Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)
‘Una standing watch over the house and home’.
Landscape format.
Una is sitting in the picture window that looks out over the driveway and the neighbors backyard.
Nicely apportioned elements make up this photo.
All though the entire field of view is the picture window, Una dominates the right half of the scene. (The window continues behind her but of limited detail.)
Una is presenting her left profile and is looking towards something out of frame to the left. She is focused on whatever it is that has her attention. Her ears are up, two small black triangles that are titled slightly forward which brings our attention to her eyes more than it does to whatever it is she is looking at.
Una is almost entirely black. Fortunately for us, what is not black is both an intimately familiar hue and is associated with those parts that we all know are important. Above her eyes at the inside edge are two beige commas of light coloring. These spots draw our attention to her eye, her lower eye lid, not having fur, reflects the light coming in through the window. The pupils of her are a peanut brittle brown and there is the tiniest of glints of light above the very dark center of her eye.
From the sharp points of her ears, soft-curves take over the definition of Una’s profile. Curving down past her eyes is a straight edge of her snout (un-measurable variations in the black conveys the round curves of her nose down towards her upper lip) to the end of her nose. No surprise that the end of her nose, being free of external hair and fur is marked with a shiny reflection of the outdoor light. Entirely appropriate similarity to the markings of her eyes. Scent rivaling sight as her connection to the world around her.
On the reverse curve her mouth shows as slightly open. Enough to see pale red tongue between ivory white teeth.
Beyond the glass and dominating the entire left half of the photo is the view of the front yard of our house and the backyard of one of our neighbors. The land upon which our house sits (and Una guards) is mostly the land behind the houses that line the street. Our driveway is long and narrow and runs between two of our multiple neighbors. Picture a row of squares, their tops all aligned on the horizontal plane, they present a unified shape. Abutting each other is no problem because they are all square in shape and, in the simplest of terms, when your boundaries are connected by ninety degree angles and your next door neighbor’s boundaries are connected by ninety degree angles, there really is little to argue about.
Until, that is, someone pushes one of the square lots ten feet to the right and the adjoining property is pushed almost ten feet to the left, predictability takes a holiday. When you great a space between two equal squares you force their back boundaries to become more important than they needed to be, Think: upside down T
This week, on the TToT: wild turkeys! (the kind with actual feathers, not the ones that convince you that you can catch one and have your very own, all natural Thanksgiving), getting dark way too early, Halloween, a Quinquennial Visit from Vinny the Junkman (and the corresponding archeo-cleaning of the basement), work and the quandary of caring too much, Una, Phyllis, finding a photo of a letter on a mountain side, car chases and much, much more!
(Continuing with the ‘theme’) Brought to you by Josie Two Shoes and the fine, fine, folks at the Ten Things of Thankful (made possible by the dogged determination of an English Gentlewoman who is, most assuredly, by all reckoning, no (direct) relation of CS Lewis.
On with the show!
1) Una and Phyllis
2) We had a major clean-out of stuff. Interesting process given that Phyllis is a roger and I’m a clark. clarks are not known for seeing the preservation of the past in the form of mementoes, keepsakes, knitted rugs, household expense ledgers, and most text books from school days. rogers, being the force behind continuity and tradition will tend to see things as needing to be saved. clarks are less… concrete. We do have a sentimental streak but it is not usually on display (at least as far as we can tell) and it is not aggressively acquisitive. In any event, we have these clearing of the house (and garage and shed) events every few years and it is a manifestation of the consultative process as most couples experience it.
3) A few years ago I went to Salt Lake City for business. This is a photo from my room in the Grand America hotel. The reason for this being here is that I’m grateful I found the photo. The reason I’m grateful I found it was that when Kristi moved out to Utah recently, she posted a photo of a mountain side with a big letter ‘Y’ on it. My brain said to me, it said, ‘hey clark! that letter is different. what are those Utohians up to?’ Ya gotta open the photo and then zoom in on the upper left quarter where you’ll see a big, white, letter ‘U’
4) Driving on a semi-rural road on a pleasant-enough day:
5) Difficult Clients. Odd Grat Item, fer sure. But, the thing of it, most of the time when there is stress, I can trace the source back within myself to fear. Fear’s a funny thing. “ja ja” (as Friend of the Doctrine, ClairePeek might comment). Common fear is (usually) big and obvious and obnoxious, that kid in the 6th grade of the one in the 10th grade. And, thank god for the good intentions of those of us who populate the virtual world, there is no shortage of advice and strategy when it comes to contending with Fear (the bully). But he has a sister, who is quiet and charming and, (to some of us, irresistible), when first we meet. She’s all, ‘you are this’ and ‘you are that’ and ‘everyone doesn’t understand you the way that I do’. This lower case fear tends to shape our opinions and perceptions of the world and its people, (mostly, it’s people). Her brother Fear pretty much has laid claim to the objective world. Her’s is the voice that says, ‘if you do that, they won’t like you.’ and ‘suppose you’re wrong, can we just talk for a second how bad it might turn out?’ That is the fear causes me more trouble than the, “Hey! Look at how far up we are!!” The lower case, (and way more alluring), fear will touch my arm in a way both exciting and reassuring and say, “Now everyone will read the post, be careful, you don’t want to get to weird.”
Thats why I claim ‘Difficult Clients’ as a Grat Item. They provide me with an opportunity to look within and see how I make decisions regarding the world around me. (aka ‘how I relate myself to the world around me’ which is a totally slick segue to the next Grat!
6) The Wakefield Doctrine (well, duh!)
7) Did I say there was a lot of wildlife in our area this year? (no, not that wild life… lol) This is a combined Grat Item. Work and interesting events and technology
8) Sunday Supplement Photo Insert!
‘Phyllis and Una walk up from the pond and pass the treehouse as they head towards the house.’
‘The rock rests on a perch. It’s separation from the earth an indulgence to the ephemeral life-forms that, with the conceit of conscious self-awareness, have raised it on a pedestal nearly as fleeting in permanence as they are; the rock does not wait, it endures.’
Phyllis and Una, nearly home, pass the mailboxes that have been drafted into bird feeder duty. They surely are not amused.’
9) This SPACE AVAILABLE (To any almost-ready-to-participate-but-still-would-rather-see-what-it-looks-like-to-put-thoughts-into-words-and-then-put-them-up-there-in-lights Reader. Send in your Grat Item as a Comment.)
10) Secret Rule 1.3
Click here!
This week’s music vid is an old cover of an older song. Given our demographic, the cover will be more familiar than the original. And, as sometimes happens, the cover is, imo, superior to the original (even allowing for musical tastes).
