Woodland Park: Sunrise

Selena Amor for The Evergreen Echo

I woke up when it was still dark outside. It was late September, and there was mist outside my window, visible between the trees lining the West Woodland Park playground. I blearily sat up in bed, grabbed running clothes, and moved to the hall where I sat down to lace up my sneakers. 

Today I turned another year older. The thought flooded my brain with dread—a reminder of the things I had not accomplished by this age that I had hoped to. Still, I tied my shoes and got myself out the door. As I crossed the road to the park entrance, a 5 bus pulled in, only a few people illuminated in the fluorescent glow inside. 

In the green space adjacent to the playground, someone was walking a lab whose tail was set to autowag. I crossed through the playground and entered the deserted parking lot of the Woodland Park Zoo, big pine boughs above me. Past the parking lot was a narrow dirt trail that skirted the northern perimeter of the zoo down to I-99 and then turned up the eastern perimeter before crossing a cement bridge. This bridge always felt like the entrance into Narnia, with two lampposts glowing at the far end. Finally, I walked into Woodland Park. 

I heard a seagull cry over my head, and I felt the closeness of the Sound. I turned to the right, down a central trail that took me past blackberry bushes bent over with the fruit, past their prime and pungent with rot. The path went deep into the undercover of cedar, hemlock, and maple.

I turned to the right up a small hill, scrambled up a few rocks, and entered into a knoll crawling with grass and ferns. The mist rose and caught the first glimpse of sun coming in from the east. The light sifted through draped pine boughs. Two ravens were having a conversation on a branch above me. 

In a clearing up ahead, I saw a fallen maple lying on its side. My feet crunched on leaves and I had a close call on a wet pine cone as I walked over to the tree. I put my hands out and bearcrawled up the tree a few feet, then turned around and laid back with my head up towards the canopies of neighboring trees, my feet down to the roots. 

I took a moment to breathe in and out. I would be okay. 

Woodland Park trees

Selena Amor for The Evergreen Echo

Seattle is not the home I think of when people ask me where home is. I grew up on a dirt road next to the Appalachian Trail in a town of 20,000, a place where on night walks with our dogs you could see the stars, hear owls and coyotes close by, and there was never anyone else out—just the animals. My whole childhood had been quiet, allowing space for my nervous system to reset itself. The city did not often give me that peace, but these early morning walks were the thing for me. 

I got up and veered left onto a mountain bike trail where I often saw parents teaching their kids the basics of downhill etiquette. The trail wound down past the dog park. Only a few people were out, throwing balls and sticks for their four-legged companions. Further down still, I could hear the strangely meditative sound of a tennis ball hitting a racket, then the turf, and then another racket in the Green Lake courts. I continued to descend the path, careful not to slip on the wet leaves. Woodland Park is one of Seattle’s steepest parks. There aren’t a lot of sections that don’t involve an incline. I stopped on a little outlook, and through the trees, I could see it: the lake. 

Coming out of the park, I crossed Green Lake Way, and against the gentle lap of waves on the lake, I saw figures silhouetted against the sunrise, hoisting narrow boats over their heads, minding the riggers, and carrying them slowly into the boathouse. Being a rower myself, I knew that those docks were completely covered in duck poop. Alas, just a part of the experience. 

I sat myself down on a bench for a while, letting the slow creeping warmth of the sun fall on my arms, shoulders, face. The city was waking up around me. A running group passed, and someone in the group asked if they could stop at Mighty-O Donuts at the end. An enthusiastic yes from the group. An older couple held hands and walked a small dog with a mobility cart attached to its hind legs. A trash truck let out a sigh. Big day ahead.

Time to go. I rallied myself back up and continued along the lake to the left. I turned back, looked at the swaying treetops of Woodland Park behind me, and gave them a little wave. They nodded back, in their own way.