always making meaning

The Fawn

For one of the occupational therapists who was my clinical instructor where I completed my final fieldwork today :)  

Some of the clients we see are on the autism spectrum--which is infinite.  The therapists at my clinic utilize the DIR (Developmental, Individual Differences, Relationship-Based) framework, which is grounded in face-to-face human interaction.  Central to this framework is the concept of following a child's lead during play, enriching and making his/her initiation of words or play meaningful.  My apologies if using an animal metaphor is in any way offensive; this poem was intended as a metaphorical reflection on a therapeutic interaction.

In the gym,

its red water pipes above,

and ships hoisted with ropes

As crass and inappropriate as the association may be,

I recall The Miracle Worker,

The tale of Anne Sullivan and Hellen Keller.

And the climactic scene at the water pump

As “w-a-t-e-r”

became water:

The Key that unlocked the Beyond.

Some days I cannot help but hear

The white noise of water rushing

As you, miracle worker, set to work

Busying yourself

With what brings water

With what brings life:

What game,

What barely mentioned idea

What toy that catches the eye

And as the water rushes over,

You are sticking your hand out

Over and over again

Looking for that twinkle in the eye,

Your subject of interest:

a young stick-legged fawn

Playing in the grass just beyond the riverbank

And you search for that

glimmer in his eye,

a leg tentatively dipped into the stream,

You desire him to hold it there,

As your eyes meet across the riverbank

And are held for breathless minutes

We know a miracle is at work here.

Like in that play,

When water

Led to watershed

A linking of word and sound and feeling:

a gateway to all beyond.

And here are you,

enticing him from across the riverbank

Because all you know is this land that you live on:

Firm ground, critically rooted

in conversation,

in emotional understanding,

in reading expressions and tone of voice,

In webs that emerge in complex and multifaceted ways

As numerous and unimaginable as the blades of grass under the bed where he is standing, knobbly-kneed and tongue-tied.

And you want to dip your body in the stream that lies between you

And for him to enter this current, too,

long enough to know that you are feeling the same water.

When the wind settles,

Your hands form a cup, and he echoes “cup,”

And you take it to mean—

As you’re always making meaning—

A cup of water.  And you bring a cup.

And you are breathing, watching him drink.

And soon you will be pushing him on his tire swing

back to

Sail away

To some distant land

But in your head is the thought:

The sun is hot.  And over your life a million eyes in the world

will bear down upon you, my dear.

So come again soon, to the edge of your woods,

Where we can dip our legs in this cool current

And together, wonder at where it leads.

the healing capacity

Training

for the Speech-Language Pathologist at the outpatient occupational therapy clinic where I'm completing my fieldwork.

I must tell you that sometimes

in the gym, on the blue mats,

The two 5-year olds with their superhero masks

become to me like the nations of the world.

Countries that have taken their socks off

and are now sparring

as another country

looks on from the sidelines.

And you are reminding them to use their words.

And you are asking them to notice what is happening.

And by your presence and tone of voice you are commanding

that they attend to the reactions of the other.

These 5-year old boys,

Brash and strong-willed,

have come for their training:

moving, challenging themselves, executing a plan—

And sometimes the action gets fierce.

In which case, you use your voices and the position of your bodies to say

Wait a minute.  Something happened.

When one party loses attention: you say,

Come back here,

And all the worlds in orbit in the room slow

To respond to you saying,

Stop,

Sit.

You are asking the offender to look at the victim’s face

Saying,

Can you tell what he is feeling?

And you question the offender,

Did you mean for that to happen?

And the clock’s long hand moving through the pink pie slice of time stops.

Because when it comes to feelings,

And when it comes to misunderstandings,

And when it comes to how we express ourselves with our bodies,

We have all the time in the world.

And you are writing a story

Complete with pictures

About what happens when bodies move too quickly that they forget

Brains and hearts behind

And you are telling this story over and over again.

And time only breaks with the swell of your voices

and the release of your arms,

when the attention you have gathered spills over into relief—

Of a misunderstanding amended,

Of a mistake forgiven

Of a game renewed

When you announce that only 5 minutes remain,

because we have spent time looking into each other’s eyes,

the transition out is somehow bearable.

I have not seen peace among your goals,

But I know that shifting a single piece in a dynamic system

has consequences beyond measure.

And I wish that every soldier in the world could file through your camp.

p*ART*y

This world is but a canvas to our imagination. Thoreau

Claire is our matriarch.

Life is just a bowl full of cherries.

Vic giving the old manual drying-wing flap technique a go.

Thoughtful roommates!

A painting is never finished--it simply stops in interesting places. Paul Gardner

A beauty bomb

Maybe we should develop a Crayola bomb as our next secret weapon.  A happiness weapon.  A beauty bomb.  And every time a crisis developed, we would launch one.  It would explode high in the air - explode softly - and send thousands, millions, of little parachutes into the air.  Floating down to earth - boxes of Crayolas.  And we wouldn't go cheap, either - not little boxes of eight.  Boxes of sixty-four, with the sharpener built right in.  

With silver and gold and copper, magenta and peach and lime, amber and umber and all the rest.  

And people would smile and get a little funny look on their faces and cover the world with imagination.  

~Robert Fulghum

Crayons in the outpatient occupational therapy clinic where I'm completing my fieldwork.

St. Mary Star of the Sea

Astoria, Oregon

commissioned

You have nothing infinite except your soul's love and desire.

~Catherine of Siena