Homicidal Nature

[akirlu]

Although traffic often bogs there, I love my commute across Lake Washington. The lake itself has infinitely many moods, an amazing range of textures and colors. The surface is elemental, ranging from quicksilver to hematite to slate, the dull sheen of graphite to the glare of burning magnesium. Sometimes Tahoma presides over the southeastern horizon, cloaked in snow and cloud. Just now we're coming into rowing season, and still mornings bring out braces of six- or eight-man crews, the sculls looking like giant insects on the glassy surface.

Birds populate the water. Loons and grebes bob in little rafts. Canada geese fly in low over the highway. At sunset, over the arboretum, the crows congregate and darken the skies and wheel out over the water.

Today, I saw an eagle. He was maybe all of thirty yards away, low over the water at the center of the lake. His head and tail were full white, a mature adult. A pair of crows were harassing him, just exactly the way jays harass crows, and so on down the food chain.

I slowed down almost enough to slow traffic, and nearly wandered into the next lane, all without even being conscious of it. Those who know me will have a sense of the magnitude of my distraction...