Mug Shot | East Wenatchee, WA | April 2020
Things Around the House | Few objects are as personal as coffee mugs. The right properties — rim, handle, heft, volume — can transform a ceramic container into morning’s handheld comfort. Our own cabinet of cups includes some inherited, some given, some awarded, and very few bought by us. Also scarce: Mugs printed with droll declarations. As noted by comedian Stephen Colbert, “I have a mug that absolutely verifies (more…)
Pencil Shavings | East Wenatchee, WA | April 2020
Things Around the House | The greatest inventions — spoon, book, pencil — are so pure in design and function that their digital versions often appear laughable. Sure, I read on a Kindle and type on a computer, but these technologies always feel like the first crude steps in a gadget’s evolution. These devices seem like starting points that will eventually evolve beyond the complications of batteries and screens into (more…)
Cowboy Hat | East Wenatchee,WA | April 2020
Things Around the House | Hair gone; hat on. In fact, hats as head warmers now fit snugly atop my aging body’s list of corrective measures — eyeglasses, medicines, dental fillings, arterial stents and, egads, ear-fuzz trimmers. For me, cowboy hats are far too cumbersome for daily wear (not pocketable), yet I’ve always liked their utilitarian contours on crown and brim. This hat’s “Gus” crease, popularized most recently by the Lonesome Dove character Augustus McCrae, has been around since (more…)
Potted Plant | East Wenatchee, WA | April 2020
Things Around the House | There it is — one gazillionth of the great global churn of photosynthesis, and it lounges languorously in our dining room window. This rooted resident is an unspecified house plant, actually a type of stunted tree, that works all day to convert sunlight into snacks that fuel its growth and — how to put this delicately? — pass the gas (oxygen) that helps keep us alive. Remarkably, this leafed being breathes in tune with plateau grasses, riverside thickets, mountain forests and even that distant cousin phytoplankton, who only sends a Christmas card every few years. In isolation, I’ve begun to sense a (more…)
Ducks Distancing | East Wenatchee, WA | April 2020
Extensive research on waterfowl behavior — i.e., me sitting on a log — reveals that quackers enjoy their solitude. They frequently break away from the flock to dine alone, fluff their feathers or take a nap. There’s no separation anxiety or boredom funk; they’re happy to observe as life floats by, literally. There goes a twig, then a leaf, then (more…)
Goodbye Blooms | Wenatchee, WA | April 2020
The melancholy of impermanence recognizes loss while welcoming what’s to come. Author Mari Fujimoto writes that this wistfulness is regarded in Japan as “the ephemeral nature of beauty — the quietly elated, bittersweet feeling of having been witness to the dazzling circus of life [while] knowing that none of it can last.” Here in mid-spring, tulips shedding petals in a light breeze trigger an (more…)
Bread | East Wenatchee, WA | April 2020
“Bread making is one of those almost hypnotic businesses, like a dance from some ancient ceremony. It leaves you filled with one of the world’s sweetest smells. There is no chiropractic treatment, no yoga exercise, no hour of meditation that will (more…)
Compact | Wenatchee, WA | April 2020
Nothing says shutdown like empty parking lots. Their parallel lines impose unneeded order on an unused expanse. My first instinct on arrival is to shatter the social contract and park catawampus — let Bad Boy emerge (maniac motorist!) to angle our car sideways across three or four spaces. But no. Instead I (more…)
Atrium | Wenatchee, WA | April 2020
Look up. On a good day there won’t be a single person between you and open sky. It’s the perfect place to let your mind drift free from viral worries. Up is where breezes blow safe and soothing, where clouds sail sanitized by sunlight, where it’s just you and heaven and … watch out for that damn duck! Those rascals won’t (more…)
Stumps | East Wenatchee, WA | April 2020
Each spring river levels recede behind hydro dams to accommodate runoff from melting snow. It makes for long, wide beaches perfect for dog walks with leash off, masks off. The low levels also reveal hidden remnants — stumps and fallen trunks — of forest groves lost decades ago to (more…)
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