Decoration Inflation

Decoration Inflation

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I heard it first at the dentist’s office a couple weeks ago. The assistant who was prepping me for a procedure lamented that it was almost October 1. “And you know what that means,” she said. “Next thing you know it’s Halloween, then Thanksgiving, then Christmas and New Years.” 

Of course, she’s right. And I probably feel it more than she does, too, being a decade or two older. I notice this holiday speed-up not only on television, where ads for holiday films fill the airwaves, but also in the neighborhood.

It’s not that people are lighting trees and plugging in inflatable Santas just yet. But I’ve noticed a steady “decoration inflation” the last couple of years, driven, I imagine, by what’s available to buy. Which means that a home without spider webs in the trees and smiling pumpkins on the lawn looks downright miserly.

At my house, it still looks like summer.: potted geraniums on the front stoop, roses in the backyard, a flowering hosta by the garage. So I have forgone the mums and ornamental cabbage. I haven’t even bought a pumpkin yet. Here the fall decor is only what nature supplies: turning leaves and the red berries of the dogwood tree. 

Hand Outstretched

Hand Outstretched

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I returned to an autumn landscape: acorns underfoot, leaf litter, the late-summer growth of the climbing rose. I love this second bloom, have written about it before, will always be touched by it.

Today I see the fall roses as a valentine to summer, a hand outstretched with a bouquet.

Here, take this, goes the caption. Take these poesies with you into the next season, the one of chill winds and scant foliage. Let them remind you that spring will come again.

Midway Airport, 10 p.m.

Midway Airport, 10 p.m.

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Today’s forecast, in fact the forecast through mid-week, is for “mild and murky” weather. Somehow, that suits. After being caught up in the great Southwest Airlines cancellation weekend and arriving home at almost 2 a.m. as a result, I could use some calm and cloudy days to stay home, do laundry and recuperate. 

While I was walking around Chicago’s Midway Airport last evening, I thought about how airplanes and hubs have changed the way we think about travel. It’s a circular experience rather than a linear one — full of hubs and spokes, more tedious than miraculous. 

Flying west, I was whisked from coast to coast in less than five hours. Coming home, not so lucky. 

First Hill

First Hill

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Seattle is a city of neighborhoods, and I’m getting to know them. Today we toured the Central District (in hard hats, no less!), then lunched in Capitol Hill. Several mornings I’ve hiked along the waterfront. I also visited Green Lake and Woodland Park. 

But I’ve spent most of my time in Seattle’s first neighborhood, First Hill, also called Pill Hill because of the hospitals here. 

I’ve trudged up steep grades and sidled through shortcuts. I’ve spotted fewer tents under I-5 but heard more sirens heading up to Harborview. 

It’s an urban neighborhood with all that implies, but there’s a gentility beneath the grime. Here are leafy lanes and named apartments buildings, an old German deli on Madison and a cathedral garden behind St. James.

I leave today with the smell of the city in my pores and the pitch of the hills in my calves. And I leave … from First Hill.

Marine Layer

Marine Layer

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Sometimes it seems as if you could will away the marine layer that cloaks this city in the morning, that by walking up and down the hills, through parks and intersections, past coffee shops and markets you could build up enough heat to part the clouds and let the sun shine through.

That’s the way it felt this morning, as I ambled down Pike to Alaskan Way, and headed north … toward Alaska.

I didn’t get that far, of course. Only to Myrtle Edwards Park. But by the time I hiked back up the hill to the hotel, the sun was shining. 

Vistas

Vistas

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Seattle is a city of vistas: heading west to the bay and the sound, islands on the horizon, ferries and tug boats and freighters plying the deep, unfathomable blue. 

Or looking east, to the lake and Capitol Hill, the muted colors of sky and clouds, small sailboats on the water and a cathedral on the summit. 

Or the most iconic of Seattle vistas, the one with the Space Needle, of course.
March of Time

March of Time

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One of the things I like about travel is that you move through time as well as space. You recover lost springs and leap ahead to crisp autumns. 

On Monday I strolled through the Columbia City neighborhood of south Seattle. It was sunny and cool, and I snapped a photo of a gnarled and mossy tree with crimson leaves. 

My head was still spinning from the flight across the country — an unusual tail wind meant we made the trip west in less than five hours — but it was alert enough to register this place, this northern place, as already ahead of us in the march of time. 

Community of the Ether

Community of the Ether

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A spur-of-the-moment trip to Seattle (I can do these things now!) means that I’ll attend class tonight on Zoom rather than in person. While I’ve had plenty of experience with Zoom meetings the past year and a half (haven’t we all?!), I’ve been driving down to Georgetown for the real thing every Tuesday evening. 

While this seemed slightly terrifying at the start — where will I park? will rush-hour traffic make the trip twice as long as it would be otherwise? — those concerns have largely faded. And the joy of being in a classroom again (even if only one other classmate is there with me, which has been the case the last few weeks) has more than compensated for them.

But tonight, we’ll all be on Zoom. We’ll be a class, a community, of the ether — as so many communities are these days. 

(Sunset from the Car Barn Terrace, where I am not whiling away time before class tonight.)

In the Can

In the Can

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Not to get too meta here, but writing this blog is largely a seat-of-the-pants enterprise. Most of my life has been tightly scripted until recently, so I’ve wanted to keep this writing loose and open. 

I’ve also resisted the temptation to draft a bunch of posts on the weekend to carry me through the first few busy days of the week. The details of the day are my inspiration, and they usually (kinda sorta) pull me through.

But recently, I’ve found myself writing several posts a day. This may be, probably is, a momentary thing. Inspiration tends to go in cycles, I’ve noticed. And it is undoubtedly made possible by the gift of time. 

Whatever the reason, though, it’s meant that, for the first time in forever, I have a few posts “in the can,” as we liked to call them back in my magazine editor days. 

They will come in handy on the days when the muse of daily inspiration is otherwise occupied. 

Morning Thought

Morning Thought

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For someone who doesn’t always sleep through the night, I’m always grateful to wake up, glance at the clock and see that it’s truly morning, not some middle-of-the-night hour. (Glancing at the clock is necessary now as the light dwindles. I did it this today since it was still dim at 6:30.)

It strikes me often, though, that the gratitude I feel upon finishing a seven- or eight-hour snooze ought to carry over to the four- or five-hour  variety, as  well. After all, I usually drift back, and when I don’t, there is always something relaxing I can do: read or write or pick up a dream thread and follow it back to its source. 

William Arthur Dunkerley said it best: “Thank God for sleep! And when you cannot sleep, still thank him that you live to lie awake!”