The Spark House and All Those Unanswered Questions in Everyday Ramblings

In birding circles here in the United States we sometimes ask each other what our “spark bird” was. That would be for me a juvenile hawk in my former neighborhood. Crows are numerous over there and totally completely raucous as they come into roost in the evening.

Yes. It is possible to have too many crows in a place at one time. Mr. Finch and I noticed the absence of crow sound one evening as we were walking our usual well-trodden path.

And upon careful inspection we saw a group of handsome crow sized raptors in the nearby trees. I think there were three or four. (There must have been a nest nearby and this group of Red tails or Rough Legged Hawks was fledging.) Three birds by their mere presence making one hundred crows shut up? Whoa baby, that is a level of respect I want to know more about.

And that started me (and to some extent Mr. Finch) on the informational odyssey and delight in and about birds that continues unabated to this day in my life.

Of course now I wonder, after having seen crows mob a Red tail on numerous occasions why these particular birds were able to manage the crows but that is another story for another day…

Today I am writing about my “spark house”.

Way back, gosh like twelve years ago when I first started seeing the Buddhist Counselor that I now see occasionally his office was in a part of town south of downtown called John’s Landing. I would take this bus that would go this weird loopty loop way under bridges and on side streets to get to this small southern business district right by the river.

Every time I went by since I first I saw it, I would crane my neck and look for this turreted house. At this point I had no clue about the fact that the neighborhood I was passing through had such history and rich stories but I was curious about what an apparently grand and mysterious house was doing smack dab in the middle of two freeways coming into the center of town.

I never forgot that house.

When I got this job almost 8 years ago I realized that the office I was working in was close enough to this house to see it from afar. I started going exploring at lunchtime with my camera, at first rather timidly and then with increasing confidence.

I still don’t know the whole story by a long shot. Much to my surprise it is actually an apartment house but a very old one. It has intense traffic flow up against it on two sides, and a cottage plunked right smack in what would have been the front yard.

The only way to get to it is on foot down this narrow overgrown path to the side of the cottage, which is painted red and is of the same vintage as the apartments. The front door faces the freeway. The walls are very thin and I expect the floors aren’t much better. I am surprised the fire department has approved its continued existence.

The surrounding vegetation is unruly and there is a curving pedestrian tunnel down below it that is a magnet for taggers and the mentally ill.

I have pictures of all of this I have accumulated over the years I have lived here because of course I had to move into a neighborhood that contained so many unanswered questions.

So all this thinking about and exploring and picture taking has been going on at this subconscious level all this time. It never occurred to me that there was a coherent project percolating in there all the while.

Of course Mr. Finch’s illness was the big distraction and some days, most days as I work on putting this all together I wish he were here to share it with me.

I am glad to have you all out there to act as stand ins for him as I uncover the jewels this amazing place has to offer up one facet at a time.

Last updated July 21, 2015