The View from a Drawbridge

Tag: pacific northwest

  • Nature’s Personality

    When I lived in Florida, I avoided nature at all costs. For me it was a place of spiders and snakes and mosquitoes and lightning strikes and fire ants and tornadoes and floods and, increasingly, forest fires. You couldn’t even jump into a pile of leaves for the scorpions. (How does one get through childhood…

  • The Sky is Falling

    I’ve been feeling a bit claustrophobic of late. Due to all the wildfires in the Pacific Northwest, I went about a week without seeing the sky. The sun and the moon both looked blood red from the pollution, and the smoke seemed to be pressing down upon us. I lost my mountain views at work,…

  • Obfuscation

    I am very confused by people who don’t say what they mean and mean what they say. That seems to be the case with a lot of people here in the Pacific Northwest, and it’s why I’ll probably always feel like a stranger in a strange land as long as I live here. I prefer…

  • Frozen Moss and Other New Experiences

    I recently spent a silly amount of time walking around on the frozen moss in my front yard. It makes the kind of satisfying crunch sound that you usually only get from really high-end granola. You can feel it radiating up through the soles of your shoes. And the light sparkles off it like diamonds.…

  • The Nasty Habits

    I often attend a storytelling event here in town, and I’ve met a lot of fascinating people there. One such person is Ginger, who will sometimes tell stories about being transgender and how that has impacted her life. Her stories often move me to tears. Ginger has a quiet, shy, dignified grace about her. But…

  • Beauty in the Gray

    It’s another rainy Seattle day. Just as it was yesterday. And the day before. And the day before that. You don’t realize how much you thrive on sunlight until it’s taken from you. I’ve only lived in the Pacific Northwest for a little over a year, but I’m already sensing a pattern. This time of…

  • Exploring Washington State—Leavenworth

    One of the best things about moving from Florida to Washington State is that I’m getting to experience seasons again for the first time in many decades. And my favorite season happens to be Autumn. What I didn’t realize, though, is that you actually have to make a bit of an effort to see leaves…

  • Exploring Washington State – Watershed Café

    I just got back from a visit to the town of Leavenworth, Washington, and will be writing more about that in the next few days, but I had to start by telling you about the absolute best place I found in that beautiful little town: The Watershed Café. I’m not one to pamper myself very…

  • Seasonal Angst

    After 40 years in Florida, I must admit that I’m not really accustomed to the changing seasons. Up here in the Pacific Northwest, the days get a lot shorter in the winter. I mean, a WHOLE lot shorter, as in 7 hours less daylight (as opposed to a 3 hour difference in the Sunshine State).…

  • Nature Calls

    I love to observe nature as it unfolds around me, and I’ve moved from a subtropical climate to a temperate one, so a lot has changed. I don’t even recognize many of the bird calls here, and I’m sure encountering plant life that I’ve never seen before. It some ways Washington reminds me a lot…