Puget Sound

Seattle Photo-Ship Slidin’ Away

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Happy Belated Easter!

I remain convinced that a blog/online presence is secondary to life. A way to document one’s experiences with the things that really matter (many ideas really matter).

Most social media doesn’t seem worth making one’s Self small to fit in the sewer pipes of online communication (a work in progress, these pipes).

Don’t get me wrong, we all gotta pay the rent. I have some admiration for the desire not to starve. God Bless the ones who make me laugh.

The most interesting writers of the day are usually idea merchants; spreading down their cloths upon the cobbles. I admire people gifted enough to display the thoughts of others as though their own.

Living takes it out of you. When you need ideas, may you find what you need. Most importantly, the thoughts you have become your habits, and your habits become your character.

No one gets out alive.

I think that’s why we have this old and important story about the Resurrection…

Seattle Photo-1924

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Seattle climate: Pacific Marine. Around late September to early October, the switch flips and the High pressure ridge no longer holds. The sunny, temperate summer (July 4th–September 20th) is gone, Jack. A few bigger storms move in (more wind and relatively more rain). In come the clouds, and the drizzle, and because we’re at 48 degrees north latitude, the darkness.

As for snow, there’s plenty of moisture around, but getting the moisture AND the cold air together is tough. The cold air dams behind the Cascades and up high and in Eastern Washington. Sometimes it drains through the Fraser River valley and spills over Seattle. You might not get any snow for a winter or two, or you might get 1-2 weeks of below freezing temps, and 2-24 inches of snow on the ground before it melts with the next rain. Lots of variability.

Dress in layers with moisture protection. The difference between the rare sun on your skin and walking through a damp, chill fog could be 15-20 degrees. Expect low light, and sunrise as you go to work and sunset before you leave.

Join a club…and get some good exercise. Wait for late April or May to start seeing real sunny days again.

Seattle Photo & A Poem By Elizabeth Bishop-For Commerce Or Contemplation

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Large Bad Picture

Remembering the Strait of Belle Isle or 
some northerly harbor of Labrador, 
before he became a schoolteacher 
a great-uncle painted a big picture. 

Receding for miles on either side 
into a flushed, still sky 
are overhanging pale blue cliffs 
hundreds of feet high, 

their bases fretted by little arches, 
the entrances to caves 
running in along the level of a bay 
masked by perfect waves. 

On the middle of that quiet floor 
sits a fleet of small black ships, 
square-rigged, sails furled, motionless, 
their spars like burnt match-sticks. 

And high above them, over the tall cliffs’ 
semi-translucent ranks, 
are scribbled hundreds of fine black birds 
hanging in n’s in banks. 

One can hear their crying, crying, 
the only sound there is 
except for occasional sizhine 
as a large aquatic animal breathes. 

In the pink light 
the small red sun goes rolling, rolling, 
round and round and round at the same height 
in perpetual sunset, comprehensive, consoling, 

while the ships consider it. 
Apparently they have reached their destination. 
It would be hard to say what brought them there, 
commerce or contemplation.

–Elizabeth Bishop