Disability

I've played golf for the last three years in the Annual Friendship Home Golf Tournament. Monday the 21st of September was like the last two, perfect. I can not begin to express how moving and satisfying the day is for me.

Friendship Home is an organization seeking to create opportunities for adults with developmental disorders. In their words, "Our dream is that each individual with disabilities that we serve has a job or meaningful daytime activity, friendships that nurture them and activities that provide for educational, recreational and artistic experiences." Ultimately the organization is building a sustained organization that will have a physical space in the community where activities and respite may be provided for years to come. On Sunday September 27th at UCC Norwell from 12-2PM they will hold their ground breaking. That's the commercial, here's the content.

Three years ago, my dad asked me to play golf with him. I didn't understand what would happen. Playing in a scramble is straight forward stuff. Then he told me I would be playing with a Friendship Club member Jay N. with Downs Syndrome. I have known him for nearly 30 years, I went to Sunday school with him and was a swim instructor to him later. I hadn't seen him for 15 years.

As I waited for Jay to arrive, I got nervous. Jay has a youthful look, but thirty years ago he seemed older. He was happy to see me. Jay remembered me. I was happy. I soon met Scott M. another Friendship Club member. There we were, Dad and Scott rode together, as Jay and I did. Scott has the sweetest golf swing, effortless and reliable. Jay is a physical golfer, which is a polite way of saying if he connects it could go and go, but muscling the ball provides for an unpredictable outcome.

The day was special because it was effortless to play, even though something happened during the day that shook me. We laughed and joked all day. Then Jay told me he had a driver's license. At another point Jay bought a beer. I thought this wasn't right. I didn't think he should be allowed to do this. I did what I do best and forgot about it, concentrating on the fun we were having. I enjoyed myself and I asked how I could get more involved.

The second year was much less trying from my racist point of view. I did learn that some of Jay and Scott's friends were getting married, which got me going again, but I suppressed my bigoted and naive thoughts again. It drove me mad. I knew I didn't have these thoughts. I knew I was being bigoted and naive. I've always felt a strength of mine was knowing my weaknesses, and this I did not expect, even as we had fun playing golf.

We're now to this past Monday. I'd been thinking about myself and my issues for sometime trying to wash my insecurities away. Here came Jay and Scott. They remembered me again and gave me great big smiles. Then three things happened. My dad unintentionally made joke. I was having trouble understanding Jay. And then I watched Scott and Jay razz each other while dad and I were talking.

Jay got the joke before me. Jay took the time to slow down and speak clearer. And Jay and Scott were acting like two genuine friends that have great comfort with and love for one another. I got over myself quick. While the analogy really applies to me, I saw the gears click in Jay. He got it, he helped me understand him, and he was more normal than me.

Urge

Eternal life is now on my trail. Why are all these ugly gentlemen playing this foolish game? Racist everyman what have you done? Blow your kiss alone. The river slows by rolling heavy. Knee deep in the grass, a chaff in his mouth lazy.

Would like to get something off my chest. I want to get something down, anything in writing. Black and white on the page. One word after the other and one with perhaps more meaning than the previous. Two then three then four words that make a sentence. Several sentences that make a paragraph.

I have been moved by this album for weeks now. Listening and listening. Over and over. Provocative words, simple words, and words that contradict one another. These are all intertwined in melodious, harmonious and cacophonous sounds sometimes and others. Falsetto, alto, up and down, vocal gymnastics without effort and intent.

My heart is frozen still as I try to find the will to forget her. She is somewhere out there now. Never knowing, knowing what it is to be his children. Dream brother. There is the sun red hot and blowing west. Feeling raindrops and the smack and pull of the wind. The slow interminable descent glistens held up now.

Joyful Surrender

The bookends were magnificent. Joe Kennedy for Senate. Caroline was sublime in her celebration. John Culver's mastery of the story, Orrin Hatch's nervous love, Duval Patrick's eloquent manner, Joe Biden's admiration and need of love from such a man that knows loss, and the emotional John McCain.

The boys and the youngest generation were so much more powerful than the moving eulogy by President Obama. What would he have said if he wasn't cloaked in the formality of his position? The homily by the (I can't remember the Father's name.) Priest was magnificent. Most moving to me was the responsorial, Psalm 72, by Kara.

As the evening closed, Teddy's letter to Pope Benedictine was, again, sublime, oh to be able to command such potency. And his dictated response of "joyful surrender." His grandchildren wept at his casket in the light from the cars in the procession.

I went to Ted Kennedy's wake. I walked from the Expo to the Library. These places I've been to many, many times, except this time I was hoping they would move me differently. My mind was blank as I walked by the fields I played soccer and underneath the buildings in which I took classes. Without intention, I waited for the wake to begin with a woman I go to church with but don't know well. We discussed each other and what Ted meant to us. The morning wasn't unusual or usual for that matter.

As we waited in line, people walked by, small discussions were overheard, cameras both still and motion, but I couldn't muster a sense of death. The moment wasn't big, even as it was a big moment. I wanted more, however, even as I and many others that morning met Ted's daughter Kara and her children Max and Grace, it didn't register. I met Jesse Jackson and surely he would elicit something, but he didn't.

I continued on to the office, reflecting on how nice it was to spend time with someone I wouldn't except to sit next to in church on occasion. I learned good things and nice things about her as she did about me. We walked by the casket and all I could think was the Honor Guard is so stoic. Teddy was stoic, but didn't carry himself in such ways. Teddy brought his ideals to America and Massachusetts, and it is in that way that he is different. The Senator sought to make your life better too, not just mine.

As an individual, Teddy and I don't see the same glass of water. Although I have voted for him more than once, its because his efforts further causes that mean something to me: education and mental illness. I will find the quote from Caroline on Friday, but its the future and while Teddy isn't there to attain that future he fought so hard for, it is within our grasp. Keep up the good fight. Give to those who are struggling and are fighting to make it.

Both sides, liberal and conservative, republican and democrat, gay and straight, black and white, are looking for the same sustaining ideals set before us even as they don't take the same road. The efficacy of Teddy is the ability to find compromise without sacrificing his principles.

I want to finish strong, but I spent three days with Teddy, his family, and, in particular, my wife discussing stuff that means something. I am spent, a selfish statement in the wake of the vigil an Irish family gives their dead. I have prayed, cried, laughed, joked, and reflected upon a wide range of topics. I look forward to the quiet reflection in the coming days. I gave myself to this moment and I hope I take something from it.

Being

“Where the Wild Things Are” by Maurice Sendak is sublime. It requires little imagination to fill in the blanks and offers lessons in forgiveness. Perhaps the hardest element to imagine is what leads to Max’s mother to send him to his room. Max did state he would eat her up, but a child in a wolf suit is play acting. However, she loves Max and fixes his dinner for him in his room. Now there is a movie and book of the same title coming out (and Maurice Sendak is on board).

Spike Jonze and Dave Eggers wrote the screenplay and Dave Eggers is writing the book. A new version of something great is always tricky. Do you stay within the framework of the original or blow it up or some combination? Jonze directs music videos and directed the Oscar winning movie “Adaptation.” Beyond that his writing credits amount to the TV show/movie “Jackass” which I liked. I’ll see the movie before I give Jonze a hard time.

I don’t like Dave Eggers. He left it all on the table when he wrote “A Staggering Work….” I read the book with enthusiasm. I devoured it, but at three-quarters I realized there was never going to be an ending suitable to my tastes, and it starts over again in subsequent works. Eggers is a cynic that was dealt a pretty tough blow early in life. His parents died of cancer within months of one another. He raised a younger brother with out too much help from two other siblings. I empathize with him, but his inability to move on is what leaves me sour. The New Yorker’s posted some commentary by Eggers about the new book, movie and other stuff, as well as a portion of the new book. Eggers assumes that because his life is a trial, so must Max’s.

Eggers has created a contrived website and/or product(s) that have provided me with positive stimulation, but I find it too convoluted to get through. However, he’s done something awesome by creating the 826 Writing and Tutoring Centers. So while I no longer enjoy what he’s got to say in most forms, I do commend him for doing a great service to provide a creative outlet to those that may not have the chance/opportunity to explore this side of themselves. The program is well conceived, and he does have clout/money. Enough background/justification.

Max’s mother has a name!?!? He has a stepfather!?!? Max has an older sister!?!? The Wild Things have names, too, and personal issues that a group hug and therapy will help in everyone’s recovery. If Eggers is writing, and he is, then this is what I have to expect. His piling on ruins my simple exploration into a child’s imagination and understanding that he can trust his mother and be reassured of her love and forgiveness through the gesture of a meal and it was still warm. Max forgives her as well, because I assume he eats the meal based upon the inflection of and it was still warm.

The story Sendak wrote does lend itself to exploration/expansion. It’s compressed. The Wild Things may represent me as a parent. Previously mentioned, it doesn’t explain why Max is really sent to his room. It doesn’t explain in any specific manner what happens as Max sails to and from Where through night and day, in and out of weeks, and almost over a year. It doesn’t give any back story to the Wild Things. "Where the Wild Things Are" is a story as simple as the words on the page or a spiraling journey into new worlds to understand and manage consequence, love and forgiveness.

The effort to make it a coping device for Eggers saddens me. I can relate to Sendak’s version, it is bare and forthright. Its brilliance is in its broad, but complete storyline. There are discussions to have and imaginings to create. I don’t suffer the same life Eggers suffers. As it boils down, I would write it differently or would prefer another author. I would prefer a freshness that Eggers is not capable of providing me, perhaps by Cormac McCarthy. “The Road,” while dark, was a progressive, positive journey to lightness.

Song

The kids and I read together each night: a story, then a poem, which is read each night of the week, and a from a daily devotional. Check out the link to the poem we recently read. Read it twice. Its a ballad. Sing when it says to sing. Sing the whole thing.

Poets.net: Classic Poetry: Tom O'Bedlam (Anonymous Folk Song)

Rabbithole (NOWBlog Part 2 or Paradox Part 2)

I write proposals for an engineering firm, advance the firm’s cause through a variety of marketing activity and sometimes provide administrative efforts. I work for Fay, Spofford & Thorndike. We are engineers for many aspects of transportation and environmental infrastructure and building facilities.

I’m more salesman, pitchman, MADMAN than what the AEC (architecture/engineering/construction) industry calls a marketer. Proposal writing isn’t marketing; its sales, and I offer a check or balance to the technical staff. The best proposals I have written have been well planned with collaboration from technical staff. My company sells an intangible service that creates tangible products like bridges and water treatment facilities. Engineering a road through any terrain is theoretical until the last bucket of concrete is set.

There is always more nuance to absorb, new clients to approach - internal and external. Personality, criteria and value-added differentiators to separate my firm from another is the proposal process. I manage or orchestrate a proposal with interest in the final product. I think the stuff my firm does is cool.

Paradox

I’ve been watching a living art project, One & Other, which is ongoing in Trafalgar Square in London on the Fourth Plinth. The Fourth Plinth is a pedestal that was meant as a tribute to King William IV. Due to insufficient funds, it has remained empty. Since 1999, the Royal Society of Arts has been commissioning art projects to be displayed on the plinth.

This project by sculptor Antony Gormley, will offer the space, currently in its third week, to a different person to occupy the Fourth Plinth every hour, 24 hours a day for 100 days without a break, to make the Plinth their own. The website streams each hour and provides some insight into the Plinther. I’ve seen a robot, an Elvis impersonator, a house cleaner, protesters, readers, writers, singers, photographers, artists, crowd pleasers/teasers/taunters, and boring people. This got me thinking.

If given one hour to do anything I want on an eight meter pedestal for the world to see, what would it be? Also, I’ve been contemplating the title, One & Other, since it seems simple to understand, but after glimpsing a few of the Plinthers, an interesting pairing of words.

The action of allowing unfettered access to Matt Hawk for one hour seems ludicrous. I don’t want that kind of access to myself, let alone giving myself away this vulnerable situation. I’ve written my obituary on several occasions in college as a writing exercise, and been asked to contemplate my legacy from the pulpit on a Sunday morning. These acts seem ridiculous to me, but the one I would prefer is standing on the plinth. It would be a true and undeniable representation of me. I would perform a day in the life.

More interesting to me is the title of the project, One & Other.
1) It neatly describes the concept of the project
2) It separates each plinther
3) Its a play on words that brings each Plinther and observers together