Demolition

A few blocks from us are several large parcels being redeveloped.  Our WWII-era branch library was completely rebuilt from the parking garage up in 2016.  It is on the outside of a large circle.  The center of the circle is being redeveloped into an amazing park, in various stages.  The  native plants and wetlands along with restrooms phase is complete, as is the playground phase.  Water feature and amphitheater phase are yet to go.  Around the outside of the circle, the land is being redeveloped into town houses, condos, and apartments.  Several adjacent parcels are going into a huge new development with 555 housing units including town houses, apartments, retail and commercial.  In order to put this particular development in, they have been taking stuff out.  That stuff includes a three-strip strip mall, a large restaurant,  a bank, and a freestanding furniture store, plus some currently vacant land and all the attendant parking lots and roadways.  Today they were demolishing the three freestanding buildings with giant excavators.  Lazarus and I walked over to watch this morning, and Laurel and I walked over to watch this afternoon.

Though fascinating, I find watching the demolition stressful.  For one thing, it is extraordinarily loud.  And for another, it is obviously dangerous.  They have some fences up, but its shocking how close you can get to to metal bars and A/C units and windows raining down.  Of course they are hosing it down to keep the dust at bay, but it was windy today, and when I walked past the furniture store demo, the excavator operator stopped until I had passed.  

There is more to it, though. Seeing an organized structure, even an ugly one, reduced to a pile of rubble is chaotic.  It's like watching large reptilian predators ripping into a a creature who had been outrunning them only moments before.  

Or watching an earthquake or tornado or tsunami unfold in slow motion. 

I saw a refrigerator picked up in a giant claw and crunched and shaken to pieces.  (Don't they recycle such things?) I saw a giant wooden beam, chopped in the 1960s out of a hundreds-of-years-old living tree in an old growth forest, bent and ripped, reduced to splinters in under a minute.  I saw an industrial shelf in perfect condition (people pay good money for those things!) twisted and flattened with one mash.  I saw 18-wheeler sized dumpsters being filled with mangled debris headed for the landfill and wondered how many lifetimes of careful trash reduction on my part could compare. I saw brick walls, made from mined clay, and carefully laid by skilled workmen over many days, knocked down and shattered with one impact of the giant metal bucket.  

The new development will be much nicer in the neighborhood.  It will increase our property values and being more wealth to our corner of the world.  It will be a happy home to hundreds of families.  It will feel safe and clean and make for a nice walking area when I fancy spending money in shops.

But I feel in my bones the sadness of our entire cultural mentality which sees the gifts of the universe as something to use up and throw out, rather than something to appreciate, care for, learn from, and preserve.

Pandemic Gifts

 I am struck by the wide variety of pandemic experiences of people I know...

It ruins a career.

It is boring and frustrating.

It is lonely and frightening.

It ends the life of a dear one.

It brings up many unanswered questions.

It causes financial hardships. 

It is a welcome pause in the busyness and a chance to reflect and choose the good.

It is business as usual.

It is a hoax.

So many different stories from so many different people...  

For me, it has been a mixture.  I miss my family and friends all the time.  I occasionally miss going to church and concerts.  I miss playing chamber music a couple times a year.  I find some of my students trickier to work with virtually.

But on a day to day basis, I actually have found the change of pace a blessing.  This is partly because my nearest and dearest have largely been spared the worst of the sickness and death.  

Here are some of the gifts of the pandemic:

Moving from slightly more structured homeschooling to unschooling.   This has been a lifesaver for me. My school-aged child is happier, and is learning all sorts of things.

Online teaching forcing me to streamline and improve my communication with students and giving me new constraints in which to grow my skills.

Attending church online without guilt.

Much less driving.

Moving all of our teaching to our outbuildings, thus making our whole cabin available to our whole family at all times.  This is truly huge.  Can't tell you what a wonderful change this has been.

Learning how to shop less and more efficiently  (mostly Jared.)

The chance to explore new ways for Jared to share his teaching skills with Dalcroze.

Not commuting to teach on Tuesdays. Also, an amazing breath of fresh air.   We'll see what happens post-pandemic...

Online studio recitals have some benefits and are here to stay, even when we are back to live performances in libraries and retirement homes.

But the biggest one is Anne's daily calls to various grandparents and other relatives to have them help her with her bass practice.  I can't tell you what a blessing and relief that is for me.  Seriously, I have a village now, despite the miles.  This was Anne's idea, and the pandemic has been worth it just for this one item.

Clark Lake Park Revisited

This morning I had another jaunt down to Kent for yet another appointment to have my teeth drilled.  Following the drilling procedure, I dropped off our hybrid a few blocks away at Saggu, the Punjabi -owned car shop which deftly services the hybrids owned by all the Punjabi taxi drivers who reside in Kent. (There is an error code associated with our hybrid battery, and this is our second or third attempt to have it decoded.) Then I wandered through my old haunts on foot to Clark Lake Park to await Jared's and the kid's arrival in the Chevy to retrieve me, once everyone was awake and fed. 

It was jarring to walk on my old familiar neighborhood routes, no longer familiar....a tree taken out, new paint, a changed gate, an added fence...but more jarring still: bits of woods meeting their end at the bulldozer's blade: eleven houses going in here, thirty there...and a playground gone, replaced by the YMCA.  The constant change churned along when we lived there, too, but having been absent more than three years, I have not kept pace with the breathless development of a once-wooded Native area, turned White farm town, turned diverse urban center.

The park was so peaceful in the cool sunshine, and I was flooded with memories as I wandered the 126 acre oasis in the middle of suburbification.  Second growth forests, water, rolling meadows (recovering from agriculture) with stunning mountain views...  I kept remembering toddler Anne, a person I can otherwise barely imagine any more.  

Here's where she pulled the little wooden wagon on a string. 

Here's where she'd run back and forth under the shady trees and look at the giant, seething ant hill on hot days.

Here was our favorite cherry tree in June where we brought and filled a little basket with sweet delights.

Here is where we picked the native and seedy black berries.

Here is where Anne would climb up into the tree in her "house."

Here is where Jared would hold Anne off the edge of the board walk and tease her about dipping her into the lake.

Here is where we watched the ducklings swimming.

Here is where we stood and laughed at the coyotes howling at the emergency sirens.

Here is the little hill that felt so hard to climb when I was pregnant.

Here is the place where we watched a family have photographs taken on a beautiful Spring day, much like today.

Here are the mole hills Anne brought her little shovel to dig in.

Here is where my mom found herself in the middle of a highway of tiny, newly hatched snakes on a summer visit.

Here's where I photographed the view towards Mt. Rainier every morning for a week at 8 am in varying weather conditions.

Here is where we buried the tiny life miscarried five and a half years ago.

Here is where I stopped to nurse little Anne.

Here is where we found some plums and watched the ants on the bench.

Here is where Anne and baby Lazarus found a geocache treasure and hid it again.

Here is where there is a seep in the hillside and the trail is always muddy but in the driest weather. 

Here is where we would stand to watch the cows.

Here is where we would throw bits of grass into the water and watch the birds.

Here is the tree where the bald eagles made their nest.

...I have been back a few times, usually in a hurry... but today was pure enjoyment...and big feelings of nostalgia and regret.  For five and a half years, I walked and ran and watched Anne, then Lazarus, play in that park nearly every day, and it was my touchstone.  When we were buying our house, there were a very few non-negotiables on the list: at least two bedrooms, a place to teach, parking for students, and... easy walking distance to Lake Clark Park.  Sadly, that last one didn't work out, and I miss my daily landscape.  I still go out walking every day in my new neighborhood, but I haven't found somewhere to replace my addiction.