Finding the Right Word

It seems like there's a word for everything if you just keep searching for it. Recently I wrote about the low cement embankment at the Viewpoint. Well, I stopped by the Viewpoint this morning and got to wondering whether I'd used the right word for what I called the "embankment." At first there was nobody else there. But then two women came walking along. I asked them, "What would you call this cement strip here?" "Footings," one offered, without hesitation. I'm not sure that word is appropriate, regardless of whether it's in the singular or plural. But I think embankment may be way off, too. If you go to the Viewpoint and you can come up with a better word, please let me know.

As I was leaving, I noticed that a few leaves on the Sentinel--the Bigleaf Maple that grows up from just underneath the edge--have already turned yellow. And the samaras (the "maple keys" containing the seeds) have now more or less turned brown. Time marches on.

Dragonflies

This evening, while sitting at the Viewpoint, I noticed dragonflies in the air, flying not only above, but also below, the level of the edge.

9, 15, 38 and 8; Sandstone, Not Concrete

I just went to the Viewpoint again. If I remember correctly, I counted nine hawthorns, fifteen steps leading up to the sculpture, thirty-eight steps around it, and eight benches. Two of the eight benches are side by side, but they're essentially separate. Some of the benches have backs; some don't. I'll have to make a note of how many there are of each kind the next time I go to the Viewpoint.

It now seems to me that the stones I wrote about earlier today, which I said were made of concrete, or cement, are actually pieces of sandstone. I asked a woman passing by, and she concurred.

It began to drizzle as I was leaving.

Paul D. Natkin, Painter of Memory

I'm always looking for the shape and color of what's been forgotten. I'm drawn to hidden corners and dust swept under the rug.

Twenty-three Stones

There are twenty-three stones at the Viewpoint. I counted them this morning. This includes the big rock at the head of the trail going down to the ravine. It also includes a mostly submerged rock nearby and a large, almost completely submerged stone near the south entrance and another stone close to the latter which lies flat on the ground and is partially submerged. This doesn't include the three concrete bollards that stand at the entrances: one at the north entrance and two at the south entrance. (There are two possibilities for entry at the south end, so two bollards were required to keep anyone from entering the park in a car, I suppose.) Another kind of stone I'm not including in this tally of twenty-three is type of stone used to support the lamp fixtures. There are three of these stones, if I remember correctly. They're basically blocks of concrete. Their size differs from lamp to lamp. As I counted, I found myself wondering what the difference really is between a rock and a stone. There are many things I might call either "rock" or "stone," but it seems to me that if something is actually made of cement, or concrete, it shouldn't be called a rock. I think of a "rock" as something formed by the forces of nature. We often speak of "headstones" in reference to the markers in cemeteries. Many of these are made of marble, granite or other kinds of rock, but if I'm not mistaken, some are made of cement, or concrete, and still we call them "stones." Many of the "stones" at the Viewpoint are, in fact, pieces of cement or concrete. Maybe later I'll give more details about their composition. I could check my photos, so that I don't have to go to the Viewpoint a second time today, but it's hard to tell much about a stone's composition from a photo, unless the photographer has made a point of focusing on the stone. I do have lots of close-up photographs of plants and animals that live in the park, but none of rocks, as I recall.

Next time I go to the Viewpoint I'll count the hawthorns that line the side of the park adjacent to the arterial. These are some of the last hawthorns on the hill. One was recently lost.

The Three Sections of Lawn

The lawn in the park can be divided into three sections: the part on the side of the path closer to the street; the part that's on the same level as the path, on the side of the path closer to the edge (and the view); and the part that's below the level of the path, on the side of the path closer to the edge (and view). The two levels of lawn on the side of the path closer to the edge are made distinct by a low embankment that runs more or less the distance of the park. This embankment takes several turns. It has a total of seven corners. Six of these corners are concave; one is convex.

Today I noticed that there's something else of which there are seven in the park: the concrete steps leading from the cement path to the laurel tree, in its enclosure. (It seems to me I had a better word for the wooden structure surrounding the laurel. What was it?) The seven steps are all rectangular and all the same size.

Today I saw a woman taking a photo of a couple standing under the laurel tree. The three people were speaking an Asian language that I didn't recognize. I stood still for a moment as the woman took the photo. Reserve, or maybe a certain shyness, prevented me from asking what language these people were speaking, although I was curious to know. As I've mentioned, there's an endless stream of photographers at the Viewpoint, especially on sunny days. Many of them do come from foreign countries: Japan, Russia, China, India, Korea, Germany and any number of other places.

The Shortcut

Last night I looked at the edge in the dark; today I looked at it in the day. The question is which way I can remember it best. When it's dark, the edge is clearly delineated from the space beyond it. The edge is illuminated; the space is not. But in the daytime, I can see more about what's going on with the edge as it curves around the hillside than I can at night. For instance, roughly six feet to the southwest of the Sentinel, there's a stretch of bare earth going down from the edge to the trail below. This stretch of bare earth is an unofficial trail, formed by the clambering feet of all the people who have chosen to take a shortcut from the park to the official trail, instead of walking to the end of the park, where the rock marks the official beginning of the trail. I remember at least once or twice taking photos of someone scrambling up this unofficial trail--or tearing down it. There are two large exposed tree roots that form "stairs" on this shortcut, as well as a third that sticks out at a funny angle at the bottom. At night you don't see the shortcut at all, but it's an important marker of distance in the curve as it wraps around the hill. One more thing I should mention: the greatest degree of curvature occurs on the other side of the Sentinel, in the direction of the adjacent street. I've taken a lot of photos to document this. It's a simple, humble curve--like a simple, humble song.

Memory Trace

On the way back from Klatch I stopped by the Viewpoint. I pondered the contour of the edge, tracing along it with my eyes, trying to commit it to memory. Of course, I remember the general form. But forms are deceiving. We tend to simplify, or stereotype them, just as we stereotype so many aspects of reality. That makes it easier for us to remember. I'd like to be able to remember the edge accurately enough, though, that I could draw pictures of it without looking at it, or even a photo of it--just seeing it in my mind's eye. I'm going to work on this.

Looking Towards the Mountains

As I look across the lake to the Cascades I always think about the other side--the "dry side." I remember one time as I was approaching the pass how completely enveloped in mist everything was. And then almost the moment I made it across the pass, the sun was shining, and it was as if I'd entered a completely different world. And then came all that high desert area, and then fruit-growing country and more desert--of a different kind--and then, much further, the rolling hills covered with golden wheat. I think of all of that whenever I look at the mountains.

Three Trees and the Effects of Perspective

There are essentially three trees defining the edge. One of these, as I've mentioned, has two trunks. Then there's a fourth tree just a little further to the east, actually on the property of the adjacent home. In addition, there are trees within the park, further in from the edge. And, of course, there are the trees that grow up from below the edge. But it's the three trees at the edge that fascinate me the most. To some people it might seem sort of out old hat, but I love the effects of perspective as I approach the Viewpoint from the north and then, entering the park, walk along the path to it's end on the southeast side. I'm intrigued by how, as I walk, the spaces between the three trees get smaller and smaller, to the point where these spaces disappear, and then reappear, in reverse, as I walk further.

Overcast Day

It's basically an overcast day. At the Viewpoint earlier this afternoon, looking into the distance, I had a greater-than-usual sense of depth. This always happens when there are lots of clouds in the sky. They help mark points in space. Laurelhurst and the area to the left of it--whatever that would be--were a dark blue in color. In the foreground, there was a hint of sunlight on the verdant foliage. And in the middle, around Union Bay, there was a lot of light bluish gray. The water looked a little choppy. There was a certain reserve to the entire scene--an atmospheric quality that I love.

There were two groups of picknickers at the Viewpoint. There were three women sitting on a blanket spread out on the west side of the path that runs through the park. And a man and woman were sitting on a blanket on the east side, near the edge. They had a red and white cooler--just a small one--and they were eating. As I left, I noticed a tiny flower growing somewhere along the adjacent street. It was white and was the kind of flower that will dry out and not fade if you pick it and don't put it in water. I've heard them called strawflowers, but I'm not sure this is correct.

There were no photographers today, but if I'd had my camera with me, I would have taken quite a number of photos for my archive. And if I'd had my paints and paper, I would have sat for a few hours and painted. Instead, I did my best to commit the scene to memory.

Unusual States of Mind

This evening I noticed a number of people at the Viewpoint, as I passed by. There was a lively group of teenagers on one of the benches, and under the laurel tree, someone was staring out into the distance. At the Viewpoint, people's emotional state is often different from what it would normally be. I'm not clear on why this is. Maybe it's because they're already in an unusual space before they go to the Viewpoint. But I think once they get there, it has some strange effect on their minds, in any case.

I've noticed so many people crying there, usually alone, that I can't count them all. And I've seen tightrope walkers, nude bicyclists, a church choir, and many, many lovers. People can become rather unpredictable at the Viewpoint. I've experienced this myself.

The Sentinel in Shadow

Very often, when the rest of the park is in bright sunlight, the Sentinel is in shadow.

100 Paintings

My grandfather was a Sunday painter--a very passionate one. He once told me, "To call oneself an artist, one must paint a hundred paintings." I took it to heart. I can never paint enough paintings of the Viewpoint.

The Rock

There's a large rock at the entrance of the trail going down from the Viewpoint. Today I saw a photographer--a guy in a black shirt--set up his tripod beside it. Eagles--or maybe hawks--were circling in the distance, and he was working on getting shots of them. I've tried it myself, in the past, and can tell you that it's not easy to get a good photo of a bird in motion.

I often watch photographers at work at the Viewpoint, and when I feel like it won't be too distracting, I ask them questions about how they do their work. And I like to ask them why they come to the Viewpoint to take photos. I'm as drawn to a view as anyone, but I often wonder what makes us so impressed by distant space seen from a high vantage point. Why is that any more interesting than the side of a wall, three feet away? And why is a raptor with its wings spread wide any more impressive than a sparrow or chickadee perched on the branch of a shrub? Oh, and why do people stand by that big rock so much?

A Beautiful Day

It was a beautiful day. When I got to the Viewpoint, there was a family there, under the laurel tree. They were speaking a foreign language--Arabic, I think. One of them, a man, was taking photos. Photographers, professional and amateur, come to the Viewpoint all day long. I've taken hundreds of photos there, myself, so I can tell you that it's not easy to take a good photo of either the view or the park itself. There's something about the way the space is arranged that makes it hard to find the ideal shot.

After a couple minutes, the family left. There were three other people in the park:

1. A man reading a magazine, who was wearing a white izod shirt, khaki shorts, thong sandals, glasses and an earpiece

2. A woman lying on her stomach on a white blanket, hugging a light blue pillow and reading a book. She was wearing dark blue glasses and a short, form-hugging dark blue dress. Her dark hair was pulled into a bun. She was near the tree I call the "Lovers" because of its two trunks. I've read that it was brought from Denny Park.

3. A guy who was sitting near the stone at the entrance to the trail, smoking a cigarette, wearing a gray T-shirt, navy blue Adidas shorts with white piping and athletic shoes with no socks (or short, invisible ones). He had a rucksack, removed from his back, and a mountain bike. He finished his cigarette and then lay down on a bench and began reading a book: Euclid's Mind.

As I was leaving, a couple came walking by. They were speaking Mandarin. The woman had on cut-offs, dark glasses, orange shoes with yellow laces and gray-black soles. The man was wearing a black T-shirt, blue jeans, a brown belt and multicolored shoes with brown, tan and black sections on them.

There were white sailboats on the blue, blue bay, and above, just under the edge, blackberry fronds weeping down, illuminated bright light green against a rich, shadowed green background.

The Sentinel

Years ago--I don't remember exactly when--I wrote some notes while at the Viewpoint. The page, which I later tore from my notebook, is dated "May 22nd," with no indication of the year. This is what I wrote:

Perhaps you know the scene I paint, the place I visit again and again. It's a favorite place--the most beautiful in our beautiful city. Here, at the Viewpoint, one one [sic] can stand on an icy January morning to watch the sun burst up, huge and orange, from behind the snowcapped Cascade Mountains; and here, on a balmy summer evening, one can sit on a blanket or lawn chair to celebrate the appearance of the large and glowing full moon.
While visitors to the Viewpoint never tire of watching this theater of celestial events, there's something less showy that brings people here as well. Its a curve--yes, a simple, humble curve. If you walk from one end of the Viewpoint to the other, you round a gentle bend. From the place where you end up, you can look back on the place where you started out; and chances are, you'll get to see another person come along the same course. Below is a tangle of trees and vines, and in the distance, Lake Washington and the mountains; but up on top, it's the curved edge of the lawn that makes the place what it is.
A few trees standing along the perimeter serve to accentuate the curve. Of these, one is larger than the others, and somehow the most impressive. I call it "the Sentinel," because it seems to guard--so silently, so

At the top of the page, there's a drawing of the curve, with the trunk of the "Sentinel" and the houses along the adjoining street. Somewhere I have more notes like this--a lot more--but I've misplaced them. I'll have to locate my Viewpoint archive, but I'm not sure that's where they ended up.

Barn Swallows at the Viewpoint

Today I noticed barn swallows at the Viewpoint. Barn swallows are known for flying low, but at the Viewpoint, you see them flying below the level of your own feet, swooping down into the green recesses of the ravine. There are so many different birds that live in the park, or that pass through, it would take a long time to put together a complete list. One of the most memorable is the pileated woodpecker.

Shishimai (Lion Dance)

Shishimai (Lion Dance)

Copyright © 2009 Paul D. Natkin, All Rights Reserved

I'm always thinking of the lion dancers I saw in Gobō (Gobō City, Wakayama Prefecture/和歌山県御坊市) and so many other places in Japan. I can still hear the plaintive sound of the shakuhachi flutes that accompanied the dancing, which in Japanese is referred to as Shishimai (獅子舞). Shishi (or Jishi) is translated as "lion," but it can also refer to a deer or dog with magical properties and the power to repel evil spirits. The strangest Shishi I ever saw was at a festival in a rather isolated mountain village on a moonlit evening. The role of the Shishi was played by a small child, who wore a blue costume with white patterns. The oddest thing was that this Shishi's mop of brownish-red hair hung down in all directions; you couldn't see its face. It moved with a kind of shudder, rather like a mechanical toy. By comparison, the dancers in Gobō were supple and lithe. It was always so lifelike, it was hard to believe that underneath the Shishi's writhing body there were human beings making it move.

The Full Moon

Moon over Interlaken

Copyright © 1987 Paul D. Natkin, All Rights Reserved

No two full moons are alike. Each is different from the next. One can always expect something new from the moon. Tonight's was pale orangish yellow when it rose--a reminder that fall will come pretty soon. And it felt like fall this morning. It was cool, and the sky was overcast. Someone I know who comes from Poland told me he was thinking about going mushroom-hunting--in the mountains, I think he said.

It was hard to find a vantage point from which I could see the moon over the Viewpoint. From the street, the moon's position was over the dark ravine. If I wanted to view the moon framed by a tree overhead, I had to walk a few feet below the edge, at a point where the slope isn't too steep, and then I needed to stand at exactly one point--a slightly precarious one. If I moved even an inch or so to the right or left, the moon moved too far to be perfectly framed. I didn't take a photo; I didn't have my camera. I'll save it as a memory. It was the Sentinel that did the framing.

Later, once the moon had risen up above the two cemeteries, a trail of thin clouds wafted across its surface. When this happens, I sometimes watch for a very long time, observing the slow changes.

I've noticed that the park below has been closed for many weeks. I don't know why. It's been in the back of my head, but I guess I've been thinking about it a lot on some level.

I forgot to mention that I saw a bat flitting around on my way to the Viewpoint.

The Moon, Almost Full

In the daytime there was an interesting effect at the Viewpoint. The sun was shining, and it was very clear. But again there was a kind of reverberation in the middle distance, especially around the bay. I could see the effects of wind down there. There were speckles on the water. There was a very great difference in the quality of the colors down there and up above. I don't know how I could convey this in a painting--much less a photograph. The problem is that in order to appreciate the colors down below, around the bay, you have to see all the details--the different layers of blue, green and straw color and all the water, trees, bushes, houses and streets--but to appreciate the colors above, you need to look at a much broader area. Once you do that, you can't focus on the details below. From having taken thousands of photos at the Viewpoint, I can tell you that in a shot of the entire view, you won't get more than a ghost of the areas in the distance. If you enlarged that particular section of the photo you would, but otherwise the detail is so compacted that it becomes more or less invisible--or at least insignificant. We don't see the way the camera does. We look at one thing and then the next and make a kind of mental construct that's much more than a two-dimensional scene within a rectangle. I know I'm hardly the first human being to notice this, or to point it out, but I just have to express it for myself--to verbalize it to myself.

This evening the moon was almost full. Tomorrow it will be full. It used to be easier to see the moon rise above the park. The trees are older now, and a good deal taller.

My First Painting of the Viewpoint

I remember my first painting of the Viewpoint. At least I think it was the first. I painted it in 1985. I worked on it for about three weeks, according to some notes I took around that time. I painted it in the summer, as I recall, and worked on it mostly in the mid- to late afternoon, in order to have some bluish shadows, along with the bright areas. I was fascinated by the great number of details in the background, including everything in the areas across the bay, and even further, across the lake. The complexity of the scene in the distance contrasted with the relative simplicity of the green areas of the mid-ground and foreground. Towards the end of my work on the painting, Elizabeth posed in the foreground. She wore a pink top and sat on the edge, looking out into the distance. I remember finding it challenging to define the edge. It ended up looking more like a slope. How can this be? Maybe it was actually different back then. I do remember that there was a time when there was no clearly defined trail. There was a trace of a trail, if you walked upwards from the road underneath, but it only went so far. Then it sort of petered out, as you hiked uphill. I remember, as a teenager, struggling the rest of the way up, grabbing vines and dodging blackberry bushes as I pulled my way to the top and then feeling triumphant once, heart pounding, I was looking down at the ravine below.