Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Our Old House

I don't know much about the program, but it seems that the Seattle Department of Neighborhoods is cataloging and publishing a lot of the historical information for Seattle's older buildings.

Kelly located our Green Lake rental house, where we lived for four years, our first four years, in Seattle. It turns out we should have been celebrating our house's 100th birthday and we didn't even know it!

I think this type of history is really intriguing. You live in a place and it feels like it is your own, but in reality entire lives - birth to death - have played out in the same space. What feels like your own is not your own, in fact you are sharing that space with many who have come before and many who will come after. Even our place on the shores of Green Lake (at least that is how it is described in the "For Lease" section of the Times) where we had so many happy times, enjoyed the company of so many of our friends, and have so many important memories, is now occupied by complete strangers. Sleeping in our bedroom, cooking in our kitchen, eating in our dining room, and inviting other complete strangers into our living room. For me it reinforces the idea that nothing in life is truly our own. We are all just visitors and we are all just passing through, and to all the future residents of 767 North 74th St, just a curious historical footnote to what they call home.



Hey, that is our hammock and our BBQ on the internet!