Missing boy

I had a rough weekend which I am still processing. Not that it was supposed to be. In fact the setting was perfect for lounging, catching up on news, email, this blog, and taking a hike. Instead I try to figure out what life changes to make. Must be going through a mid-fall crisis. Especially since I am nowhere near midlife. Spend a weekend trying to negotiate the difference between your actions and stated ideals. My post today seems to dwell on an aspect of that conflict. In fact it is what got me started reflecting.

Here in Oregon you often hear stories of children and adults who become lost in the woods. Not as often do you hear about the children who disappear all over the world. On Friday I was listening to the news when this story about an autistic boy lost in the woods near Crater Lake caught my awareness.

I have worked with a number of autistic children in my few years in educational services. Picturing any one of these children lost in the woods; I can't imagine how they would ever get out. Afraid of loud noises, goes wild when feeling certain textures, unable to respond to strangers voices. I see one of these kids touching a tree and staying entranced by its texture only to hear their name shouted - causing them to run deeper into the woods. There the boy with sandy colored hair and windburned cheecks rubs his hands repeatedly through the moss. Maybe a little girl, hair plastered from where it had been tucked under a cap, is shucking off clothes that itch too much to be tolerated anymore. What chance do these children have? They are not boy scout or girl scouts. They are not seeking shelter. If they are do they recognize the cleft between two rocks as safety When the searchers call; do they ball up and moan, or are they able to respond successfully?

It scares me to think of any of the children I know up there, lost.

I heard this weekend that they are scaling back the search. The outlook is bleak for finding this boy safely. Forget needles and haystacks, this is an earthworm caught in a rainstorm desperately searching for comfort and running from the hands that are trying to plop in into a jar of slightly moist dirt.

Thinking more globally there are many people who go missing. I wonder why they affect me less sometimes. Is the idea of a child being shot by competing racial groups in the middle east so foreign that I simply can not imagine how to feel?

I like to think that I care about people all over the world. My weekends worry over this local boy seems all out of proportion to my benevolence regarding the life of a child in Iraq or Afganistan. I worry about the children being harmed, not doubt. Which should bother me more this boy I do not know, or horrifying statistics regarding child mortality in Sudan?

More questions than answers. Wine tasting would have been more calming that my quiet relaxing weekend has been. I handle discussions like this more calmly with a glass of wine anyways.

Change in Charter

I am having trouble keeping up with many of my commitments in reality. Due to this I am changing my charter here on this blog. If I had more leisure time I would definitely continue and increase my photography of the valley. In fact I have gigs of pictures but no time to process them.

So I am now going to include the things that are taking me away from photography. My first post is in regards to another blog. WhirledView takes a look at world politics through the lense of a trio of brilliant women. Here is an excerpt from their last post.

I’m reading that Congressional Democrats, sensing victory ahead, are “drafting an ambitious health care agenda.” Even assuming they gain control of Congress, it won’t be easy to put such an agenda into effect. President Bush, hitherto so enamored of hiding behind signing statements, is likely to develop a late-blooming taste for vetoes

If you have an interest in a broader world, check out their blog.