Walking with Dog

I walked down to the water with Maddie a few days ago.

this is just our driveway - we can walk right from here over to the Evergreen woods and beach

For the first time in a long time this fall I've had no dogs at home to take me out on adventures. I still run and get out there but don't walk so much. With friends walking is a lot of talking - which I love too, but I tend to walk without seeing; I can find I've walked for miles and barely seen where I was, other than the stunning mushroom or flower that pops up and commands attention. My head is filled with the conversation, with what I'm going to say next, with how much I can ask my friend to reveal beyond what they have just shared that has intrigued me.

We pass this bog, which 36th Loops around - see the red maple in the distance? Here are few of its leaves.

Running I love too but again am much less sensitive to surroundings. I don't listen as well. Listening is so important and so hard to do, with all the clamor in my brain immediately giving an opinion. I would get a lot less upset at people it I just listened and didn't immediately check what I hear against my bank of facts and find a need to defend or put forth my position. Even in my own head, my own conversations I don't listen. Always putting up other points of view, projecting scenes, how will I say this later, how will I describe this thought I had...

looking left, towards
Mud Bay at bottom of
Eld Inlet
looking right up towards
Puget Sound; a big
madrona tree hangs
over the beach here



Such good places to unthink.

Pausing in the field we cut through gives a nice view of sky

And back on the path that leads to 36th.

Got into documenting patterns - here are a few:

Weekendz

Got a camera - and walked around the yard - that's looking out the bedroom door



Looked at stuff



Everything is beautiful



the tomatillo husks disintegrated leaving their little bodies trapped in lacey balloons






maple leaves fell, but not this paper wasp nest

So

So here I am living in this house. Particularly lonely (but also nice) this weekend while Naomi, Joseph and Noah (1 year old) are back east for a 90th birthday party. Michael and Rebecca have gone out to meet with Roosevelt School folks about a forest garden project. I have let the chickens out, fed them, thought about doing something with the lighting in the coop, returned with two eggs, eaten one with leftover squash and winter-root salad and added the other to some oatmeal-raisin cookies, of which I have already eaten four. Observing how they are going from too soft with molassesy middles to crunchy, just about right yet I am definitely reaching my quota before they have reached perfection.

I look around the house and note that I have very few articles in it. A few cookbooks and a little of the kitchen stuff are my contributions, and a couch and a rocking chair. Other than that the guitars, toys, books, boots, raingear, co-op-ready boxes, pickling projects, knick-knacks and riff-raff are all Dan's or, mostly, other household members'. But this IS my house, I do live here and I am living here - forever? permanently? beyond Hawaii? As a grandma? It's not really real, that. I think I've been renting and transitional for so long now it feels like the permanent status. It's refreshing change from disgruntled suburban this-is-not-my-boring house status. Well, it's not because it was boring that I left, but the effect was refreshing in several ways.

A quick review:
sometime ~1992 - bought Westwood house with Joseph, 3 kids, 1 dog
April '04 - I move out of Westwood into Thomas St with Ariel and Emily
Sept '04 - tried living back at Westwood; by winter of '06 Ariel has moved into apartment with Nick, Emily joined her
May'06- summer sublet on lovely Langridge Av with Em; met Dan; Ariel to Florida
Sept '06- rented house on 17th Street; Em had a bedroom, Jason did but never used, moved Casualtee into garage; Callie (Ariel's first cat) got lost
Sept '07- bought house on 41st Way, moved in with Emily, Buster and Maddie
December '08 - Ariel moved in downstairs with Emma and Hurley (dog kinda and cat)
July 2009 - moved into Dan's; Em to Woods Hole; Ariel and Kyle moved to Steamboat
Sept '09 - Em to Portland with Maddie; A to Tacoma with Emma; rented out 41st Way to TESC students
Oct '09 - Dan and Jason to Hawaii to begin installing power systems and otherwise set up the Farm for longer term life sustainability

... what is next? Rachel moves to Hawaii... grows organic turmeric, discovers it turns silver hair orange.

Ah!

Battery charged, but now I need a memory card! Ahh! So much technology. All this facebooking, texting, emailing, and blogging is just keeping me glued to this screen. At least I will break away for a bit and see some live people acting in a play downtown, yeah! Very very rainy stormy windy outside, even some lightning and thunder today. Goodbye, yellow maple leaves.

Let There Be Pics

In answer to all the clamors from my large fan base (of 3...) as to why I have not posted anything for awhile, it's because I've had no photos, I have had no camera, yet many scenic moments. I couldn't stand it any longer and just purchased a camera, which is now charging, so soon there will be photos (previous photo credits go to Sophie)! Let the illuminated world begin! (It's the dawning of a new age, no less.)