Posted in Seattle, tagged Seattle, snow, snowpocalypse, weather, winter on 08 Feb 2019| 3 Comments »
It’s quiet out there now. The literal calm before the storm.
Later today, Seattle is set to receive a buttload of snow, so I went out to provision our larder for an expected week of housebound activity (though I don’t think I got enough wine). The experience perfectly illustrated Seattle’s love/hate relationship with the white stuff. (more…)
Posted in Culture, Seattle, tagged extrovert, introvert, quiet, social anxiety, susan cain on 04 Feb 2019| 2 Comments »
I had a bit of a contretemps this week because . . . the internet. The subject was introverts living in an extrovert world. And because it was . . . the internet, naturally, it all began with a meme.
A friend posted a bold-lettered graphic which, in essence, asked the question, “Why does society expect introverts to be talkative and all friendly-like, but never expects extroverts to shut the hell up?” In fairness, it was a bit more acerbic and snarky than my paraphrase, but like I said . . . the internet.
Most folks liked or laughed or commented with the equivalent of a knowing head-nod, but one person took umbrage. “You guys are describing obnoxious people, not extroverts.”
Well . . . no. Not in my experience, anyway. (more…)
Posted in Seattle, tagged canlis, family, family dynamics, friends, tradition on 05 Dec 2018| 7 Comments »
Life always has the capacity to surprise. Sometimes the surprise is delightful, and sometimes it most definitely is not. This past weekend, life did what it does best, but thankfully this surprise was of the delightful strain, as I’m pretty sick of the other type. (more…)
Posted in Culture, Politics, Seattle, tagged 2018 mid-terms, elections, Seattle, US Congress, US Senate on 19 Jul 2018| 2 Comments »
Yesterday, I received my Voter’s Pamphlet for Washington’s August primary election. At the federal level, we’re voting for a senator. There are a total of thirty candidates vying for the seat, so it’s a packed primary.
Packed with what, I cannot say in polite company.
Posted in Seattle, Writing, tagged creative writing, modern poetry, Poetry, vignettes on 26 Apr 2018| Leave a Comment »
sparrows greet us
escalating commuters
as we rise to the surface
grey-faced warriors
morlocks in the dawn
they sing to us from
guano-stained signs
hopping word to word
to teach us their lyrics
of sunrise and birth
Posted in Seattle, Writing, tagged Duwamish, Green Lake, Licton Spring, Seattle, Seattle history, Shilshole on 03 Oct 2017| 2 Comments »
I walk through the gloaming, the sky above me reddening toward night, through shade made deeper by dark, shaggy cedars and pale clad lindens shaking in the gentle breeze. It is a new place for me, but it is an ancient place, a storied place that still bears its ancient name:
Leyktud
Red Paint
The water of the spring seeps up from the ground, the source now collared by a ring of stone. Within the ring, the water is clear, but beneath the surface the stones are clad in the ochre velvet of accreted minerals. As the water gathers and flows quietly out the carved channel, the minerals oxidize, rusting, and paint the ground with a spill of red clay. The alluvial mud is slick to the touch, watery. For millennia, the People of the Inside and the People of the Large Lake came here to collect the wet, red earth, mix it with tallow, and make a bright, orange-red paint suitable for ceremonies and markings.
The springwater trickles down the slope to join the creek that used to run down to Green Lake but which now, sadly, has been capped and diverted to a less salubrious destination. But for a short distance, as I walk the paths beneath the trees, it is still wild (in its gentle way) and free.
I imagine it how it was, not so long ago, before the arrival of the Bostons (as the European-bred settlers were known). I can see thick-boled conifers, dark cathedral columns rising from the earth’s heart to hold up the red, sunset sky. Salal leaves, rough and leathery, grab at my shins, urging me to partake of their sweet, blue fruit. The breeze, wending its way past branch and fern, might taste of woodsmoke from a nearby camp. Frogs chorus in such numbers that, were I with a companion, we would not be able to hear each other speak.
But we would not speak, for this is a place where words are unnecessary, where the thoughts of men are unneeded, and where our hand only diminishes what already is. As the sun sets and the birds of daylight sing their last, I know I have found an immortal place.
This is Licton Spring.
k
Posted in Seattle, Writing, tagged creative writing, novel writing, Seattle history, writing research on 28 Sep 2017| 4 Comments »
Fish or cut bait. Poop or get off the pot. Split wood or lend someone the axe.
During the run-up to a novel project, there comes a time when I must put down the books and pick up the pen. My problem, though, has usually been knowing when I’ve reached that point, that moment of sufficiency when, though I certainly don’t know everything about the pertinent subjects, I know enough to get started.
Now is that time. (more…)
Kurt R.A. Giambastiani 