne’s trams.

 

It scares the hell out of me.

 

She looks so vulnerable. Although she’s now 18, she’s still just a little girl with Down Syndrome (she’s only about 4’10” which I think is less than 150 centimetres), seated on a tram, and counting the tram stops as she goes past them, which we’ve taught her to do,

 

“That’s stop 118. That’s stop 119………”

 

She gets stares because she counts the stops out loud. This gives her reassurance. They become more tangible. It’s just her thing.

 

To add to the confusion she needs to change trams and therefore change tram routes. So the tram stop numbers also vary. They go from 24 at one street, to 106 the next. So we can’t even teach her how to simply follow a numerical order.

 

Meanwhile Frances or I (whoever is on the roster) seat ourselves away from her so she knows we are there, but she also knows we will offer no assistance unless she becomes overwhelmed. They call it tough love. I call it excruciating.

 

When this whole process started Kate may as well have been on Mars. It was foreign and frightening. She didn’t want to be there. “Why am I doing this?” she would ask. Frances and I grappled with the same question. We almost relented. Almost.

 

Try teaching a person with an intellectual disability that her destination lies in one direction on the way there, and the opposite direction on the way home; that when she gets off at this stop upon arrival, she must cross the road and catch a tram going in the opposite direction to return home. Her instincts tell her she should just get back on exactly the same tram.

 

Try telling her that the purpose of this rigmarole is because she will need these skills in a few months’ time. Kate only thinks as far ahead as her next meal. She lives in the moment. If the present is difficult why waste energy on the future? Teaching Kate things is like assembling a 5,000 piece Lego tower; its hugely time-consuming but the end result is often beautiful.

 

The other day there was a mechanical problem with the tram. An announcement came over the PA,

 

“This tram hassuffered a prolem. i wonbegoing any furth. Ploise alight thetram ‘ere”.

 

Uncertain at first she looked around for motherly assistance. The announcement may as well have been in Swahili. Kate had no understanding. And she probably wasn’t listening anyway as she was diligently counting tram stops like Mum and Dad had taught her. Against all instincts Frances decided not to help. At least initially. Kate was on her own. What would she do?

 

Well, she left the tram and stood for a few moments on the footpath. She started playing with her pony tail and chewing her tongue. These are sure signs that she is contemplating a serious question. This was a good start. The last thing we want to see is her sitting on the bitumen in a state of helplessness; to see her giving up. It must have been such a struggle for her. There would have been some panic (though Mum was nearby), there would have been enormous confusion, and there was probably profound self-consciousness. Cars and trucks zoomed past, the reactions of her fellow tram travellers offered her no clues; there was no uniform movement, just people departing in all sorts of directions to get themselves home.

 

A penny for her thoughts.

 

Finally she looked further up the street. There was another tram waiting, ahead of the broken one. And it was pointing in the right direction! So she calmly walked to that tram, checked it was the right number, and got on. What was all the parental distress about? Problem solved.

 

I think I know why I loved reading The Martian so much. I think it’s because I watch our own version of it every day. Kate is our Mark Watney. She’s stuck in a difficult place. She hopes for rescue but has no expectation of it. She knows that we can’t go where she must go. I pray that she builds the necessary tenacity and perseverance. I know she would prefer to sit in her own hub and let the world swirl around her, but we need to push her out. We need to see what she’s capable of. She needs to see what she’s capable of. I think her adventures are just beginning, and they’ll last a life time.