Fruit from a Dead Tree

My home sits adjacent to a once-tame now-wilding place known to the inner circle as "the secret garden".  Since we've lived here, I have ineptly labored to bring it back from the sweet subversive brink of smothering blackberry brambles and stinging nettles. It is where I go to listen to the varied thrush sing when they arrive in spring. It is where we derived the cherries for the fourth of July pie. It is a primary source for bouquets, my bee-ophilia, and the stream-bed rocks that border my drive.  Although this special place does not belong to me, if often feels that way... being only a few steps down the drive with no person or impediment to deflect my trajectory when I head that way.

As you can see, it is a special place. As you can also see, it has inspired a strong (albeit false) proprietary sensitivity - one particularly affronted when other humans walk up our drive or paddle by via the creek.

One very particular human has, of course, been walking back and forth all summer long. Not only that, but this human has also been uprooting and taking away the choicest bulbs, corms, and transplantable plants of that once-manicured landscape. Ensuring that, with each passing, he has incited a private internal riot in me that has sprung from the berserker depths of my introverted Scandinavian nature.

However, as my feathers have gotten more and more ruffled, the universe has also decided that this would be the perfect time to intercede on my behalf and point out the true absurdity of my own self-importance.  In the ever-changing flux and flow of existence, I truly have no control over anything. (Whew... what a relief!)

For, you see, in the second half of August, the secret garden's true-er nature was irrevocably restored by the fine ecologists of the county. They brought in earthmoving machinery and big flatbed trucks carrying massive loads of felled trees.  They reshaped the earth and pulled down decades of cultivation to repurpose the secret garden to better meet the needs of a salmon-spawning stream.

The fruit trees (cherry, apple, pear) that were the heart of this beautiful haven are now gone - uprooted and pushed broken to the creek edge.  The ancient mossy apple tree (perfect for cat-climbing) is quite dead. Toppled, its leaves have all turned brown and crumble into the brown dusty earth beneath it. Oddly, the fruit of its last living summer still hangs there strange and bright amidst broken limbs.  They are the sweetest of apples.  So ripe.  So final.  So pregnant w/ the complex simultaneity of life/no-life.

I'm sad for these trees.  I'm so happy for the salmon that might be. I'm so profoundly grateful to that wonderful human who worked all summer long to find new homes for those beautiful living things.

Velella Velella Blues

No rocks here... just a few billion Velella velellas

The blue-rubber remains of the small wind-blown cnidarian Velella velella blanket Washington's outer coast this spring. Consequently, paying homage to the sea with only footprints has become a rather slippery affair - one accompanied by a distinctly visceral squish of destruction and the salty stench of decay.

As I drifted north from Ocean Shores over the past few days, I couldn't help but compare this mass incursion of colonial sailors to the physical evidence of other invasions along the State's tidal margins.

First there was Seabrook... the sudden pop-up village of well-heeled vacation home elites... and, then... only 12.6 miles away... there was Tahola... with all the rough edges of Quinault reservation life. The residue of human generations, gentrification, and genocide... all in the same liminal plane as that living-dying hydrozoan hoard.

It brings to mind our nation's de facto motto... E pluribus unum... out of many, one... the ones who survive... the ones who remain... all of those left behind... haunted by some Malthusian spectre... singing the Velella velella blues.

(Written 2015)
   

Shelley C. Clarke & The Charismatic Shark

The fish-friendly movie Finding Nemo came out in 2003. For almost a decade now aquariums everywhere have employed the film's charismatic cartoon stars in efforts to woo new converts to the doctrines of marine conservation. It should not come as a surprise, therefore, that scientists-like Dr. Nicholas Dulvy of Simon Fraser University-are now using the film's cast to identify a sample of marine species mankind might actually be willing to save.

That's logical right? Shouldn't the charismatic fauna that capture our hearts and imaginations inspire us to selfless acts of conservation? For example, shouldn't our affection for all things polar bear inspire not only post-Superbowl Coke sales but also catalyze meaningful and substantive responses to global warming?

Yes. Of course it should.

And, luckily, from time to time... it does.

Inspired and heroic efforts are undertaken. Every once in a while someone like Dr. Shelley C. Clarke manages to escape the lull of complacency that intoxicates 1st world privilege and crack open the global doors of perception. How many members of fishery commissions worldwide have ever taken the time or had the tenacity to brave the cultural electrocution of Asian fish markets? Clarke's work to quantify the shark fin markets of Hong Kong is remarkable. Her efforts are not merely the means to good science, they are indeed death-threat-defying valiant and selfless acts.

Clarke's work has risked everything at a personal level to reveal a uniquely terrible truth to the world: sharks - one of the most charismatic creatures of the sea - are traded on an almost completely unregulated market.

How can that be? How can the FAO estimates for shark fin harvests be so poor-4x less than Clarke's conservative estimate of 38 million sharks a year? How can we know so little... and be doing so much less to change things? For-as the trio of sharks from Finding Nemo must all be wondering-if this is superstar treatment, how will anything at all survive?

Seven Tenths

I adore books. However, few of them are invited to take up permanent residence on my shelves. So... it is saying something that James' work has been invited to stay for a while.

Seven Tenths submerges you in the rich blues and beauty of a vast literary seasong. This book is full of magical facts, lyrical imaginative depth and a life experience and worldview that bewilders one with envy at times. Like a Deep Scattering Layer denizen, rich mysteries rise up out of the inky shadows of its pages to revel by archepelagic starlight.

Structures of Serenity

Once again. Purple twilight. Edge of a lake. Wind lapping an oscillation of surge. Shadows dancing. Ripples like static. An optical illusion or an ecstasy of overstimulation. If only I could truly comprehend the complex stuctures of such peaceful serenity. Coolness. Rustling of leaves. Rustling of branches. Rustling of the liquid wet pressing itself into the earth. Dimness of mind. Dimness of heart. Dimness of humanity and self. The sound of breath mingling with the natural worldly sigh and murmur. Beautiful sad self-containment etched deeply into the subatomic riddle: Where do I begin and where do I end?

1. 2 Hydrogen atoms and 1 Oxygen atom joined by covalent bonds. 2nd oribital electrons seeking a partner and escape from the negative charge of particulate loneliness (aka electronegativity).

2. The churn of chemical equilibrium. The balance of holding on & letting go.

2. The hydrogen bonding of polar water molecules creating suface tension & hydration shells. Invisible barrier between one world and the next. Great divider severing ties.

3. Kinetic energy. The inevitability of change.

4. Vaporization & the airy unbiased spread of heat/passion/love washing in waves from one state of being to the next, leaving coolness behind.

Old New Points of View

Walked a new path through the setting sun & twilight down by the Montlake cut tonight. Can not believe how much wildlife this city holds. There were Blue Herons abounding, fingerling fish leaping like mad, bats, and that silky beaver suddenly swimming straight toward me the moment I stopped fanning the internal whirlwind of mindchatter and just stood still.

There is also an avenue of institutional boats on a lonely wooden dock that no one loves as their own at night. You can clambor on board and practice your knots and rigging and all your points of sail. You can clambor on board and just rock with the water and watch the stream of lights cascading over the bridge. You can clambor on board and let the nearby shadows and silohuettes wash over you darkly like memory. Nobody is there. Nobody will stop you. As the world dissolves into twilight, you can shelter there, under the perfect tents of the sail covers, You can rock to sleep on those lonely boats... dreaming you are exactly where you want to be.

Bubble Snail Beach

I have never seen a bubble snail (Aglaja ocelligera to be specific) before today. But I think I might have made up for a lifetime of living without while out at the -2.4 tide this afternoon at Golden Gardens. There were literally hundreds of them out there and globular white egg sacks all over the place.

And... as if that wasn't enough... I also had 3 greedy bickering seagulls drop one of the biggest gunnels I have ever seen in my life at my feet. A beach naturalist gift from the heavens if there ever was one!

What a fabulous sunny day full of tidepools, eelgrass and mud.