IT IS A BEAUTEOUS EVENING

It is a beauteous evening, calm and free,
The holy time is quiet as a nun
Breathless with adoration; the broad sun
Is sinking down in its tranquility;
The gentleness of heaven broods o'er the sea:
Listen! the mighty Being is awake,
And doth with his eternal motion make
A sound like thunder - everlastingly.
Dear Child! dear Girl! that walkest with me here,
If thou appear untouched by solemn thought,
Thy nature is not therefore less divine:
Thou liest in Abraham's bosom all the year,
And worship'st at the Temple's inner shrine,
God being with thee when we know it not.


-William Wordsworth

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We were in southwestern Florida for less than 24 hours this past weekend. Our abruptly truncated vacation included trips to two different hospital emergency rooms and a frantic dash for a plane...yes, for once I was part of a group being raced through check-in and customs at high speed by airport officials. I don't think anyone watching was feeling envious however: my son Henry was in a wheelchair having violent convulsions. Although these appeared to be seizures, and fooled even trained hospital personnel, when we got him hooked up to an EEG it appeared that they are not brain seizures, but perhaps a mysterious new behavior. Possibly stereotypies, a kind of compulsive tic that develop sometimes in autistic people at various stages. These are doozies, and since they simulate to the untrained eye (and even to some trained eyes) full-blown seizures, they are scary and extremely diffucult to manage. They seem, like seizures, to come upon him without volition or trigger, and he cries afterwards. The convulsive clenching and spasming must be painful and scary to him as well, the poor baby! I forsee I will be spending many upcoming hours sitting in specialist's offices.

I did get a chance to shoot this lovely sunset from our lanai right before things got really bad.