Welmer

The pleasures of spring in Seattle are short, but they make up for brevity with intensity. After many long months of cold, wet darkness with only the somber shades of the evergreens and the sodden, but green grass to remind us of life, a few intervals of sunshine and clear evenings appear between the misty gray days and damp, starless nights.

Last night I took a walk through the neighborhood, and although it was a bit chilly I could still make out the scents of the blooming flowers and fresh grass. It reminded me of the days of my adolescence, when I moved through this environment like a fish through water, taking for granted the beauty of nature, of which I was a part. In those days it was as though I lived in a state of symbiosis with the ebb and flow of life that washed over the silent rocks and still streets like a tide.

Each shift in the breeze brought a new scent — some were sweet, some full and others flat and sharp like the surface of the lake. The memories and emotions they brought back were tinged with regret, but also with elements of comfort. If, even now, in the sorrow of these middle years of life, I find myself at times swimming through the elements that sustain us all, then maybe when I am old I can continue to enjoy a conscious appreciation of their existence. Perhaps by then I will be little more than one of those silent rocks on the shore, washed by the waves and dried by the wind, but still all will be moving and growing around me, and that will be enough.