The Sleeping Giant

The cold has arrived, but not with snow. The windows on the 402 were white and thick with frost, and since I’m to cheap to buy an ice scraper, it made me pull out a credit card from my wallet, to get them clean. All along the roads, in the gutters and under trees, lay frozen puddles of ice, polished like mirrors, reflecting the morning sky.

From the corner of Division and Stadium, the panorama of the Olympic mountains, Commencement Bay, past the tide flats and on up to Mount Rainier, was lit up orange and pink, taking their colors from a classic northwest morning, in the moments before the sun appears from behind the foothills of the Cascades to turn the sky blue.

I want to reach out and put my hands in their snow -- to make snowmen for knocking down and snow-forts to hide behind. To head out to Owens Beach and put my feet in the dark cold waters of the bay -- to skip stones along it’s shore. But instead I watch for traffic from my left, maneuver around the construction on my right, and head east into downtown.

On this first real day of the new year, I look for the hawks that live on top of the Frank Russell building. Holding my breath for moments as I scan the horizon before letting it out in a puff of smoke. They don’t appear…

Tacoma is asleep.

Parked on the street outside the mill is the same white van that was parked there last week, and the week before that -- With the same chalked tires, and parking-ticket window.

It’s the only car I see.

The clock tower of Old City Hall is also sleeping. Its bells no longer ringing in the new day, the new week, the month, or even the year. The City no longer sings the beauty of mornings such as this.

I step out of my car and listen to this dormant giant, breathing.