Dispatch from Bellingham, March 25, 2011

I've been sending these dispatches as emails to many of my friends...I thought I might share them with my blog followers too.  Let me know if you would care to see more of these very personal reflections.

Dispatch from Bellingham, 25 March, 2011

I’ve just come back from watching the setting sun from Boulevard Park.  The locals swarm to the park these days, when the sun is warm and inviting, suggesting that winter really and truly is ending and Spring has begun.  The buds on the trees, the fresh new leaves along the walking paths, the chatter of dozens of small birds, the relentless search for worms by the recently returned robins, and the glorious pink Japanese Plum trees all proclaim that the season has shifted.  The sun is setting further north these days.  In the midst of winter, it dipped behind the central part of Lummi Island; now it is almost completely to the right (i.e. North) of the island…an astronomical proof of the onset of spring.  I know that back home (or should I say, back at my former home) winter has not fully given over to spring.  Thus the closest image I can conjure up from there to what I’m witnessing here in B’ham is the gathering at the river, as the waters finally become warm enough to enjoy.  Even so, there is not the sense that I get here, that folks are drawn to the park and to the sun as though magnetically and there is a communal sense of sharing in this celebration of the sun.  One does not need a sandy beach to be a sun-lover…there’s precious little sand anywhere near here.

 (Although there are plans to convert some of the rocky shoreline at the park to sandy beaches in the near future.  As someone who spent a fair amount of time on the beaches of South Carolina, and studied coastal geology with a very highly respected scientist, Miles O. Hayes, I have to wonder if this plan has been thoroughly vetted by a coastal geologist to insure that the sand will stay where it’s put.  As the film “The Beach...A River of Sand”…so clearly demonstrated, beaches are ephemeral…sand moves easily with changing wave approach and intensity.  Year-round wave studies needed to be done…and I hope they were.)

Boulevard Park is truly a family place…young and old, walkers, runners and bikers, picnickers, Frisbee enthusiasts, jugglers, dog-walkers, even a few tight-rope walkers show up any time there’s sun to be had…and there are the more dedicated bunch who run & walk even in the worst weather.  There’s a coffee shop in the park, and it is frequented by more than a few students who study there, hunched over computers or reading textbooks.  I go there often for a cup of joe.  Alas, coffee is becoming rather expensive, and I am going to have to limit my coffee consumption a bit.  I think I average more than 3 cups/day out…and that’s almost always about $2.00/cup.  Over a month, that really adds up…and then there is the not infrequent pastry with it.  I used to pity folks who smoked because of the expense…now I think I’m equally addicted to an expensive habit.

I’ve been negligent in getting these dispatches out for a couple of months and more.  I confess…the first few months of the year are difficult for me…I suffer from S.A.D.  February is the worst month, even though it is my birth month (thanks to all for the b’day wishes on Facebook…they helped).  The first part of March was rainy and dreary…but we’ve been having significant sun most of the last week or so…and even the rainy days are starting to have sunny breaks.  This is a far cry from some days not that long ago when rain seemed to be non-stop for several days at at a time, and certainly, dreary over-cast skies would go on for a week or more.  This is the Pacific N.W….and I will have to get used to it.  I’ve also had some flare up of intestinal troubles and a recent worsening of my blood sugar.  I have now begun a serious effort to increase my cardio training at the gym (so far 4-days this week at 30 min each).  I intend to pull the weight down and see if I can postpone insulin shots.  Wish me well.

Thanks to some new-found friends here, I’ve been to the Seattle symphony twice, with three more concerts planned for this season.  The concert hall…Benaroya Hall is a modern and very fine venue, and the Seattle symphony is a very good, 2^nd Tier orchestra.  This is the last season for their music director, Gerard Schwartz, and I will hear him for the first time as he conducts Saint Saën’s “Organ” symphony, something I am so excited to hear.  I love that work and it looks like they have a very fine organ in the hall.  When my friends and I go to Seattle, they take me to various ethnic places to eat, specializing in out-of-the-way, small restaurants.  The first was an Indian buffet for lunch before the show, and this last was a Greek place afterwards.  It is clear that there are a vast number of good places to eat in Seattle, just as there are in Vancouver.  My friends are quite frugal, and so always seek places that honor discount coupons, something I’ve not encountered before.

I’m taking up bird-watching.  No…I don’t plan on becoming a fanatic about it…but there are so many water birds here that I’d never seen before.  I can now confidently identify bufflehead ducks, common and Barrow’s Golden-eye ducks, Pacific loons, cormorants, mallards, coots, snow geese, Steller’s Jay, and Bald Eagles (one landed in a tree not more than 30’ from me last Fall, and I’ve seen them since flying over the bay and out at Lake Padden).  There are a lot of tiny wrens and thrushes and other birds I will have difficulty identifying…but I have my handy binoculars now with me in the car, and a couple of bird books especially for the western birds.  I’ve ignored the gulls…they’re loud, obnoxious, aggressive and EVERYWHERE.  If one takes stale bread to the shore, they will mob you and fight over the bits of bread thrown to them.  

The change in the season is like a weight lifting off my chest.  Though there is beauty to the winter here, and I am making a serious effort to focus on it, the coming of Spring is a palpable awakening within me…a lightening of my step and a reinvigorating of my sense of ecological connectedness.  There is a shade of green that comes with spring, slightly lighter and with a touch more yellow, that I find soothing and inviting.  It lines several of the pathways that I walk…not so much Lake Padden, which is dominated by the tall trees, but those with shrubs and vines.  The new buds are a favorite food for many of the tiny birds whose calls tickle my ears on my walks.  And the warmth has brought out the frogs…by the hundreds…at one place on the Interurban trail.  I cannot explain why hearing them made me smile and stop to enjoy the amphibian choir.  These are not great bullfrogs, though, nor are they the tiny peepers that were the tree frogs I encountered in South Carolina.  I imagine they are the more common leopard frogs or something similar…though I could not see them.  Perhaps I shall encounter another pond someday where I will be able to identify the singers…I hope so.

Enough for now.  I hope Spring is bursting out wherever you are and that you too are feeling it in your heart and in your imagination.  It is a season to celebrate life…may you all have much to celebrate.

Cheers,

Sebastian