In the Fik of it

I had somebody in tears again today.   They weren’t tears of sorrow or frustration or joy, in fact I think they were tears of anger.   I sat next to, and asked what I’d done, said, or wrote that set it all off and like a dog sitting next to an angry master – waited for absolution, or at least a tossed Frisbee. Neither was granted me and the language that came forth was received much as a dog would hear it, not actual words but emotions.   I tried whining, wagging my tail, even chortling out a warm “woof” but none of them had the desired affect.   When my master left the room, I was left to hear only the silence and the best I could do with it was to put my head on my paws and wait till he came back. There are days when I “do it all wrong” ; I’m Peter with the sword, Jonah headed the wrong way, I’m a combination of Anita Bryant and Dan Quale – standing up for something and then being eviscerated by popular thought as being “an irrelevant idiot”.   I do ...

In frustration I grabbed her by the wrists and dragged her partway off the sofa.  She weighs fully over a hundred pounds so I could only get her so far and I needed to stop for breath.  To be honest, I’m at the point in life where I was more worried about throwing my back out than I was for her safety and welfare.  “She’s young, she’ll heal ” was my thought. She clearly didn’t feel well and had no intention of leaving the respite house.  I felt like I needed to get her out as I was way over that allotted time generously given me by the State of Michigan and the local community health organization.  I waited till the last minute to get her and now felt the need to make a hasty departure. She began the seizure just before I arrived – in fact it was the first time I’d ever come to pick her up here and found her to not to be in some sort of manic phase – kicking doors, screaming, punching, ripping knapsacks from the hands of the staff. The staff always lo...

I sit in the rocking chair looking down on Bethany as she quietly plays with a ball near the big glass windows.   The sunlight through her jet-black hair makes it look more red than black and it makes her brown eyes appear more clear than they really are.   She’s having a quiet moment, gently tapping the ball against her teeth as she stares out the window.   Times like this, I can see her, the sunlight, and the dust in the air all gently mixing together to make a living ray of hope that washes over her being, right into my soul.   It’s a calming sight; it’s an infrequent sight.   She sighs, shifts the ball to the other hand and resumes the tapping pattern, all without moving her gaze even so much as a millimeter.   Its times like this that I realize how big she’s grown.   She’ll be 16 years old soon and her size and voice are taking on a more commanding presence while her demeanor becomes more harsh, her demands more insistent.    A...

I was speaking with a designer the other day, a peer in my world of architecture; I was explaining the design logic behind a particular solution I was offering.   I went through the discussion of design “form language”, the elements of design such as shape, scale, mass and plane.   I was speaking of convexities and concavities and how human perception is affected by each of these elements.   His response was “I don’t know what you’re speaking of, this language is new to me” .   My chin nearly hit the floor as this was about like telling your doctor that your “thrombosis was likely caused by restricted bloodflow through lower Ischial tuberosities” and he looks at you with a blank stare and says, “what’s that?” I didn’t realize how training in the classical arts would become the basis for how I convey crazy ideas, how I articulate concepts and how I nearly bust out laughing every time I think of the shading on the edge of a pear. The pear I was forced to dra...