Month: March 2024

A Few Steps to Compassion

On By Mary KochIn Uncategorized2 Comments

I stepped from the little neighborhood shoe shop on East Madison Street, breaking in my brand new pair of Brooks (well cushioned for walking). Maybe that’s why I took special notice of the shoes on the young person who was passed out on the sidewalk in the next block. 

The sidewalk slightly  narrows in that block, making room for venerable trees that are the legacy of an earlier, possibly more gracious generation. The narrower sidewalk makes it an inconvenient place for passing out. Inconvenient for other pedestrians, that is.

In downtown Seattle, where sidewalks are really wide, the pedestrian flow is uninterrupted by the occasional drugged body languishing on the concrete. There’s room for all, and for some it’s the only room available. Away from downtown on Madison, pedestrians had to sidestep to the curb, pausing to let oncoming walkers by. We almost needed a flagger, like at a highway construction site. We politely made room for each other, seemingly oblivious to the obstruction we were avoiding.

I remember the first time — in the early days of the fentanyl epidemic — I came upon someone passed out on the ground in broad daylight. It was in Omak, the small eastern Washington town that I moved from last year. I was on my daily walk with my dogs in the park along the river. When I saw the man sprawled out on the grass, I pulled out my phone and called 9-1-1. To call 9-1-1 these days, whether in that small town or this big city, would be a gesture of naiveté and probably futile.

Perhaps we pedestrians pretended to ignore the human obstruction because it would be unseemly to stop and stare at someone who is suffering a personal crisis in such a public way. Still, as I edged to the curb (my balance assured with those new shoes), I noticed a few things.

The individual was not supine but in a contorted position, halfway between sitting and curled. Gender and race were undetectable, but youth was apparent along with stylish clothing and shoes. The black shoes were of that exaggerated, clunky platform style with the highest of heels. I could imagine their wearer getting carefully dressed, preparing for a … well, high time.

A lot of people are afraid to walk in the city these days. I too am afraid. I’m afraid that I will become so accustomed to inert bodies on the sidewalk that I will stop seeing them. I fear that I will stop noticing their humanity, their individuality — expressed in small, simple ways, like a pair of shoes. I’m afraid I will stop feeling the deep sorrow in my heart, that I will cease breathing a silent prayer of compassion. Each and every time.

I have no insights, no magic one-size-fits-all policy to suggest as we confront the intertwined issues of poverty, drugs, mental illness and homelessness. But there is a way out of this snarled tangle of hopelessness. Once we rid ourselves of disgust, judgment and indifference, what remains for those of us who are still walking around is the power of love.

There was a fellow human being on that sidewalk who, just like me, desires a good pair of shoes.

Ups and Downs of Urban Hiking

On By Mary KochIn Uncategorized2 Comments

“Take the steps on your right,” GPS instructed via my phone. I looked at the steps with skepticism bordering on apprehension. They dissolved into a steeply declining, forested urban trail.

It should not have been a concern. I’ve hiked in the Glacier Peak and Pasayten wildernesses, the Cascade Crest Trail (parts thereof), and the coastal trail of Wales (parts thereof). I walk at least a couple miles daily. This time, though, I was on a scouting mission. A friend, who was planning to visit with her eighty-something mother, texted she’d found an Airbnb just a block from my apartment. I checked the address and thought, “Yeah, just a block as the crow flies, maybe.”

In Seattle, it can be difficult to get from Point A to Point B without circling via points Q through Z. Look at a map of Seattle’s core, and it has all the puzzling disjointedness of an Escher print. There are a couple of reasons for this. Seattle’s founders built on a series of hills, some quite steep. My roundtrip walk to the grocery store is only a mile, but no matter which route I take, it’s uphill both coming and going. 

The real confusion, though, evolved when three early developers couldn’t agree on which direction the streets should follow: north-and-south, as the compass would dictate, or northwest-to-southeast, following the Puget Sound shoreline. Each went his own way so that when streets ultimately meet, they zig or zag, sometimes even criss-cross. It’s not unusual for streets to intersect at an acute rather than the usual right angle. Seattle architects have excelled in designing buildings that come to a point.

As if all that weren’t sufficiently problematic, interstate freeway construction in the 1960s plowed through Seattle’s core, bisecting the city and blocking streets that long had been thoroughfares between neighborhoods. A “lid” over a small portion of the freeway affords some access via Freeway Park.  The retirement complex I live in abuts the park, but even pathways in the park wind and wander. As far as I can tell, GPS has yet to figure out those trails.

All of which led to my scouting venture. My friend’s Airbnb was indeed just a block from my apartment complex loading dock. Visitors are not welcome there. The front door is still another block beyond. Since visitors can’t go through the buildings, they pretty much reach the main entry via points Q and Z.

I’d put my friend’s Airbnb address into my phone as I exited my apartment building. GPS directed me along a side street to the top of the before-mentioned trail, where I found squalid remains of a campsite, apparently vacated by homeless persons. The trail was paved, but the wooden handrail was covered with graffiti and appeared less than sturdy.

I headed downward, gingerly stepping over broken glass, noting an abandoned grocery cart in the bushes. Bulbs were pushing up initial green spikes of spring flowers through last fall’s dead leaves. At some point, this must have been a lovely urban pathway. Now, I texted my friend, it was more of an urban jungle. 

“Hmmm, what do you mean an urban jungle?” she texted back. “Is it not safe?” 

“Back-alley aura,” I answered. 

My friend is a determined, undaunted world traveler. She found another route via a stable staircase. From there she cajoled her mother into climbing two blocks up a rigorously steep sidewalk. They could’ve driven, but with one-way and dead-end streets, multiple construction detours, and parking issues, it would’ve taken much longer.

Ah, wilderness. Right here in my urban backyard.