I never thought I could live anywhere but the south, because I thought I had to have hot summers and mild winters. But being in Seattle for the past week has made me shift my perspective a little and wonder why I rule out so many possibilities. I feel so much more awake here, maybe because it’s utterly different from the flat, open-to-the-sun coastal Carolina landscape. The giant ferns and towering trees here conceal pockets of cool shady mystery. And every day I wake up to see the Olympic mountain range catching the passing weather on its peaks–it’s as good as a movie, because the sky is as changeable as the ocean. Moody and sullen with gray purple clouds or wild blue with meringue clouds peaking up as they glide by…and all of this can happen in the space of one day. Beyond that picket fence are deer and coyote hiding in the brush and a border collie chasing a red ball over and over. And beyond that is the forest and then the wide water and then the unfathomable mountains. The wind blows the sun around, shakes the windchimes, ruffles the dog’s glossy black coat, sweeps the grass back and forth.  Everything in motion, everything in place.

I was listening to NPR a few days ago, and someone was interviewing a guy who had invented an app that lets you avoid red lights by rerouting you to your destination through green lights only. He didn’t know if it saved much fuel, and emergency vehicles don’t need this app because they use a different system, so I think it’s mainly for the sake of not being slowed down on the way to our oh-so-important jobs, lunch dates, business meetings, grocery trips, soccer games, hair salon visits. To shave off 11 minutes from our commutes. And ,of course, to let cab drivers drive more maniacally than ever with no stinking red lights to impede them. I could hear the ghost of my irascible grandfather in the back of my mind yelling, “That’s what’s wrong with America today!” I love technology (too much) and I don’t want to be a cranky naysayer, but something about this app makes me uncomfortable. Because sometimes we need to be stopped in our tracks, to take turns, to give way, to be inconvenienced, to learn patience, to pause and breathe, to yield, to have a chat with our passengers (especially small ones), to reflect on where we’re headed in the morning, to slow down at the end of a day, to read the bumper stickers on the cars in front of us, to expect to encounter obstacles and roadblocks in our lives. There’s no app for that — it’s called real life.

So much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.

I saw this cryptic message painted on the back of a road sign today when I was coming back from a walk to the island near my house. I guess it’s an official warning because of the phone number, and it’s near the same spot that the Tsunami Evacuation Route sign used to be, except that one was facing the direction from which a tsunami would presumably appear so it was hard to take it seriously. I felt there was something I should be watching for that I didn’t know about. The end of the world (always in the back of my mind)? Earthquakes? We’re on a fault, but how can you prepare?  Or was it a more general existential message about the nature of being alive and the risk of letting life pass us by? That life is both fatal and beautiful and we have to move toward the darkness that we know waits at the end of our journey and yet we pretend we have all the time in the world?  That we need to wake up and be alert to routine things in a new way? The dun-colored marsh grass, the ugly condos on the waterway, the flock of white birds taking flight in the distance in a kind of spiral formation–all of which I take for granted and none of which will be exactly the same tomorrow. Stay alert.

I took this Polaroid one spring or fall–I can’t even remember now. What I do remember: that there was a bird singing in the branches right before I took the photo; that I was drinking a Bloody Mary with friends at a restaurant that serves the best French fries in town; that I didn’t know then that my friend would marry a wonderful someone sitting at that table with us and move to England; that life would fling us out in so many different directions; that we would grow older; that we would never be together again in quite that way. When I look at this photo on my mood board, I can feel the crunch of celery,  taste the horseradish, the late afternoon sunlight, the love. Snap, snap, snap…put it in the album of ordinary moments that make up a life.