Four Seasons

From Seattle Journal #59 (1995)

Spring

I almost never laugh when I'm alone. But this afternoon I watched a squirrel jump from the fence into the Mock Orange full of blossoms, and it just disappeared there—as if jumping into a pool of water. Its jump was not a leap, but a diving-in. I laughed and laughed. (But, then, the squirrels often make me laugh. So maybe I laugh more than I think I do when alone.)

Summer

In the early mornings (and evenings at sunset), during these warm days when windows are open and people are outside, the neighborhoods of this city are transformed into an atmosphere that feels like a camp, as if it is childhood again for everyone and we're all camping out. Our houses are our cabins and tents, the sprinklers are streams that we wade in, and everywhere the sound of children playing gleefully—as if they're truly free and time is timeless.

Today I walked along the Fremont canal and it felt like paradise. I was alone on the path, and had my choice of benches to sit on along the way. I picked blackberries for dessert. I watched boats glide across the canal, and felt taken back to the late 19th Century when transportation on water was true transportation, not recreation. I felt gentle breezes on my face, and they said: yes, yes, life is good, this moment is everything.

Late Fall

This morning at sunrise there were blackish clouds hovering over the Cascades like smoke, and then a sharp outline of red along their form appeared. It was the feeling of watching the Santa Monica mountains on fire.

What gives me a feeling of security, during these days which get darker and darker, earlier and earlier? Somehow, that bare pear tree outside my office window.

Every day gets closer and closer to the feeling of Winter, the tone of Winter. And Winter always feels ancient to me. Summer, for a brief while, feels like the eternal present; but Winter always sobers me by appearing like a resurrection of the stark, inevitable past. The skies are Gothic in Winter: the green glow around the morning moon, with faint bruise-colors circling it; the smudge of the sun at a dim 5:00 p.m. sunset. That quickly-darkening sky in the late afternoon feels like an Edgar Allan Poe sky, or even a medieval sky; the skyscrapers below don't fit in at all. The trees without their leaves feel ancient, too. Truth is ancient, truth is the past. Ultimately, the future leads to death—the most ancient of all that is ancient. There's really no future in Winter; everywhere, it points to the eternal past. Summer seems far away, now—a dream.

I'll never get used to the drama of seasons, how they heighten and transform every aspect of my life.

Winter

I'm looking at the freeway from the upstairs front bedroom windows. That freeway which continues to be a perverse comfort for me, especially on Monday mornings in Winter before it's fully light outside. I watch the cars (but, mostly, I see only headlights) traveling through the morning's darkness and rain. Everyone is going to work. From a distance it's a strange sort of modern day magic, all those lights one after another reflected in the rain on the pavement. I watch, as if I'm a child peeking into the adult world...and I feel that I will always be just peeking. That "normal" adult world where the magic of the lights contrasts with the sterility of the office buildings everyone is headed to.

I watch, as if I'm in a fairytale or foreign country. I stare and stare at the sparkling city scene, the cars like strings of Christmas lights, and wonder: what is everyone thinking and feeling? Is anyone thinking of a poem, or actually composing one, mentally, while driving? Is anyone listening to music and feeling deeply moved? Is anyone thinking of someone no longer alive? Is anyone laughing? Is anyone crying? Is anyone newly in love? Has anyone turned around, now headed towards home instead of to work because work has become intolerable?

I wish I could turn on the TV and see the thoughts of these people as their cars travel across the I-5 bridge. I wish I could see those thoughts, one after another, like seeing my dreams parading by. I want to know the silent thoughts, because they're uncensored and haven't been interpreted or altered. I want to know the raw, freely-formed thoughts because they can't be truly known. (Those private wonderings at one unique moment in time.) And I could love these strangers if I could touch just a few fragments of their deepest thoughts as they drive through the darkness and rain on this gray Monday morning.