Swaybacked | Badger Mountain, WA | 2011
Visual evidence of the weight of time is everywhere: eroded mountains, fallen trees, lined faces. But you can’t beat isolated farm roads for what I call scenic dilapidation, the sad but joyous consumption of once vital structures by Mother Nature. We can often see our aging selves in the wreckage — rickety, weather-beaten, a tad swaybacked.
Time Line | Belfast, ME | 2011
In 1962, Alice babysat us kids, cleaned house and did laundry. I remember watching her one afternoon as she gathered billowing white sheets from the backyard clothesline. Wasps from a nearby nest flew in a frenzy around her. She’d unpin a corner and then swat frantically as they dive-bombed. Amazingly, she avoided getting stung until she brought the big basket inside and shook out the sheets. Folded in the fabric were angry wasps that attacked her hands and face. Her lesson came later. “God made wasps to do what they do and gave us brains to deal with ’em,” she said, spreading toothpaste over the swollen areas. “Remember, a sting hurts how much you let it hurt.”
Bus Shelter | Wenatchee, WA | 2012
Five p.m., quitting time, and this enclosed bus shelter is an oven. Tired women, clerks from discount stores and the dry cleaners, rest inside on the only bench. They gingerly place sore, bare feet atop work shoes smashed flat to keep skin off hot concrete. They wipe sweat from faces with fast-food napkins because these days no one carries a handkerchief. They want nothing more than to go home, feed the kids, tinkle ice cubes in a glass and fill it under the tap. Where’s that damned bus?
Roof Horizon | Tacoma, WA | 2012
Cities make their own horizons. The line between earth and sky can lie across the street, between office buildings or at a roof’s far edge. The visible horizon, anyway. The true horizon, like so many certainties, often stretches beyond our range of perception. We simply have faith it’s out there.
Apple | East Wenatchee, WA | 2012
A grocery produce section never does the apple justice. Heaped in bins and poorly lighted, the fruit’s fullness never emerges. A few years ago at an agricultural trade show, one prime example of a new variety — showcased under spotlights — mesmerized me with its rich depth of color. It seemed to be a surface-less orb that absorbed light, a space you could stick a finger into. It was also dotted with lenticels, those white specks on apple skins, that look like tiny stars. Best of all, its name: Cosmic Crisp.
Exit | Wenatchee, WA | 2012
I’ve come to appreciate the between-worlds aspect of vestibules. In the 1970s, my bank in the French Quarter had a transition space from outside’s muggy, messy, mildewed streetscape to a cool, quiet, ordered interior. This classy inter-room eased you into the bank’s inner elegance — a hint of chill before the full AC, a crystal water pitcher before the lavish chandeliers, a doorman’s soft welcome before the tellers’ whispers. On entering, the vestibule provided a calm place to shed the city’s bustle. On exit, it was a place to muster one’s mettle for the heat, humidity and hurried hordes.
Quiet Room | Quincy, WA | 2012
Lines soothe our psyches by providing a focus point for the busy mind. Japanese gardens and buildings designed by Frank Lloyd Wright incorporate straight lines that encourage mental rest. The comforting line of a distant horizon is one reason we’re drawn repeatedly to the beach. This dedicated quiet room, unexpected in a small-town library, offers welcome clarity to those roaming the printed world.
Architecture | Tacoma, WA | 2012
Man’s ambition to create complex objects never fails to grip me. Take big buildings, for instance. Each step of construction is its own process of a thousand steps. Mining > smelting > designing > welding > wiring > furnishing. That they all coalesce into an actual structure — safe, efficient, beautiful — is simply mind boggling.
Blank Stares | Bellevue, WA | 2012
My 80 facial nodes are spaced differently than yours. That means a computer or smartphone can differentiate between my nostrils, your nostrils and two big grapes resting nose-width apart on a white plate. A very useful computational ability in this digital age, when it seems the no-nostril crowd has the most privacy.
Bridge | East Wenatchee, WA | 2012
Underneath, I mentally map the bridged terrain. How would I cross if the span wasn’t there? It’s an easy lope down sage-and-grass hills. But to cross the surging river I’d need a boat or superior swim skills. On the other side, only an experienced rock climber could scale that cliff. Engineers who wield trusses and plot structural stress points get my eternal thanks.
IrwinFoto 