A Special Sunday in Seattle

Such is the infinite beauty of creation that it never remains the same.

Being accustomed to living in the Sonoran Desert, a weekend trip to equally familiar Seattle was a big change. The weather by the Salish Sea was sunny; a nice gift for my niece on her wedding day. The air is fresh, moist and invigorating. I miss that in Tucson. The green of trees and grass, the greys of mold-stained concrete, and the hill-defined neighborhoods are all familiar to me. The wedding was by a forest lake and included a short hike up through the trees to a rock outcrop promontory with a commanding view. These are all familiar to me from my Cascade and Olympic hiking days. But (there is always a but) the congestion caused me to pause, as did an unfamiliar sense of unfamiliarity in familiar surroundings.

I was feeling something I could not identify, a mixed feeling of familiarity, enjoyment, loss (at having moved to Tucson and missing Seattle and family), and discomfort.

In Lower Alaska, the complaint is winter cold, dark, dampness. In the Sonoran Desert, the complaint is summer day heat that extends through the night in monsoon humidity.

I only made sense of my unease in Lower Alaska the day after I returned to the Old Pueblo. I stepped outside during the heat of the day, a time when I ordinarily stay sheltered inside our shuttered and cooled home, and didn't feel oppressed. The near one hundred degree heat felt enlivening and friendly.

My unease over Sunday in Seattle made a little more sense. Here at home, I do not have to wear shoes, I can live in my underwear, take a private dip in the warm swimming pool, take Nazar for a walk in the wash in the brisk morning air without encountering another person, and delight in the clear, open skies, stunning light, and amazing variety of flora and fauna.

Several times over the weekend I talked about my first sweat, the plains Amerind's ritual of heat and light deprivation, a returning to the womb of mother earth. On that occasion many years ago, as I literally crawled out of the sweat lodge, I saw everything in a new, fresh and living light. By everything, I mean grass, trees, directions, people and even just beingness. Of course, all that faded after a week or so as familiarity took over.

My Sunday was like a sweat ceremony.  Not just the invigorating coolness of a sunny day in Puget Sound, but the wedding opened me up to again see life in a new, fresh and living light. The ritual that brought this out was being with sisters, nieces, nephews, grand-nieces and grand-nephews. They are spouses, mothers, fathers, kids, infants, grandparents (and uncles and aunts) and newly weds. They are wonderful, each and every one, all brought together for the occasion of a wedding between two people who very obviously love each other deeply.

In a few days the magic I feel about the Sonoran Desert may fade into familiarity and routine. Same with Puget Sound. It also can easily be taken for granted. The magic of the beauty of both places was rekindled being in both over the course of a weekend. A change of scenery elicits appreciation while the change is still new, but that awareness fades with familiarity.

I hope never to lose the awe, appreciation and admiration for the fine people with whom I share deep connections.

Trellis (Kioski)

It was a long time coming; about ten years. Ever since we bought this house and experienced sun on the south side, then over several years watched cacti bake and brown in the fierce sun plus reflected heat off of the house walls, I have thought of a trellis.

The fact that it was the front of the house required the trellis to look decent. That by itself was occasion for pause. Criticism from my better half was ever present. Understandably, she didn't want it to look junky. Nor did I. So I discarded the idea of shade fabric.

Then there was an added complexity. In that same area there are two scuppers that drain about half of the roof area. I had already extended them a bit in an attempt to get the water away from the house. The extensions weren't long enough, although they helped. (Funny thing about Tucson. They don't design houses for rain. Go figure.) So somehow, the trellis not only had to serve the function of shade and look good, it also had to take runoff from the scuppers and carry it over another three or four feet.

The design also had to account for wind. That's what we have in Tucson for "bad weather". It's not rain or overcast or cold. It's wind. And we do get wind. There are blasts of wind that tear off tree branches. They even uproot trees. We had a mature palo verde that got toppled across the driveway about seven years ago. That was when I bought an electric chain saw. So whatever I had to build to block sunlight also had to withstand severe wind.

The design went from two vertical posts to four. I had to convince Shari that four pylons of half cinder blocks, filled with cement, with an embedded four-by-four's, were sufficient to hold up a twenty-foot long lattice of one-by-fours. The four cinder block columns were measured and erected, the four posts measured and placed, then packed with cement so strong that they produced small cracks in the blocks. No matter: super glue and caulk. Each foundation was cemented to the raised planted in which they had been dug. You couldn't budge any one of those four posts if you tried.

Then I constructed two channels for the two scuppers. They were made with two-by-fours and lined with plastic fencing. Plastic fencing posts, I figured, are flat and would last forever, but I was worried about weight. Fortunately, after about a couple of short days of labor and erecting the new channels, we got some rain.

The extensions worked on the back-flow as much as the intended front-flow. Too much rain spilled out in back and my intent was to have it run farther out. The design was changed and simplified, and the angle of the dangle increased. Aluminum flashing was bent inside a rectangular tube of one-by-fours.

The scupper extensions up, all I had to do was screw on some fifty-three one-by-four slats and presto! We have partial shade that is noticeable through the resultant temperature decrease!  It will take years for the poor San Pedro cactus to learn that it's okay to be green again, but the trellis helps define and enhance the front of the house.

I can hardly wait for monsoon rains to see how the new scupper extensions work. Of course, I can hardly wait for the monsoon rains, period.

Now for shade on the west side, and to complete the paving and trash enclosure on the east side.

Kioski you ask?  That's what a shade trellis is called in Greek. Greek, you ask? Well, we are planning on catching a lot of Greek sun come September and Shari is taking Greek lessons. Opa!