Volunteer Park

Seattle is a miserable place to live in the winter. You go weeks without seeing the sun and months without seeing stars. Everything dies. Everything is wet. The clouds are constantly overcast; a heavy slate-gray blanket compresses the city and chases people into warm bars, bright cafes, sweaty shows, friendly kitchens. This city in January is wet gloom punctuated by miracles of color and warmth--hard to find, tucked away, but there for those who seek it.





Today is January 12. It is about 2 o'clock in the afternoon.

I am taking a bus to Capitol Hill. I have my bike. I am vaguely headed to Volunteer Park. I might get lost or sidetracked, but that's usually when the interesting stuff happens anyway. I travel to lose myself and find something I never expected.

I am standing at a bus stop on the corner of 15th and 43rd, across the street from the University of Washington Law School. The 49 arrives, finally. My first obstacle of this journey is getting my beloved bike (red/silver Specialized Hard Rock) on the front of a Metro Bus. The bike rack is alarmingly rickety and I spend most of the ride up to Capitol Hill on the edge of my seat, waiting to see it bounce off and crushed under the tires of the bus. I relax only long enough to observe the unemployed midday crowd: a scruffy college guy with blond hair halfway down his back, an elderly Asian woman and her friend, a man with tribal tattoos on his chin and the sides of his face.

I ask the college guy if he knows where Volunteer Park is. He tells me to get off at the next stop and go up the hill.

I get off and release my bike from the jaws of death. As I stand on 10th waiting for traffic so I can cross the street, the sun breaks through the clouds and I shift so it's directly on my face and I close my eyes and I feel my cheeks slowly get warmer and I smile. Finally. It's been days since I have seen the sun. The people on the sidewalk, hunched in their dark coats, are suddenly out of place. The gritty streets and grimy storefronts selling cheap food are suddenly disgusting, illuminated in the sun. But it lasts only minutes. The clouds return and envelop the world and the palette fades to gray. Grit and grime are natural in this state.

I ride up the hill to the park.
I ride past brick mansions big enough to be hotels, but there are no signs in front.
I ride until I find the reservoir.

I find some kind of large, moss-covered monument in a stand of trees, comprised of a broad cobbled platform to approach a 10-foot block of granite with statues of a man and woman either side. The inscription reads, Thomas Burke. The same Burke of the Burke-Gillman Trail? The same Burke of the Burke Museum? Probably. One of Seattle's greatest heroes, apparently. The faces are dusted with moss, but still striking with the powerful stare and posture of a god and goddess. The inscription around the monument reads "Faithful unto death in the promotion of understanding and amity among nations." Embedded in the platform are two stone mosaic maps: one of East Asia, and one of the Pacific Northwest. I am now curious why this man is so revered, and reminded once again how little I know about this city after three and a half years of living here. I am frequently surprised.


I push onward. I find a koi pond, and toss bits of food to a fish with vibrant orange and black scales. It reminds me of a tiger. A man pushing a stroller walks up next to me and we say hello. One of his three kids asks me what I am doing, and I show him the bread. I ask the man if this is Volunteer Park. He says yes. He points in the direction I should go to see the rest of it. He says there is a Conservatory that is free to the public.

So I go in that direction. I go past the Tractor Tire, where four high school kids are sitting and smoking cigarettes, out of class for the day. I go past a large grassy lawn that slopes down to an amphitheater. The expansive slope is deserted, except for a woman walking her large, fluffy black dog nearby. I continue until I see what must be the Conservatory. It looks a lot like the Conservatory in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, but smaller, and free. A white building with glass walls and ceiling, with a large dome in the center and two wings.



Inside, I am greeted with hot, humid air and the smell of flowers. A rainbow of orchids burst from either side, their spindly petals unearthly yet alluring. Tall palms with leaves the size of umbrellas loom over my head. I can smell moist, fertile earth. Like the rest of the park, the Conservatory is nearly deserted. I take my time wandering among the plants. I move through a door to the wing on the right. Instantly I smell gardenias. The sun comes out again, and through the tinted glass ceiling I again feel my spirits lift. There are flowers all around me--I haven't seen this many flowers since the summer. There are neon pink ones with large upright petals, white ones in bunches, tiny yellow ones with round petals, flowers glistening with the soft, crisp freshness of new life. I find the gardenias, and spend minutes with my head bent, smelling them, remembering spring. Eventually I move on. I smell something new. It reminds me of home. It smells like dry air, dry earth. The cactus room is the most amazing. Cacti tower above my head. Some are tiny round things, others pointy, others look more like bulbous, fuzzy white mold. Some seem furry, others have sinister curved black spines. A towering thin cactus, resting on an upright stone, shocks me with its blueness. A blue plant? They are utterly alien and exotic; from Swaziland, Mozambique, Kenya, Bolivia, Mexico. Utterly foreign in Seattle. They are glimpses into a world so much different from my own.









When I leave the Conservatory, I notice a cemetery on the other side of a fence. I ride my bike around and find myself alone. It's odd to visit a cemetery alone when you don't know anyone inside. Maybe I was not so alone. It's hard to feel truly alone in a cemetery. Walking among the tombstones, I feel like the people under these stones are competing for my attention. The spirits of the dead beg me to visit the tallest tombstone, the shiniest, the one with angels all over it. I get lost and find some old stones, flat white ones so worn they are barely readable; two people who died in 1879. 130 years ago. I wonder when I will be in a place like this, I wonder who I will be next to, I wonder if someday I will bury the people I love.






The cemetery is filled with hundreds of crows. They attempt to caw in unison, fighting for control of the beat. caww-ah-ahh-cawww...

I remember that I have a granola bar in my backpack. I am curious to find out what will happen if I feed an enormous flock of crows one granola bar. As I take the food out of my backpack, the crows basically ignore me. When I open it, they stare at me. When I break off a small piece and throw it on the ground ten feet away, the entire flock suddenly takes notice and many swoop down shrieking to nab the food. They surround me and start posturing and cawing at each other, figuring out their place in the pecking order. I break off more chunks and quickly run out of food. The crows perch around me on all sides and I can see more flying around above me. I decide that it is time to go. I pour out the crumbs in the bottom of the package and leave. As soon as I am a safe distance away, dozens of crows fall upon the crumb pile and in seconds the ground is bare. Crows are scary.



My camera runs out of battery and I decided that instead of riding the bus, I will bike down Capitol Hill and home. The hill is steep and long and I go so fast my face goes numb and my eyes tear up and the entire world blurs around me except the road in front of my tire. It is terrifying and exhilarating at the same time, which is why I love riding. I have never gone so fast on my bike before.

God it's good to be alive.