Category: Recently Observed
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Cloud | Methow, WA | April 2019 A lesson in impermanence appeared in a cloudless sky. As I drove upriver, I saw vapor gather into a wispy sphere that grew denser by the second. The quickly-formed cloud then floated east, carried along by the forces — wind and whim — that conceived it. The airborne…
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Gowns | Vancouver, WA | March 2019 Can a wedding nowadays be simple? Ceremonies for even everyday folks are often drenched in drama and excess. Emotions run high over details of the ring, dress, shoes, cake, bouquet, seating charts and — what are we forgetting? — oh yeah, the groom. Brides want celebrity treatment (“This…
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Idle Hour | East Wenatchee, WA | March 2019 The publishing industry is flooded this spring by a wave of self-help titles on doing less. The books are a reaction, I suppose, to our increased pace of life — do more, do it faster — all juiced by the latest tech. In truth, experts say,…
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Pyramid | Spokane, WA | March 2019 My Dad believed (somewhat) in the power of pyramids. He had a doctor — OK, a quack — who claimed pyramids had all sorts of healing properties. After all, didn’t the Egyptians build pyramid-shaped tombs? So the doctor had Dad sit under a dangling, um, monolith which supposedly…
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Place Settings | Ellensburg, WA | February 2019 Our tools are laid out at table’s edge, ready for action. We order breakfast. We wait. It’s a good time to practice Zen acceptance. “Right now, it’s like this,” I say to
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Thaw | Soap Lake, WA | March 2019 The snow began to recede when least expected — a cold, dreary afternoon seesawing between freeze and thaw. Next day, Spring claimed victory and melting commenced in earnest. Everything was soon at its ugliest
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Resting Geese | East Wenatchee, WA | March 2019 The cold never hit hard this winter, and snow came late (February). Many flocks of Canada geese, mildly confused, chose to hang out here rather than sojourn south. They managed to adjust to frosty conditions, as we all did — waddling over icy patches, basking in…
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Winter Orchard | East Wenatchee, WA | February 2019 It’s often what’s not there that sharpens the moment. Trees without leaves means better-defined shadows. Foods without salt means
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Snow Stacks | Leavenworth, WA | March 2019 A late-season snowshoe hike looped through an eerie patch of logged forest. Each tree stump held a “ghost trunk” of hardened snow, a 4-foot-high cylinder that I’m sure told the story of
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Church | Douglas, WA | February 2019 In this picturesque hamlet on the high plateau, St. Paul’s Lutheran holds services only a few times a year. Yet the church continues to bind people together, one resident told me. Keeping the structure in
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