Usually by the time June rolls around, Spring is clearly on its way out; the layer of clouds that creeps into Seattle and covers it until early July is seen as a lapse back into Winter's domain, and we give it epithets like "the June gloom" or "Juneuary." But this year what is more clouds other than more of the same? Winter is gone but Summer has been slow to stir.
Personally, I love these days: the clouds are not so featureless and dull as winter's clouds, but paint the sky in chaotic patterns of greys; the cool air in the morning is bracing and even the warmth of the day isn't oppressive; and the sun, though still present, is not blinding or oppressive as it so often can be. But while it's hard to deny that Spring is here, it doesn't feel like spring usually does. An odd time.
When last I wrote something here, I was still in the old apartment, dealing with the violent, abusive roommate who slashed our tires on our way out. I felt diminished in that place, not just because of the old roommate, but . . . it's hard to describe exactly what the fringes of the city feel like. Nobody is there because they want to be there. It's built into the infrastructure: the streets are too wide, designed to funnel cars . . . elsewhere. And while the posted speed limits, like most places in the city, are something like 25mph, no one drives slower than 40. There's no heart to it. Even the nice places, the little hole-in-the wall teriyaki joints and the neighborhood dives, are havens against a hostile neighborhood, oases that make this vast desert of unlivability feel tolerable. Infrastructure wonks will holler at you about how walkability and bikeability and good transit are vital to a city, and they aren't just saying that because they want to be able to walk and bike and bus everywhere. They make the neighborhoods feel alive, like neighborhoods. I feel revitalized in a way I didn't think was possible.
So, despite everything, I'm hopeful. Hope, I was reminded recently, is not simply the belief that things will work out for the best, but the belief that it's possible, if we work towards it.
