Goodbye Alleyside

My room at the Alleyside

The reverse culture shock from Haiti has been rough.  I made myself get up the first week every morning, drink my tea on the front porch, and think about how beautiful Seattle is, the greatest city in the world.  I want to go back, but I don't want to miss the moments now by obsessing, so I'm forcing myself to focus on the present instead.  There's been a move to Queen Anne with some new, exciting naturalizing to come.  In the meantime, the last of the sit spots from the Alleyside:

April 30, 2012

Windy.  Overcast.  High 50s.

"Look how lucky I am!" Chris said this morning.  "My car is covered with pink petals!"  I needed this, a reason why the wind and cold was so good and beautiful.

The wind picked up those petals and made them dance on the street, the way sand dances on a drum being played.

Each tree has a patch of color under it today.  Pink petals, green pollen.

The robin woke up even earlier than I did.  It looked well fed.  Plump, perched on the tree outside my window, which has bloomed substantially in the past week.  Chris saw it fly to our neighbor's roof, where its partner joined it.

A common Alleyside visitor! photo by Kate Maher

Weeks later Kate and I were sitting on the back porch at the Alleyside and saw a hummingbird perched on a telephone wire.  We commented on how exotic hummingbirds seem, but then there they are in the city in Seattle, sitting on the telephone wire like any crow, pigeon, or gull would do.