Some mornings I’ll come to work at my drawbridge and it’s quiet. No traffic on the road, no boats in the water. The joggers keep their own counsel. The only sound you hear is the occasional seagull shouting, “Keow! Keow! Keow!”
This is a rare treat. At times like this I wonder if I really am in the middle of Seattle. Maybe everyone is vacationing in Hawaii, and I have the whole place to myself. Maybe everyone finally realized the city has gotten too expensive and relocated en masse, and as per usual I was left out of the loop.
And then I decide that I don’t really care what the reason is. I’m going to take advantage of it. I prop my feet up on the window sill, drink my green tea, and watch the sun rise over Portage Bay. I notice that a light breeze is making gentle ripples on the glass-like surface of the water. Occasionally a fish jumps. I wonder if it’s a salmon. The starlings hop along the sidewalk, eating the spiders out of their webs.
There are no signs of life from the floating homes that line the shore. But then there hardly ever is. If I had the good fortune to live in one of them, I’d be sitting out on the deck every chance I got. But apparently that just isn’t done.
A rowing crew goes by, looking like a water strider skating across the surface of a pond. Suddenly a feeling of excitement washes over me. The day rises up with the sun. What will it bring? The world seems rife with possibilities. I can hardly wait for it to begin.
Then the I-5 bridge starts to hum. Traffic is picking up. Soon I’ll hear my first boat whistle of the day and I’ll need to raise the bridge. But I’ll do my best to maintain that feeling of inner peace, that gift of calm the morning brought to me.
The View from a Drawbridge 
🙂