The Casual Omnipresence of Natural Beauty
Jan. 24th, 2013 09:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
akirluTraffic was unexpectedly light this morning, leaving me enough time to stop by U Village to pick up a bagel and pause briefly to admire the sunrise over Lake Washington, as viewed from the Padelford parking lot:
This is the thing that keeps striking me, and others I suspect, about the Puget Sound region: this casual omnipresence of natural beauty. Just turn a corner and look up and the sight of Mt. Rainier will unexpectedly knock you on your ass. (I say "unexpectedly" because the cloud deck doesn't always permit Mountain spotting. We can go weeks with lowering clouds and intermittent rain. Then we'll get a clear day like today, and it's enough to drop you to your knees in amazement and wonder.) This is why I carry a camera in my pocket. You just never know when nature will pounce.
Though carrying a camera can have its dangers. Lately I have been driving to work one day a week (Thursdays, I'm finally taking a Mainstream square dance class with the Puddletown Squares -- yay!), and a little too often am finding photo ops while operating a moving vehicle. Kids, do NOT try this at home. These are the times when I just point the camera and pray. But even so, not actually a good idea. Still, when faced with a view of Rainier from the freeway, or sunset behind the Space Needle, what's a person to do?
And of course, all this ebullient excess of natural beauty allows institutions like UW to get away with lowballing academic salaries. We may not pay much, but I challenge any university in the country to offer better views from its parking lots.
This is the thing that keeps striking me, and others I suspect, about the Puget Sound region: this casual omnipresence of natural beauty. Just turn a corner and look up and the sight of Mt. Rainier will unexpectedly knock you on your ass. (I say "unexpectedly" because the cloud deck doesn't always permit Mountain spotting. We can go weeks with lowering clouds and intermittent rain. Then we'll get a clear day like today, and it's enough to drop you to your knees in amazement and wonder.) This is why I carry a camera in my pocket. You just never know when nature will pounce.
Though carrying a camera can have its dangers. Lately I have been driving to work one day a week (Thursdays, I'm finally taking a Mainstream square dance class with the Puddletown Squares -- yay!), and a little too often am finding photo ops while operating a moving vehicle. Kids, do NOT try this at home. These are the times when I just point the camera and pray. But even so, not actually a good idea. Still, when faced with a view of Rainier from the freeway, or sunset behind the Space Needle, what's a person to do?
And of course, all this ebullient excess of natural beauty allows institutions like UW to get away with lowballing academic salaries. We may not pay much, but I challenge any university in the country to offer better views from its parking lots.
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