White Stucco Building – Elliot Avenue & Wall Street – Seattle WA
rec·la·ma·tion
1. The act or process of reclaiming.
2. A restoration, as to productivity, usefulness, or morality.
I am so accustomed to Seattle being in a constant state of flux that I barely notice it for the most part except when the changes impact me directly such as when a street I use is closed down for weeks on end.
Even then I still do not really look at what is being lost with what is being created. Instead my thoughts and mutterings are full of blue frustrations about being inconvenienced and late to where I want or where I need to go.
I do recognize that I have a blindness in this way and to help combat it I often take time to move through the city at a pace so these inconveniences become opportunities to observe the potential of what is coming and to reflect on those aspects of the city that are still here and I value greatly.
On rare occasions my pace and the light are such that I see something with fresh eyes that I have passed by many times; even hundreds of times I am embarrassed to admit.
Recently I had one of those moments on a soft gray Sunday morning when the city was still quiet. On that morning I realized and resolved the time had come to reclaim the wasteland my stagnant and nearly abandoned creative life had become over the last months.
Cities thrive on activity and are in a constant state of tension with Nature. In the quiet places that we ignore this battle between the nature of man with nature can be seen on occasion. If one looks deep enough inside themself the same state of tension between idleness and energy can be discovered.
Reclamation abounds around us and is inevitable. How we choose to respond to it is not.
Copyright 2013 By Katherine Johnson – All Rights Reserved
