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"