I’m finding it helpful to continue to pursue physical examples of transition, whether urban or far afield. It is a way to witness firsthand tangible change and become part of an ongoing place-time narrative across multiple environments.
Yesterday, I complemented my recent desert sojourn and my Friday visit to a suspension bridge in the forest with a visit to a similar in-town bridge in Bellevue, Washington.
The bridge is part of Bellevue Botanical Garden’s “Ravine Experience” trail. The Garden stands on land donated by the Shorts family in the 1980s, on the former site of a log cabin-centered farm,
This experience—and a kind reference from my friend David Brown this morning about the “change across multiple environments” theme of this newsletter—took me back a year to the first short Resurgence post.
In July last year, I wrote about Seattle’s foundational Carkeek Park, which is also ravine- and canyon-based and partially located on a former family homestead.
As an anniversary of sorts, I reproduce the first Resurgence post below with some minor edits.
The idea of resurgence is, in a sense, the mere passage of time applied to places with tangible evidence of change. This introductory entry illustrates Seattle’s Carkeek Park, a natural, social, and built environment junction.
The resulting visual menu is rich and compelling; below are five examples.
The park—which moved locations by about six miles in 1928—contains Seattle’s oldest orchard, remnant old-growth forest, and the critical spine of a creek, tributaries, and ravines.
Breached by treatment plants, railroads, and traditional park spaces, walking trails cross the histories of these natural and built environments. Finally, the social evidence of human activity weaves these environments together.