Seattle On

On region:

To live in Seattle requires imagination. We cloister below a cloak of grey for much of the year. Sunbreaks arrive as in- terruptions but rarely stay long enough to converse. Even our token, Tahoma, resides mostly behind a veil—no small feat for a 4,392-meter tall volcano. To survive, we steal fire from the absent sun to shape glass, craft melody to elevate spirits above the cloud ceiling or, in my case, hammer words together to convey a kayak paddle’s arc in Puget Sound; a fat tire pedaled against an igneous trail above the Columbia River Gorge; a ski carved within a copse of Douglas firs and western red cedars in the North Cascades.

Because sky lowers upon us, mountain occludes vistas, and water prohibits passage, we construct our own heav- ens, redraw our horizons, and define each path that leads us out from beneath the familiar.

Crai S Bower

to live in Seattle requires imagination