day 60, listening to the sea, not the usual

Today’s morning walk took me back down the mountain to the sea. More precisely, from the tip of West Seattle to the point where Puget Sound enters Elliott Bay, at Duwamish Head. Walking along Alki Beach, I realized I had forgotten how much I love that place and how wonderful it smells, sounds, and feels. (If you wonder why we don’t go there every day, check out this view of the hill from down below, on the way back up.)

While walking by the water, I was swept up in a deep feeling of peace, the waves’ calm rhythm reminding me of some long ago lullaby. We can’t spend all our time gazing at the sea, but we can listen to it more than we do.  For now, I’m listening to this ad-free ocean soundtrack, instead of the usual stuff. Or maybe I’ll turn it off too and listen to “nothing.” (Which is never really nothing; there is always birdsong, car noises, people talking now and then, far-off trains and sirens.)

Let’s give our ears a break, and our minds a rest. All that bad stuff will still be there when we tune back in.

See you on the other side of tonight,

 

Fyi: yesterday’s face mask production:

 

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day 49, number numbers numbers! in homage to Kraftwerk’s calculator song

Hello, here I am again. After listening by chance to Kraftwerk’s song about the pocket calculator yesterday (on KEXP, naturally), I have been thinking about how we love numbers. LOVED THAT SONG! Loved how it mocks our imagined control over life, “I’m the Operator of my Pocket Calculator” (as if the numbers did not control us). And loved that the DJ played it on the request of a 5-year-old girl.

On April 6, I wrote to a friend: “I’ve now got 22 face mask orders which will keep me busy for weeks. I have been making all kinds of lists and counting things, to control life, I now realize, it’s sort of funny.  I started going for long solitary morning walks a while back too, and have been doing that consistently: today will be Day Nine. Not to mention that we are soon to enter Week 4 of Shelter-in-Place, and I’m on Day 18 of my blog chronicle of the crisis.  hahaha  what funny creatures we are. Makes me think of a children’s book:  Magnus Maximus, A Marvelous Measurer. Pretty cute book.”

On Numbers. PART TWO:

Today, May 7: Today’s list is up to order no. 82 and I’m working on no. 52. I’ve made 270 face masks since April 2. It is Day 40 of my walks. I no longer follow a plan, rather I’ve come to prefer Short, Steep, and Solitary. (and Sunny, if possible). Easy to find out here, since our house is on the tip of a small mountain range. We are in Week 8 of Shelter-in Place, and I’m on Day 49 of this blog chronicle of the COVID-19 crisis.

CONCLUSION:

Blah blah blah, numbers can only do so much for the spirit. Maybe that’s why Kraftwerk made their funny pocket calculator song.  Very cheerful, wryly funny and catchy! Those high-pitched beeps work like an anti-depressant.

I’m off down the hill now, to blow all those numbers out of my head. Freed of that burden, the empty head will listen instead of striving to achieve some distant goal; listen to all the sounds my world has to offer—doubtless some mechanized pounding of pile drivers or tooting boat horns coming across Elliott Bay, but also the sea lions’ barks, sea gull cries, and other “little melodies.”

Thank you Kraftwerk, for opening up the fabulous world of electronic music, and RIP Florian Schneider. Wish I’d known you earlier…but I’ll never forget your music.

P.S. yesterday’s mask production:

day five: the Elliott Bay moat, new tool of social distancing, and other news from West Seattle

Wow, there is some crazy shit going down out here in Washington state. Last night Governor Inslee issued an official call for WA residents to Stay At Home as much as possible for the next two weeks. Just minutes before that, we learned that the long cement bridge linking the peninsula of West Seattle (where I live) to the mainland was shutting down indefinitely.  Structural damage “suddenly” came to light and the city closed the freeway in one day, giving people only three hours to get home. Apocalypse now!

It’s scary to think what would have happened—would the whole thing have come crashing down? Or just bits?  Perhaps one lane would crumble off and sink into the Duwamish River before pulling the others down after it, as unwitting motorists went hurtling into the deep? Phew! That is one disaster averted, at least.

But now the short distance—about 1.4 miles—from here to downtown looks different. It looms huge, impossible, inaccessible.  That is because there is (and always was) a very very deep body of very very cold water between us.  Huge ships can be seen now and then as they slowly power through to the Port of Seattle docks, the ferries plow back and forth, tugboats and barges crawl by, and the water taxi runs once an hour. Otherwise, people rarely venture into Elliott Bay.

There’s a radical new tool of social distancing: the moat.

West Seattle may become the best Seattle yet!  safest, at any rate.  We’ll just be over here slowly and silently losing our minds!

hahahahahaha!!!!

More news:  The new sign is up for Week 2!  And a new quilt. This one is the large “Alice in Wonderland” quilt.

How many books are you reading these days? I’m up to four at once now, in small bits or long luxurious sessions after lunch, or before bed, or anytime really….  (that feels strange to admit).

W. Bruce Cameron, A Dog’s Journey (surprisingly addictive sweet and mindless fun to imagine life as a dog sees it); Charles Dickens, David Copperfield (Oof, that is a long book; but I promised to read it and it’s really pretty fantastic!), Peter Ralston, The Principles of Effortless Power (bedtime table essential to calm the mind); and Edith Wharton, The Age of Innocence (funny and sarcastic portrait of snotty New Yorkers vying for power amongst themselves in the late 19th century).

Sad that the bookstore where I was to discuss David Copperfield has just shut its doors.

😦     I bet it’s a sad day all around.  Hope you’re ok.  Hang in there and I’ll see you tomorrow.

six months later…

arriving in WSEA July 2, 2018

Alki Beach walk, January 4, 2019

… the move from South Bend, Indiana to Seattle, Washington is still a dream come true.  Living in West Seattle feels like an American dream of living in Scandinavia, Sweden or Denmark maybe. There are the adorable boutiques and minimalist art galleries decorated with rough wood and silver dock-rigging. The long dark nights, the tanker ships and busy harbor, and the no-nonsense neon-wearing bike-riding commuters. It has organic everything, it’s cozy, rainy,  and anti-gun.

And it has seals and sea lions, sea gulls and herons. Fog, sprinkles, and torrents. Tug boats leading container ships painted bright blue, yellow and black, from Hamburg to Hong Kong. And the roiling, inky-black mother sea lies underneath it all, holds it up, makes it possible.

Tonight while Honey Girl and I were walking on the bulkhead at Alki Beach, something cool happened!

It was a quiet and very dark evening under a New Moon, few people were around. The tide must have been going out fast; from the beach you could hear a clattering noise, as the shiny grey rocks rolled down into the cold water only to roll back up again when the next wave came in. Suddenly my dog and I both looked to our left, and there in the middle of a small lagoon, rings were forming around a seal bobbing nearby. It snuffed and sputtered air, bobbing along and looking at us, three times before disappearing under the waves. Maybe it was my white parka; he may have been wondering what that white light was, moving along the horizon. Or maybe it was Honey Girl–she was definitely aware of the seal–were they communicating with each other?  It seemed simpatico…., at any rate she looked happy, if a bit excited.

With all I’ve been reading about chi or spirit lately and the constant practice of T’ai chi, I’ve come to believe that energy or chi exists. It may manifest as a non-verbal entity that is impossible to explain, but it is quite real. It warms up your hands and calms down your thoughts. It can be felt and shared, too, among humans and between species. That seal’s presence tonight was peaceful and curious; it was a serene feeling to know she was unafraid of us, and that we could exist together silently in the dark before parting ways. I felt happy for the water quality of Elliott Bay too; the abundance of life in these waters proves it’s still alive, pure enough if not perfect… like all of us.

Lately I’ve been thinking about seals a lot because of reading stories of Selkies–seal-women who can become human, but only for a while–and other magical women in Sharon Blackie’s weird and wonderful book, If Women Rose Rooted: The Journey to Authenticity and Belonging.  Its title is odd, but the book is deeply worth reading if you seek to make sense out of being a woman in our world today.

I’ll leave you with a cheerful quote from that book:

No star is ever lost

we once have seen

We always may be

what we might have been.  (p. 89)

 

These are my New Year’s resolutions: to embrace life with no regrets and to forgive those who have done me wrong. To make ways to see the people I love all over the world, and make new friends here in Seattle.  To remember the fleeting nature of our time here on earth, and cherish the memory of the dead.

Six months never flew by so fast!