Benched Week 32: reflections

The blue sky promised to me in Seattle turned out to be overcast, but I was thankful it was, at least, dry.  Dreary beats drizzly any day.

I left my hotel in mid-afternoon, walking through a rather drab neighborhood made even less appealing by ample road construction.  I didn’t need a map to get to my destination.  A few blocks away the Space Needle loomed, smaller than I had imagined it, but still impressive, iconic.  And gray.



I quickly found color, though.  Riotous, vibrant, outrageous color.

First was the exterior of a museum, against which I captured this young woman, framed serendipitously against a violet wall. 



Then I found it in a great, red sculpture that looked like a giant’s construction toy. 



And finally, color came alive in the work of Dale Chihuly, glass sculptor, carefully lit in dark chambers of another museum, that seemed to bottle up the rainbow in spheres and worm-like ribbons.  What impressed me wasn’t just his use of color, but how he used light and reflection to augment it.

In this room, glass pieces were strewn across a transparent ceiling, allowing light to filter through.



And in this experiment, he floated his pieces in a simple Scandinavian boat on the ocean just to see how light would interplay with the hues.



I found myself reflected in this sphere, resting in the garden outside.  In another sense, I found myself reflected in much of the work – in the imperfections that made each simple globe unique.  I’m good at imperfections!







We are all drawn by beauty, in all its hues and shapes and seemingly infinite variety.  It fills us and thrills us because we see in it a reflection of a greater loveliness that our souls long for.  C.S. Lewis put it well when he said that those things of beauty “are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited.”  Or an intensity of a color just beyond the reach of our senses.



I have to admit an admiration bordering on jealousy for Chihuli’s work.  Color will never be my strong suit, but to find a form to explore, and define, and to give to the world – that would be sweet indeed.  To bring some beauty into another person’s life.  To point toward that greater loveliness.  Sweet.  Indeed.

And as to highlight the point, when I left the museum, the setting sun lit up the Space Needle, making it seem to glow from within.  But I knew better.

It was only reflecting.

Benched Week 31: a snowy invitation

There’s nothing like this time of year for a fresh start.

I began my usual year-end review a few days ago, in which I consider the good and the bad that has happened in the family’s life in the past twelve months.  That mixture was swirling in my mind like stirred hot cocoa as I drove back from State College, having dropped off a son at the Megabus.  As I passed a favorite park of ours, I decided to turn in and find a bench.



It’s ironic that we’ve never visited a park with such a name in the wintertime.  We call it by its nickname, Halfway Dam, and love to grill here in the summer, when the beach is crowded with people and the water is just a shade less frigid.  Today, I found it had quite a different personality – hushed as if hibernating or holding its breath until spring. 

There were a few people who had come to enjoy the cold,though.  Young hockey players warmed up.



And a family had a half-hearted snowball fight.



It’s good to see a familiar landscape in a different light.  It’s not unlike my daughter’s room this morning, after she spent yesterday rearranging the furniture – all the same elements viewed from a different angle.  I think that’s why I do my year-end review.  Distance gives a new perspective on personal scenery.

But it’s not just about looking back.  It’s just as much about looking forward.  And as I sat on my bench and gazed across the beautiful, unmarred snow that covered the icy lake, it struck me how a new year is like a fresh layer of snow over familiar ground.  Sure, much of this ground has been trekked before, but there’s a pleasure in setting out, making a mark –feeling like one is on a journey of discovery.

The metaphor becomes even more powerful to me when I change the time frame: not just each year, but each day is a fresh field of snow. Every day brings an invitation to make a mark, to chart a course.  Or to switch metaphors just a bit – every day is like a blank canvas, just waiting for a new work of art.  (Or in one case when Grace was little, the snow was both.)



So, I think I’m ready to make my mark on today.  Whether it be something whimsical, or just a simple walk on a renewed landscape.

Fresh snow -- a fresh day -- awaits!

Benched Week 30: guarded moments

My second trip to Manhattan in two weeks brought me to an inevitable spot.  Rockefeller Center and its bejeweled tree had drawn crowds even in the late afternoon, when the lights were not yet piercing and the skaters weren’t yet pirouetting below. I joined the throng.

I had hoped for a bench, and I was happily surprised one lining each side of the garden that approaches the view.  With people swirling around me, I sat and watched.



With the fast turnover of the crowd, it didn’t take long to pick out the one person who didn’t move on. And it wasn’t this rather grim-faced guy, who stood for some time alone, unmoving against the wall.  Even he eventually melded back into the crowd.



The one constant was a young guard who had been given the duty of telling people to stop standing on the benches.  Or climbing into the garden. 



Most often, they were after a clearer, more dramatic shot.  But he commanded –politely – that they get down.  Or get out of the plants. And scarcely a minute went by without him approaching someone. 



I decided I had to talk to him.

“Tough job,” I said when I sidled up.  He nodded. I added,  “Anyone ever get angry?”

 “Nah,” he answered.  “They’re tourists.  They listen. Thing is, they don’t realize those benches are slick.  Don’t want anyone to get hurt.”



Little life lesson there.  Rules aren’t usually just to curtail fun.  They mean to protect – not only delicate displays from trampling tourists, but trampling tourists from themselves.

I’ve been feeling a bit lately like challenges in life are like security guards just putting a damper on the fun.  Standing in the way of a great shot, as it were.

But according to a dear friend I talked with as I drove today, challenges can be a way to get our attention – to stop and take stock, to pay attention to what we’re doing.  To think about the decisions we’re making. And the ones that we might need to make.

There might just be a new angle, a new approach, a new road to take.  

Now only if I could find a herald to announce which direction that would be.

Benched Week 29: long walk in Longwood

Who knew that Longwood Gardens in Kennett Square, PA, famous for its indoor and outdoor flora, would have a plethora of delightful benches?  I passed many as Alison, Grace and I wandered the grounds, settling on this grand stone one as my official bench of the week.



But we weren’t there for the benches.  We were trying to get into a holiday mood.

I have a like/dislike relationship with Christmas traditions.  Over the years, we’ve committed to less and less of the usual rituals, dropping by the wayside baking cookies, Christmas cards, and regularly submitting to holiday music.  I’m afraid that if Alison didn’t drive the decorating, I’d cut a sprig of holly from the neighbor’s tree and call it a day.

In fact, I’m finding myself increasingly allergic to rituals of all kinds.  For a theme-and-variation guy, traditions feel like the cage I’m left to pace in.  Same songs. Same movies.  Same sappy sentiments.

Can we say, “Bah, humbug, children?”

But Longwood taught me something.  This time of year has a tremendous potential for infusing beauty into one’s life, if even just for a month.  (Hear that, Madison Avenue?  One month.)  As I walked and looked at the displays – with both an eye and a camera lens – I felt my senses filling up with color and texture and design.

Then, as I was just cropping photos, it hit me: traditions are a frame for the beauty.  They give us cause to decorate and the pause to appreciate. Just like a frame hones in our vision to just the key elements the artist or photographer wants us to see, holiday traditions frame up those simple joys, those fundamental truths that usually get swept up in the everyday.  They put a shine and a sparkle on them.

So, in the coming days, I’m going to share with you my framing of the beauty that I saw – not so much the outdoor splendor of lit trees, floating on water.



Or the lavish color of the fountain show.



But the small, touches of design and color, made (hopefully) more delightful because of the framing. May they add a few moments of beauty to your holiday season.

Benched Week 28: sitting at the crossroads

On this cold, November Thursday, I am sitting on a bench in the tiny community of Buffalo Crossroads, which is not much more than just that, an intersection.  I am here to contemplate this building, the first incarnation of the church I attend.



As I sit and watch the empty building, I try to imagine the sounds of a Sunday long ago: the service ending, the doors creak open.  Laughing kids sprint out onto the grass, chased by the remonstrations of parents. Compliments are murmured to the pastor. Buggies creak as families climb aboard.

Now the building lies empty. The church they built and moved to in town is 180 years old.

The new becomes old and requires new again.



That brings my musing around to organizational change.

How does change come to organizations?  After dedicating five years of hard effort to help transform a local one – with little to show for it – I picture the process as like nudging a cruise ship with a rowboat. At times, it feels impossible.  But since I am now a professional eavesdropper on the answers businesses are crafting to that question, I know it can be done.  Invariably, change is brought by a forced hand.  The wiser companies proactively adjust to a coming crisis.  The others react just before the ship hits the rocks.

Transformation always comes with a price.  Often, cherished things must be let go.  Just down the road, this former elementary school is now – ironically – a church.  I’m sure the transition was anything but easy.



And I recognize that not all change is good.  Just over the horizon, a local farmer has built a hideous silo that forever alters the beautiful landscape.  It’s probably a useful addition for him, but is a regrettable one for the rest of us.



It’s a tricky balance.

And so I turn the question inward: what change needs to come in me?

Am I requiring minor adjustments, or, as my boys are suggesting, it’s time to chart a whole, new course?  Thomas Edison once said, “Restlessness is discontent and discontent is the first necessity of progress.”  Restlessness and discontent: the twin tugboats inside me.  But where are they nudging me?

As is often the case on these bench-sittings, there is a visual punch line for me.  I look down as I go to leave, and see this



Even in the contented hills of central PA, change comes.

But is it worth the wait?

Benched Week 27: birds of a feather

I have a great friend who is batty about birds.

In many parts of the world, Scott has caught and banded songbirds, hummingbirds and saw whet owls. But as long as I have known him – since college days, when we were roommates – he has been most passionate about birds of prey.

So it’s not surprising that, when I called him to ask if we could have an outing on Friday with my daughter, Grace (who had the day off from school), he suggested Hawk Mountain Sanctuary.  It wasn’t the hands-on experience he had given us before banding hawks at private stations, but the wind was blowing perfectly, promising an impressive aerial show.

And it was blowing.  Unrelentingly cold.  The first bite of winter. When we arrived at the North Lookout, there were already a dozen or so people huddled in parkas.  I found the closest thing I could to a bench: a rock shelf nestled under an overhang.  Grace squeezed in beside me, as we tried to give less for the wind to gnaw on.



The hawks came by sporadically, and none very close.  Grace was the first to spot the bald eagle rising from the forest below us.  Her news rippled across the crowd, now augmented by a class of school kids.  Binoculars pivoted to where she pointed.  People were genuinely excited.

 

I envy this about Scott. He belongs to a worldwide community of people who share his passion.  Sitting on a rocky ridge for a whole frigid day to watch birds fly by borders on the fanatical for me, though I have gladly done it with him in the past. But I am a dabbler.  There are many who are as hard-core committed as he is.

That’s something that’s a part of my search at this point of my life – some passion in my life that will connect me to a community of like-minded people.  Is it art?  Old movies? Storytelling?  Faith?  An international fellowship of bench-sitters?

I know this: enthusiasm is contagious.  Scott’s love for raptors, freely shared with my kids, has made them appreciate the magnificent birds.  Same goes for me.

Up to a point.  When the snow shower we had watched crawl across the valley finally reached us, I called it quits.  Leaving early meant we missed sighting a few golden eagles, which would have been awe-inspiring to see come soaring through the swirling flakes.

But those dedicated hawk watchers saw them.  It’s only fitting.  There should be a reward for being hard-core.

Benched Week 26: Trick or Treat

The affection caught me completely unprepared.  It is, after all, just another city in an ever-compressing line of them.  But as I pulled onto Broad Street off of I-95, I realized that this one, Philadelphia, was different.

It felt like home.



And as I found my bench on a balmy Halloween night, was it a trick of the eye that the city seemed to have a welcoming glow?  Was it a nostalgic trick of the heart, perhaps?

I had, so many years ago, started my freelance career here, riding the El into Center City, walking through City Hall with my black, mock-leather portfolio in hand.  I carried, as well, a healthy dose of unrealistic optimism toward the door-opening effect of my talent.  I cringe when I think of what I carried in those pages back then.

City Hall is still open to pedestrians, to my surprise.  So I strolled through, finding dramatic shadows in the architecture.



And unremembered sculptures.



I came out the end with a view of North Broad, which I had, long ago, daily trudged up four blocks to a hole-in-the-wall ad agency.  One with rats in the darkroom.  But tonight, even this view seemed polished and pretty.



So, it is a trick, of fate, of grace to be back here.  And therein is the treat: my serpentine career bringing me back – minus the optimism and most of my hair, but replaced with a keen-edged appreciation for the moments and places that bring delight.  Like Philly on an autumn night.  Or the crisp jazz in the hotel bar.



On the street, moments before, a woman stopped nearby as I sat on my bench.  She was on the phone, distraught.  “I don’t know what happened to the ten dollars,” she was saying to her babysitter.  “I had it, but now it’s gone.  So I’m going to be late getting back.  I don't know how long."

I fished a ten from my wallet and walked up to her.  “Would this help?” I asked.

“Oh my God!” she replied. “That’s exactly what I lost!”  She thanked me – assuming I had found it – and set off quickly for the subway.

I guess I tricked her with my treat.

But I had to help.  What else could I do after such a warm welcome by the City of Brotherly Love?