Seattle Walls

Good fences make good neighbors
--Robert Frost, "The Mending Wall"

Oh, how we do so love a wall. Perhaps not consciously so, but certainly walls pervade our lives to a degree that would suggest near obsession. Walls to keep pests out of our gardens. Walls to keep people out of our homes. At what point does a fence transgress from ornate to symbolic? In considering this notion, I was reminded of a specific, albeit small, fence in Seattle. When getting onto the 520 bridge from the Montlake onramp, on may see the border of the arboretum rubbing against the road. The arboretum is by far one of my favorite areas of Seattle. There are few places, in my mind, that rival its intense beauty and tranquility. The arboretum is an open area to the public and requires nothing to enter. And yet, low and behold, a mere few yards worth of crabgrass from the onramp stood a foreboding fence.

Perhaps this length of fence, a mere 15 feet long at most, would seem innocent. To be sure, when I first saw it I thought nothing of the matter. But then, maybe my complacency simply speaks to the integrated nature of walls within our society. I once found myself at this wall for several hours. While entering the onramp, my cars radiator gave out and I was forced to pull to the side. It was rush hour and there had already been an accident on the bridge. Because of this, it took over four hours for a tow truck to find me. And so, I was left with ample time to brood about my location. I walked up to the fence, looked through it, and wondered: Wouldn’t it be lovely, if I could just wander over there? And really, why was that wall there? There is no gate at the entrance to the arboretum. Who are they trying to keep out?

What follows is probably an excessive extrapolation upon a fence, but let’s face it, I was there for four hours sucking down rush hour fumes. As a bit of a tree hugger, I was a bit confused as to the purpose of the fence. I pictured the trees trying to run away, and that the fence was trying to lock them in. Yes, that is exaggerated, but in all reality that’s what they were trying to do. I suddenly came to picture this fence as a metaphor representing the way in which we have encapsulated nature. It is as if we have made nature a mere pet of the industrial world. This fence was entirely unnecessary. We erected it perhaps for a reason unknown to me, perhaps for little reason at all. Yet, its existence speaks to a unique mentality. It creates a distinction between one side and the other. Between the natural and the industrial. The tranquil and the stressful. The beautiful and the practical. My final question: Which side is the one being walled out?

Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.

--Robert Frost, "The Mending Wall"

Ghosts of Berlin

I am a great fan of reading. To be a bit more precise, I am a great fan of learning. Hence, the specific ‘what’ that I am learning is often of less importance. In this way, while The Ghosts of Berlin was not the liveliest of works, I did read it in its entirety and did enjoy it. I liked Robert’s explanation: “it’s like when you’re really excited and interested in something, but then when you try to talk to people about it no one else really cares about the topic.” While the topic is, I’m sure, fascinating to the author and may be beautifully discussed—that didn’t entirely make the book a page turner. This being said, as I am usually the one who is met with blank stares when I rant about topics of personal interest, I perhaps felt a sort of empathy for the author in this regard. And in the end, the book was far from poor. It had wonderful concepts; just a bit too much elongation.

I am quite interested in the idea of buildings as being so powerful symbolically. I do feel, however, that this is the case with most things—not just buildings. Any object can have sentimental value to someone; perhaps it is simply that a building enters the lives of so many people that it is bound to have meaning eventually. I do like the notion that a building will come to be defined by the activities that it once held. Certainly a building can have a certain feel. This is specifically true in the case of buildings that have housed unique events. Unfortunately, it is those buildings that represent the more dreary shadows of our past that seem to maintain the strongest presence. I remember visiting the house of Anne Frank as a child. Walking through the building you become overtaken by a heavy and somber tone. I tried to imagine what it would have been like there before the war; when it was simply another house—one filled with memories of happiness rather than pain. I couldn’t.

Personal Wall

The wall. Which one? Perhaps a brilliant musical album. Perhaps a poem by Frost. Perhaps the memories of cement in Berlin. While we usually think of a wall only insofar as it exists as a physical barrier, walls are often able to transcend this simplistic definition. Walls become barriers in our minds and in our relationships; however abstract these barriers may be, they are no less real than their physically tangible counterparts. And so it is for my personal wall.

I grew up as an only child and spent the majority of my time alone. While this gave me ample time to develop needless (but generally entertaining) hobbies, it is surprisingly difficult to make friends when one's social circle contains only oneself. This was fine at the time, but as years wore on, conversations with myself become dreadfully dull and redundant. And yet, my awkward passes at social engagement and repartee were often met with the derisive (or at least blank) stares from my peers. Ah, yes, woe to my younger self indeed. Fortunately, after several years of forced interaction and taking multiple jobs in the service industry, awkward gestures gradually metamorphosis into conversation. Perhaps I never did hit the level of charisma, but one can only do so much.

While I adore my friends and thoroughly enjoy conversation with my peers, I always feel a strange discordance between my social persona and my individual self. Perhaps this stems from my original reliance upon excessive 'alone time'; or perhaps I am simply exaggerating a more or less universal sentiment. I have consistently struggled between developing strong relationships and fighting to remain overtly independent. And so I find a wall within my own personality. Separating these two aspects of my self, and allowing me to engage in drastically different behavior depending upon which side of the wall is hosting me on that given day. I extend this idea further, bridging it I suppose, to a second wall. This wall lies between the self and the other and is a wall that has always been of utmost interest to me. How can we come to understand another individual, when interactions are riddled with misinterpretations and diverging intentions? Can we ever truly overcome this wall that separates us--or are we limited to simply gazing through a window of objectification at the life on the other side.