A Snowy Day at the Arboretum

As told to Seattlest by Seth Kolloen, thus the first-person p.o.v.

A six-year-old girl shrieking as her father pulls her in a plastic sled.

A crow calling.

An airplane overhead.

My feet crunching into the pavement.

The faint sounds of a small bird in the underbrush, quickly obscured by noise from passing cars.

Snow dislodged from a tree by a crow's take-off makes its way through branches and down to the ground. It sounds like a brush against a snare drum.

The low metallic thud of the sole of my shoe against a strom drain, as I try unsuccessfully to knock mud away from the path of an ill-advised shortcut.

A man and his lady friend debate their next move as they approach a fork in the road.

A friendly older couple approaches. The man smiles and says hello. Their dog inspects a nearby tree.

Someone's built a knee-high snowman in a small patch of open field. It has bark pieces for eyes, a small stick for a nose, a tiny bit of leaf for a mouth, and small rocks down his front as buttons. He has only one arm.

Four Asian people in their twenties speaking a language I identify as Chinese.

Cars hitting expansion joints as I walk under the 520 bridge.

Seattlest Flickr pool photo courtesy of B. K. Dewey and a snowy December day.