I love this city. I moved here at the beginning of February. Each day since, I have found some small joy that reinforces my conviction that I made the right choice.

Art crawl in the Georgetown arts district

Each month the many galleries and studios in this compact brick industrial area open their doors and let you see how they make great stuff.

An artist named Nicola Beeson created the below bird/lettering/flower piece. It seems like it was crafted to go after my heart, with a barn owl and everything.

I checked out the studios and also caught a performance. A Tacoma heavy shoegaze (?) band played and I took in the vibes while enjoying the smiles I can now see thanks to the lifting of the mask mandate.

Active nature restoration

On my first visit to the city as a tourist I stumbled across lovely Expedia Beach and biked through it. When I moved here I reached it on foot and was stunned at what I saw. It’s so goddamn nice. This beach was profiled today as part of a trend of actively restoring nature:

“For cities, restored nature helps increase equitable access to parks, something they can’t address as aggressively as they would like without private support. Coastal parks help make waterfronts less susceptible to rising water and storm surges.”

And:

“The same change is expected at the Expedia campus. As perennials and beehives slowly establish themselves, the environment will begin to stabilize, and a large section of the campus will become self-maintaining, if not self-sustaining.”

In Seattle I stumble into beautiful places a lot.

Dynamic weather

I keep waiting for the vile weather people warned me about. But almost every day has been nice. I am accustomed to the stagnant, polluted, lingering gray of a certain large Oregon city. But in Seattle, as a running partner explained to me, the weather coming in over Puget Sound changes fast. Even rainy gray days are punctuated by occasional sun. And I am often out there to catch it.

The one recent exception was when an “atmospheric river” arrived and dropped moderate rain for many hours. And I had to drive in it. But this week another atmospheric river was forecast, and the NWS weather page looked gloomy and gray, but the days were pleasant and mostly dry. There is some kind of disconnect between the wet forecast and the dry days I am seeing.

Birding and enjoying nature in Seward Park

Some nature observations

Sadly one of those turtles I found sunning themselves in shallow water turned out to be dead. Others of its kind are doing OK and I see them on sunny days.

A hundred or more coots are gathered in a dense flock every day offshore.

Several great blue herons stand much of the day on a dock. Some of them spook when a bald eagle comes by.

Varied thrushes, Anna’s hummingbirds, spotted towhees, and a number of mergansers, goldeneyes and grebes are there every day. Today I saw a grebe with a huge catfish that I think will satisfy him for the day (if he managed to swallow it).

A group of elusive (to me) otters lives there and I will keep my eye out for them and see them eventually.

A visual and emotional association with music

I was watching those herons the other day while reading my book and listening to my little bluetooth speaker. There was a moment when one of the great birds squawked (a very hoarse, deep, guttural call). It was raising the alarm that a bald eagle was swooping in too close.

I looked up and realized that several other herons were perched in a doug fir nearby. I had not noticed them because the dense firs looked almost black against the sky and hid the herons. The huge birds left their branches and circled and swooped until the eagle left. I looked up at this spectacle just as Rachmaninoff’s piano concerto #2 was swelling darkly and intensely and then taking an airy and light turn. And it happened just as I looked up after a long period with my head down, face in the book.

And I thought to myself how this moment was perfect and could not be replicated. Yet there are many more to come, and they seem to happen every day in this new city, where I am engaged with life and very happy.