on the way to Triozzi from Scandicci there was a field of sunflowers that i passed everyday on walks to and from Firenze. i love van Gogh's paintings of sunflowers, but not because of the flowers, more due to the artist's hand. walking past this field touched me and burnt their radiant image into my cerebrum. until meeting this field i had taken sunflowers for granted. i didn't eat their seeds and their beauty had not found me yet.

in Vincent's work sunflowers are always burnt out and dying. their life is spent. they are a tragedy. the beauty of the painting is the ability to capture this "dying of the light". the flowers covering hillsides in Tuscany are not dying they are alive and reactive. they move in the wind and present themselves to the sun. they are dynamic in a very beautiful and reassuring way.

i found a joy in walking by these flowers. the time i spent in Triozzi was difficult. the time of being a child was passing and the trappings of my adult life lay waiting. my final thrashings of real teenage angst presented themselves while i was wandering the hills of Tuscany. when i came back to the states i was supposed to be grown up. so i wandered, trying to grow up.

of course this was foolish. it even looks over dramatic to write out the feelings now, ten years later. (HOLY CRAP its been ten years!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) i now in a hindsight can see that i continued to "grow up" long past coming home and many of those that know me now would argue i still have much growing to yet do. it wasn't quite as fatal as it felt at the time, most things aren't. i survived what i thought was becoming an adult.

during the walks beside the sunflowers, though, i found comfort in the flowers bright and open attitude. they became to me an optimism that i was searching for. something that always shrugged of the taint or dirt of its past to embrace the sunshine of a new day. i have not been able to become this optimistic in response to the flowers. instead when i really need a fresh uncluttered outlook i remember the sunflowers. it's kind of ridiculous, i know. but it works for me. some people drive really fast others, drink themselves out of their minds. i dwell on sunflowers.

why, you may ask yourself, am i talking about flowers? well, it's two-fold. first is the feeling of life i have had this last week. with Chad's death and the continuous revelation of how truly disturbed he had become, i have found this week to be heavy and depressing. at home it had been as morose. Natalya's absence leaves our house lacking in joy and sunshine. i have needed the optimism of the sunflowers this week just to make it through the week. second, comes from reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. i have just past the portion of the story in which Phaedrus has discussed writing with his students. finding that you have something to say, by not trying to imitate or regurgitate what you have seen or heard.

i have not been able to do anything at work this week (this extends into afterhours, as i have not been able to work on anything while home alone either). one would think that i am "dealing" with the loss of a person. i am instead walking through fields of richest yellow and green. i have spent the week in a daze of sorts. only existing within the moment i am at enough to be bodily present. my mind had been embracing the optimism and escape that my memories of sunflowers offers me. at some point i am going to have to face deadliines and dead-friends. i cannot stay in the sun and heat and breeze under the illusory blue sky indefinitely.

but i am not going to leave this field just yet...

this weekend has been difficult. to say the very least. but i won't, i'm going to try to relate my last 96-hours.

friday, as most anyone who reads this will know, N took to the friendly skies... not the most fun of our year, but we bear it. though she was very unhappy to be going and asking questions that hint she is becoming more and more aware of the situation in which we live. we don't keep from her, but there is only so much a 5/4/3 year old can comprehend. she is starting to comprehend more. there are no easy answers and her insistence only makes the moments more stressful. to the airport where the questions give way to cuddles and i-love-yous. it is good and sad. AND COFFEE PEOPLE AND THEIR BLACK TIGER MOCHA LIVE ON IN THE CONCOURSE.

so friday she gets off and we spend the day in super-spring-cleaning mode. everything is sanitized and everything is fluffed and everything is renewed. all this in preparation for my mom and dad. we haven't seen them in 18 months. i am excited and i think my wife is nervous. we clean and cuddle and prepare. friday night comes to a close with the computer deciding to channel the movie poltergeist. great. good thing Fry's is having a sale this weekend.

saturday morning and up with the sun. i want to get to Fry's while the getting is good. Leslie and i shuffle out to the boondocks and have a cup of coffee as we wait for them to open. good talking about the thing that is Starbucks and the the Church Emergent. also a little here and there about an ongoing discussion about modesty (this one i feel entirely outclassed in as my wife has thought long and hard about the ins and outs of modesty in American and i am shy and hide my body). store opens and we walk in to the smell of rampant consumerism in the morning.

i know what we are here for and i am direct about my movement. item one in hand i head to item two. sales reps are useless here. i think of my fried Chad that used to work at Fry's and apologize a little after this thought. and then my phone rings. hellos and quick to the point. its Christopher.

of all things, Chad, whom i have just had on my mind, has committed suicide. WTF!!!?!!? i don't even know how to breathe after this news. Christopher is gracious enough to let me go before i drop the phone. L gets me out the door and then spends more of the day listening to me eulogize my friend. (who else loves They Might be Giants). this is not the easiest thing i have ever faced. i spent the day baking and cleaning and talking to friends that i usually only connect with once a year or every six months. no one really knows what to say. everyone is worried about christopher and me. i pray a lot over the next 12 hours. i stare at things a little too much. i haven't had the courage to dig out a picture of Chad. everything in my mind is a cliche, and i realize how much i truely hate Hallmark and what they have done to the expression of emotion. there is nothing genuine anymore, some little pithy poem expresses it all. growl.

around 7 my parents call and are on the other side of Portland. i can't tell them about Chad yet, they helped raise him and i don't know how they would handle it while driving. i give them directions. i get them lost. i try again. a little better. 9pm they are in my house. i share the news. we cry. my mom cries alot. i completely understand, though i myself have only been able to cry a little. (i cry at almost every sad line in a movie, but i find tears VERY difficult here in the face of real loss, how messed up am i?)

there is dinner and conversation and memorializing. i love that they are here right now. Leslie holds me close.

sunday is a beautiful day at Cannon Beach. sunshine and ocean waves. a kite was involved. we spend good time with my parents, and i feel how desperately it was needed. at least for me.

this morning they got out and got going. Leslie is sleeping (nap time is unforegoable). i am now left with my thoughts of Chad and the melancholy that the absence of N brings.

i don't really know what to do with myself...

Chad Hiroshi Fukuda (1975-2007)

So i have recently come to the startling revelation that Portland and the surrounding area is decidedly lacking in Design/Build firms. when looking at an area or market i don't ever expect to find many firms with this ideology, but i am actually shocked that there are so few around here. it seems that every other facet of life here is all about DIY and getting your hands dirty. i am curious why architects don't seem to embrace this same ethos.

have a look at these guys: www.krdb.com. they are really deep into it. i love their work. or how about this place. a teacher of mine designed this little jewel. i am wondering if Design/Build is an untapped market up here or if there is something else that i am missing in the equation...

have you ever had the feeling that your life could really benefit from a financial colonic? i seem to spend way too much time thinking about finances and all things money. it is truly one of my least favorite things to talk about. i find it frustrating and a source of anger. not to mention the depression that it can hold over you.

i have been thinking that maybe i have just been needing a good bankruptcy. just flush that system out and start over...

you know, a reset button. or even just an etch-a-sketch end, so that we could restart and rebuild out of what we have learned. avoid the mistakes and follow honed instinct.

but then again, no one ever let me have a do-over in Life either...

this morning i spent an extra hour at home getting ready and futzing around. i decided that i just needed the extra time. i was productive (well, as productive as one can be so early). and it felt REALLY good.

i am thinking that the late train may be the new black this season.

today a coworker that has been striving to raise the "design-bar" in my office caught up to me and has asked me to do a lunchtime presentation. the topic is open, as is the format. i have not committed to it, but i am almost certain to do it.

what this means though is that i have to get off my duff and put together something worth talking about. my distinguished counterparts are accomplished designers and professors. so i don't want to get up and talk out of my supply of B.S.

i bring this up, as over the next couple weeks i will probably be posting partial-birth thoughts. if i sound like i am truly wandering aimlessly i would appreciate a heads-up.

and thanks in advance for wading through the forth-coming archispeak. i cannot even begin to apologize enough.

I am working to make this a little easier on the eyes... sorry for the font...

This morning my daughter was wandering around the house with a picture of our little family. We are definitely a picture family. That is not to say we have lots of photo-albums nor that we are good about framing and hanging these pictures I allude to. We are rather a picture-as-treasure family.

Leslie and I take lots of pictures with our digital cameras. Trying to capture all those precious moments that are fleeting, we snap away. I have not yet found the discipline to print or properly archive our horde of photos. This last week I spent time in them. Looking at my daughter grow and my wife’s many apparitions (sometime ask her about her hair). It was comfort food for the eyes, reminding me of the time we have been together and the place they each hold in my heart. I am driven by this hold they have on me.

Natalya has a little picture of us at Christmas a couple years ago. It is sweet, all of us crammed together while I hold the camera at arm’s length. We are all in Christmas Jammies (a tradition I suggest everyone invest in) and happy together. She keeps this picture near her. It lives on her bedside thing, and travels in her bags as she needs comfort. It is for her, something akin to a hug. Whenever the situation calls for it she pulls the picture out and feels loved. Not just feels, but feels the love she knows. I get a little vaklempt just thinking about her holding it, hidden, in her hand.

This morning it caught my attention. Why was Nate in need of extra love? Had I missed something this weekend?

And thinking on it has brought this to mind. On Friday, she flies out to Albuquerque to spend a week of court-clinic mandated time away from us. Yesterday she talked to the Other. Saturday we talked about her trip. I think that she didn’t realize it was time for her to be going to Albuquerque. She was surprised by it when I brought it up on Saturday. With this on her mind, I can assume she is carrying around our picture, preparing herself for this “visit.”

How is it even reasonable to ask that a 6-year old prepare for anything. I can see asking this questions only raises the ire that I suppress most days. So lets not take that path.

I can balance most of this with the fact that I also carry a picture of our family. It is form the first “date” that Leslie and I had. It was Natalya’s 2^nd birthday. The three of us are sitting in Mom & Dad Hill’s backyard on a swing. Leslie is leaning on my shoulder and Natalya is laying on Leslie’s shoulder. If I feel a little vaklempt looking at Nate’s picture, I get downright weepy talking about mine.

I have the picture formatted to a bookmark and I use it as such. Every time I crack my present read I see my family as it began. I am reminded of how I fell for these two women and all the hope and desire I held for what would come after.

There is a Japanese film Afterlife that I adore (don’t worry this is going somewhere). The film explores an idea of what the afterlife holds for us. It is not Christian in its views of the afterlife. Nor does it seem to hold to any established creed (though it does harken to some ideas raised by Dante in the Divine Comedy). In the story the dead find themselves in a way-station. There they spend a time meditating on their past-life and determining what moment of this life was the most-lived, most-loved, most-missed… most emblematic of the life they led. Once the moment is identified, they spend time building that moment. And finally, the dead enter their moment, and remain in that moment for eternity.

My moment was sitting on this swing with my wife-to-be and my now step-daughter.

My wife and daughter.

There is a genre of SciFi that emerged parallel to Cyberpunk, it is quaintly referred to as Steampunk. When i first heard the name i thought it was the lamest thing i had ever heard. And that was probably a little harsh. Upon a little further reading and etymology research and i come out thinking that it is still lame, but not for the same reasons i started with. The writing is in general genetic offspring from Jules Vern. Making it potentially some of the most fascinating and beautiful SciFi wandering around. William Gibson, the man who gave us Cyberpunk itself has delved into this doppleganger genre in the past with The Difference Engine. In general the works tend to tackle the same issues that cyberpunk delves into; mostly the loss of identity due to the rise of the machinic and dystopian society that follows. Much of the work is set in Victorian England playing up the Industrial Revolution as backdrop.

As with Cyberpunk i find myself in love with the friction generated between man and technology. Stories of this type really do get me going. Set in opposition to the super-slick plasticized future presented in StarTrek, Cyberpunk and Steampunk have a lush atmosphere. And i know there are fanboys out there that get all goggle-headed and dress up as their favorite Deckard. What i didn't know was about Steampunks building out entire lairs of VictorianTech. Some of the things i have run across, cause one to wonder. Nothing like the Trekkies get into; but look at this keyboard, is it not beautiful? And though i cannot imagine what this Japanese says, doesn't this laptop amaze?

I am apparently not very passionate about my passions... i can't remember the last time i dressed up as Robert Smith...

i have been doing (as noted in previous posts) a lot of searching for what i want to be when i grow up. along those lines i haven't really found anything out. i am still thinking and searching.

similarly, i have been wondering what this blog should be when it grows up. is it simply a place for me to dump the overflow of my malcontent? or should it be becoming something. i read several blogs about style, design, architecture and living that all have central threads. not really sure that i could pull it off. i have a job for one that would preclude full-time research. and i don't know if i have so very much to say about anything in particular.

if this continues to exist as just a personal journal, is there so much harm in that? not sure.

well i am off to Revit for the afternoon. i am searching for a way to build better families. not that i am going to find it. but perhaps i might find something.

on Wednesday my new glasses arrived. i have been waiting for them almost two months. first in deference to my wife so that we could afford for her to see and then for them to be shipped from the UK. now i have them. and i am very happy.

i smile a little everytime i catch my reflection. but i am also having several strange urges or feelings since beginning to wear them...

i found two pairs of frames i liked when we went shopping back in january. the Ray Ban RX 6066 and the Ray Ban RX 5022. upon seeing me in the 6066 my wife exclaimed "you look like your father!" this both tickled me and perplexed me. i have certain features that definately look like my father, but i have never thought of myself as "looking like" my father. not a problem to me as he is one of my favorite people. more of a "how did that happen". after looking at frames i was leaning towards the 5022... but it seemed all too familiar. and it should have been. a colleague at work had just gotten a pair, something like a week prior.

so i decided that the 6066 was the one for me. i get to look like my dad and not look like i am copying the guy who sits next to me at work. fair trade i think.

since putting this pair of glasses on i feel like i should possibly be headed to work in a cold-war think-tank and listening to jazz. i find myself tending towards a pony-tail more often than letting my hair down. and on occasion checking to see if my hair has gone just a slight bit more red.

-----------------------------------------------------

i think i need to get them adjusted to sit straight on my face.