Frenzied Daddy

I finally broke down and visited the Japanese Garden. It shouldn’t really have taken me 22 years.

My mother first took me to a Japanese garden in Seattle, when I was a kid. As I recall, it was a very short loop without too many branches and side-paths. Since then, the serenity of the gardens has intrigued me.

When we moved to Portland and I learned that we had a Japanese Garden here, I I should have rushed off and visited. But something always came up. And now, I can’t see spending eight bucks for myself and the carefully crafted gardens when I can enjoy the rest of Forest Park that much less expensively. But yesterday (Veteran’s Day) was a free day, and though it was raining and windy, I went anyway.

By the time I arrived, the rain and wind were hardly noticeable. As I walked up the path and the stairs to the gardens (I parked down by the Rose Garden), I passed a lot of kids with their little slickers and rain boots and, as the TT would say, their “rainbrellas.” They were all smiling and happy; I should have brought my kids too. But they were home, warm and dry, with their mother.

I enjoyed walking around the garden. I just did one quick loop, and left some paths unexplored for the next time. So I’d have new things to see when I brought the rest of the family. There were a few places where I was sad that it was so wet. Since I was alone, nobody would be there to tell me I was sitting and looking at a rock, or a pond, too long and they were tired of waiting. But the benches were all wet and I didn’t feel like getting my butt all wet.

Standing by the white garden, with the white rocks on the right, there’s a standing rock in a pool of river rocks. The standing rock makes an interesting contrast, with the pool of dark rocks at its base, against the whiteness of the “white garden.” I couldn’t figure out how to get the picture right, though.

I took my little camera because I didn’t want to get the “good one” all wet. So the pictures are a little smaller than you might be expecting.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 12th, 2008 at 10:44 am and is filed under Frenzied Daddy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.