Author: Mary Koch

For Earth Day: Keep an Eye on the Sky

On By Mary KochIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

With Earth Day approaching, I find myself thinking less about the planet that grounds us and more about the sky beyond. Today’s clear blue sky is living proof of how our human family, when properly motivated, can solve problems.

I remember that first Earth Day in 1970. A 25-year-old naive idealist, I was living on Vashon Island in Puget Sound. A few of us islanders marched down our rural highway in protest of pollution, pollutants, and polluters. We didn’t exactly attract a crowd.

Sunsets in those days were spectacular because the air from Tacoma to Seattle and beyond was dense with industrial and vehicular emissions. A college friend, who’d just earned his business degree, worked at the St. Regis mill on Tacoma’s tide flats, source of the notorious “Tacoma aroma.” He’d make a point of drawing a deep breath and declaring, “Ah, the smell of money!”

After all these years, the Tacoma aroma is no more. I still enjoy sunsets over Puget Sound, but the colors are more delicate, splayed across clear blue skies. What happened? In that year, the Clean Air Act was passed and the Environmental Protection Agency created. By the 1990s, Americans were getting on board with recycling, and in 2010, a billion people participated globally in Earth Day events.

This year’s worldwide Earth Day challenge is “Planet vs. Plastics.” If you want to get hyped and have 48 seconds to spare, catch the video on the Earth Day website: https://www.earthday.org/.

Plastic is a tragic legacy of my generation. Remember the one word of advice offered to Dustin Hoffman’s character in “The Graduate”? 

“Plastics!” It might as well have been a snake hissing, “Eat the apple!”

But I was speaking of air quality. Stay with me, if you would, because Washington state has one of the most advanced programs in the nation to curtail green house gases — the Climate Commitment Act. Yet on Earth Day, instead of celebrating progress, we’ll be hunkering down to withstand a predictably noisy campaign to repeal that law. It’s one of those confusing ballot issues: if you’re for something, like clean air, you have to vote against.

The CCA is a cap-and-trade program. Simply put, a hundred or so major polluters in the state are required to pay for polluting above a certain level. The law went into effect just last year, yet already raised $1.5 billion. That money is designated for a vast array of programs, such as assisting communities that are overburdened by their industrial neighbors, combatting wildfires, and making public transportation available to more of the public.

The repeal effort started with one wealthy hedge fund manager who poured a million bucks into putting six initiatives before the Legislature. He was the single largest backer. Thus, along with other complex issues, we voters will be asked to consider Initiative 2117, repealing the CCA. Given that many millions will be spent on the campaign, those numbers — 2117 — will likely be imprinted deep into our brains. Bill Gates, who easily has as much money to toss around as any hedge fund manager, has already contributed a million to defeat the initiative.

Another opponent includes — astonishingly — one of the bigger polluters, oil company BP, which operates the largest refinery at Cherry Point. Apparently BP accepts paying for the cap-and-trade allowances as an inevitable cost of doing business. The company issued a statement saying the law “helps companies develop climate strategies.”

As my college buddy all those years back in Tacoma said, “Ah, the smell of money!” As the barrage of 2117 and all the other political advertising gets underway, I’m sensing a coma aroma. 

A Response to Thomas Wolfe: You can indeed go home again

On By Mary KochIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

“You Can’t Go Home Again” author Thomas Wolfe warned in the title of his classic American novel. Heeding his advice, I was careful not to say — or even think — I was going back “home.” I’d rented a car to drive to the Okanogan Valley, where I’d lived for forty-five years. It was my first return trip since moving to Seattle five months ago.

Wolfe’s title was based (says Wiktionary) on a proverb: past times that are fondly remembered are “irrecoverably in the past” and cannot be relived. We’re better off embracing the present. For me, that’s a 340-square-foot studio apartment at the base of Seattle’s First Hill neighborhood. I’m glad I made the move, but I’d been anxiously wondering if I’ll ever feel like it’s home.

Approaching the valley, I had a choice. I could drive at river level along the delta where the modest Okanogan River is swallowed by the mighty Columbia. Or I could climb to Brewster Flat to get an overview of the valley as it stretches north toward Canada. I’ve long favored that elevated route even though the view northward is limited. Valley walls turn and bend, shaped by glaciers eons ago. Entering the valley from above feels something like approaching C.S. Lewis’s wardrobe with its mysterious portal into the unknown.

Sure enough, as I descended and drove along the valley floor, there was a significant difference — not in what I was seeing but in what I was feeling. For all those years of frequent trips to and from Seattle, I’d enter the valley after four or five hours of driving with a sense of relief. Home and rest were mere minutes away. This time it all looked familiar — the ribbon of river winding through orchards and pastures, cattle grazing with calves at their sides, sagebrush steppes with occasional pine trees forming valley walls. Yet it felt strange. Strangely familiar.

I was apprehensive. If I no longer officially resided here, did that mean I no longer belonged? 

I have long maintained that the state of Washington is really two states — of mind. We are divided — east from west — by the Cascade mountain range, often referred to as the “Cascade Curtain,” reminiscent of the Iron Curtain of the Cold War. I’ve lived on both sides of the divide. Economic, cultural, and political differences between east and west are sharp. Doesn’t matter which side of the mountains you’re on, you’re going to hear unfair stereotypes and prejudices against the other side.

The Okanogan is one of the more economically deprived regions of the state. Before I moved, I’d become accustomed to symbols of what my late husband described as a “thin soil economy.” Substandard houses, junked cars, abandoned marijuana farms. Now I was seeing them with fresh eyes. It was a slap in the face, even though I also drove past lovely ranches and residential developments. Rich or poor, people stubbornly thrive. Most wouldn’t trade their single-wide for all the high-rises in Seattle. It takes grit and heart to survive in the Okanogan. 

I needn’t have worried about belonging. The embraces and deep conversations with friends all weekend long assured me that even though it was no longer “home,” I can and will continue to return and connect. 

Back in Seattle, I opened the door to my apartment and was surprised to feel a rush of relief: that sense of “I’m home!” I told that to a wise friend who has never lost her Texas way of speaking. “Well, honey,” she started out. “That’s because your home is inside of you.” I recall another old parable that says pretty much the same thing. Home is where …

Driving north into the Okanogan Valley
Photo from my files taken in June 2019

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.

A Concert is More Than the Music

On By Mary KochIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

A free concert at Benaroya, Seattle’s premier performance venue. Knowing there’d be a crowd, my neighbor and I left plenty early for our walk to the event commemorating International Holocaust Remembrance Day (Jan. 27). We ended up with time to visit the Garden of Remembrance, which stretches along the west side of Benaroya.

More than eight thousand names of Washington State citizens who died in service to our country since 1941 are etched into the granite walls. Names include people who served in World War II, the Korean War, Vietnam, Gulf War and continuing through post-9/11. I immediately went to the Vietnam section and gently placed my fingertips on the name Keith Henrickson, a high school friend. It’s a gesture I’ve made before, first at the Vietnam memorial wall in Washington, D.C., and again when a traveling replica of that wall visited the Colville Indian Reservation, near my former home. 

I thought about how I’ve lived fifty-five years longer than Keith, who was killed at age twenty-four in Quang Tri province. Yet his name, etched in granite, is an enduring presence that will last long after I’m gone. His and all the other names are an ongoing witness to the tragedies of war. 

Scattered raindrops accented my somber mood as we left the garden and entered the hall. The concert was presented by Music of Remembrance, a nonprofit organization that addresses issues of human rights and social justice through music. As I read the program, I readied myself to shed tears. Many of the pieces were attributed to poets and composers who perished in Nazi concentration camps. 

I wondered about the quartet of pre- and teen siblings a couple rows ahead of me. Would they “get” it? They were jostling and elbowing each other in normal but disruptive ways. Their parents were seated like bookends with their offspring between. I hoped that Mom and Dad could/would keep the kids under control. Then, just as the lights were dimming, I heard the rustle of newcomers settling into the row directly behind us. I looked around to spot a young couple with two children, ages about three and one. 

I immediately flashed back to a free, noon organ concert that my late husband and I attended decades ago at the Mormon Tabernacle in Salt Lake City. The place was packed with tourists. The organist began with a brief welcome and firm direction: “If your child becomes disruptive or makes any kind of noise, do not hesitate to remove them immediately.” I don’t recall the organist’s name, but I have silently evoked his instruction whenever concerts get disrupted by crying or rambunctious children.

The audience dropped into silence for the opening “Intermezzo for Strings,” a floating, ethereal piece performed by The University of Washington Chamber Orchestra. The Jewish composer, Franz Schreker, had been forced from his position as director of an important music conservatory. But he cheated the Nazis out of killing him by dying after a stroke in 1933. 

The program continued, the youngsters in front of me quietly absorbed, the baby behind uttering only an occasional coo that was quickly muffled by her mother. About halfway through came a duet for violin and cello by Gideon Klein, a brilliant musicology student who died in the Fürstengrube camp at age twenty-two. The mournful, longing music ends suddenly mid-phrase, as did Klein’s incomplete life. In the silence that followed, before the audience could gather itself to applaud, the baby let out an anguished wail. Her cry said far more than our applause. Nonetheless, Mom gathered her up and exited the hall.

She missed the grand finale, “Farewell, Auschwitz,” a defiantly jubilant piece commissioned by Music of Remembrance. It was performed by The Seattle Girls Choir and Northwest Boychoir, along with instrumentalists and adult soloists. I was heartened by the discipline and beauty of the young voices. They were learning in a powerful way about an historical truth that too many try to deny.

Upon leaving the hall, I spotted Mom and baby seated on a bench. I perched next to them, the baby giving me a bouncing grin as I told her mom, “I’m sorry you had to miss the end of the concert. She was so good for so long, and I’m glad you brought her. She has that music embedded in her soul now.” Just as I finished speaking, another woman approached.

“Good for you for bringing the children to the concert,” she said. “They’re never too young.” 

Never too young — nor too old — to learn, to change, to grow, to remember.

Who Keeps Us Safe? (sometimes we never know)

On By Mary KochIn Uncategorized1 Comment

Savoring my morning coffee, scrolling through email, I suddenly became aware of a red rope slowly snaking downward outside my thirteenth floor window. What the …!? No way of telling where it came from or where it was going. Before long it was joined by a blue rope, the two of them swaying in the breeze, a sinuous tango, occasionally touching, then parting.

Mystified, I went about my morning ablutions. When I emerged from my bathroom, I discovered a man in a boatswain’s chair outside my window, expertly clearing away soap with his squeegee. I’ve long admired the efficiency of professional window washers. With just a few graceful swoops, they make the world brighter and more clear than it was. Still, I prefer to watch them work when they have both feet planted on the ground, or on a low ladder. Because of my own exaggerated fear of heights, I don’t like to see anyone in precariously high locations.

The window washer, noticing me, smiled and waved. I placed my hands over my heart to signal both apprehension and appreciation. He put his hands together and gave a bow. Then, as he began to lower himself to the twelfth floor, he pantomimed falling, first with a startled expression that gave way to a big grin. Obviously an act he’s perfected over the years.

I can’t shake from my mind how relaxed, at ease he was, trusting his life to just two ropes. No doubt he regularly scrutinizes them with an eagle eye. Still, it’s a leap of faith, not only in his equipment, but faith in whoever ran the machine that braided those ropes in the first place. He’s vitally connected with someone he’ll likely never meet.

Window cleaning isn’t on the list of the hundred most dangerous occupations, compiled by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. OSHA reports eighty-eight window cleaning accidents over a fifteen-year period, sixty-two of them fatal. That’s out of millions and millions of windows washed. Squeegee Squad, a commercial window cleaning firm, claims that “statistically speaking, it’s safer to be a high rise window cleaner than it is to drive a cab.”

Or, safer than driving on rural two-lane highways, which is where I’ve driven most of my life. A federal safety initiative reports that more than twelve thousand deaths occur each year on rural roadways because drivers cross the center line or run off the road. That’s about a third of all annual highway fatalities, even though the interstates and city roads handle way more vehicles.

I used to think about that in my frequent travels along SR97, the north-south highway that bisects Washington state. I’d watch vehicles hurtling toward me at sixty mph (usually more) and think, I’ll never meet that driver, but my life depends entirely on their sobriety and attention. I’d silently message them: be aware, be safe. Then there were the occasional heart-in-throat moments when drivers passed recklessly, forcing others to brake and pull onto the shoulder. My messages were less silent and not kind.

“We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny,” wrote Martin Luther King Jr. in his remarkable Letter from Birmingham Jail. “What affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”

We think we’re such independent individuals. But whether we’re washing windows on the thirteenth floor or driving along a two-lane highway or just reading words on a screen, we’re all as closely connected as one heart beat, one breath.

When It’s Time to Take Flight

On By Mary KochIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

Inquiring minds have been asking: with dozens of retirement communities to choose from, how did I select Horizon House on Seattle’s First Hill? Simple. When I moved here two months ago, I was following Raven, who’s a significant totem in Northwest native stories. A stunning yet obstreperous bird, Raven has magical power — both good and bad. In my case, all good.

I refer to Raven as represented in a magnificent mask created by British Columbia native carver Garry Rice. I first saw the mask when it hung in the oceanside home of my longtime friend Jill. Despite the hypnotizing view of the vast Pacific, it was the raven mask that dominated her living room. Extending five feet from thatched topknot to forceful beak, its eyes declare “you are being watched.” The beak agape suggests an oracle about to speak.

The late writer and clairvoyant Ted Andrews, in his book “Animal-Speak,” said Raven was credited with bringing forth life and order by stealing the sunlight “from one who would keep the world in darkness.” 

Winter is an ideal season for people whose totem is Raven, Andrews wrote. After Winter Solstice, the light lingers a little longer each day — symbolic of Raven’s influence: “It teaches how to go into the dark and bring forth the light. With each trip in, we develop the ability to bring more light out.” Raven’s black feathers are especially significant, Andrews suggested: “In blackness, everything mingles until drawn forth, out into the light. Because of this, raven can help you shape-shift your life or your being.”

Apropos for carver Rice, who was originally a fisherman and logger. Injuries forced a career-change at midlife, and he became a respected and renowned creator of indigenous art. Last year it was time for me, too, to shape-shift my life and being.

A few years ago Jill had left the ocean and moved to a retirement community. Her new apartment was too small for the mask, but that establishment declined her offer to hang it for public viewing. She decided to donate it to Horizon House, which boasts a stunning, curated collection of art throughout all public areas. Much of it has been donated by residents who faced the same pickle as Jill. She mentioned the donation to me at the time. I’d never heard of Horizon House, but the seed was planted. Some day, I thought, I might want to live there. 

When that some day dawned last year, I knew I might be inclined to make a hasty or emotional decision. I invited my niece — a wise and successful businesswoman — to tour Horizon House with me. While I repeatedly veered off-course to study yet another sculpture or painting, Sandy stayed on-point, asking significant questions I’d never thought of. Ultimately we reached the corridor where Raven once again is a dominating force. Exquisite lighting allows the mask’s reflection to appear on interior windows across the hall. A few steps away from Raven, our tour guide opened the door to the serene aqua of a salt-water swimming pool. 

Art! Raven! Salt-water pool! Where do I sign?

Twice since I moved into my thirteenth story apartment, a crow has landed on the air conditioner ledge outside my window. Crows and ravens are cousins in the Corvidae family. On both those visits, the crow peered through the window just long enough to observe, “Okay. You seem to be settling in,” before flying off. 

***

NOTE: For those who may want more, uhm, straightforward information about choosing a retirement community, I recommend (for Washington residents) this information page on the Washington Continuing Care Residents Association site or outside Washington, the National Continuing Care Residents Association.

We Don’t Know What’s Ahead (thank God)

On By Mary KochIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

Surely one of the greatest gifts Creator bestowed on humanity is our short-sightedness. We can celebrate New Year’s Eve with abandon because we have no idea what’s just around the corner. 

I’m thinking back to Dec. 31, 2022, when I quietly observed the passing of the year in my cozy home on the river. If I’d foreseen that 2023 would include the deaths of three of my dearest friends and that by the next New Year’s Eve I’d be living on the thirteenth floor of a Seattle high-rise — I believe I’d have gone to bed, pulled the covers over my head, and never come out again. 

When I do know of coming events, they tend to loom rather than promise. I’m pessimistic when I needn’t be. Example: plans for my massive, three-day moving sale filled me with dread. It turned out to be one of the best, most fun parties I’ve ever hosted.

I look back on this year of tumult — globally and in my personal life — with both mourning and gratitude. I mourn the loss of life and separation from friends. I’m grateful for the love that has supported and sustained me, and the Divine Love that persists in sustaining us all.

Overview of Omak, WA, a slice of the Okanogan Valley and Tiffany Mountains in the distance

In November, I expressed my gratitude in a letter meant for publication in the newspaper that my husband and I long ago owned. For unknown reasons, my words never made it into print. I’ve been assured the letter will be published in the next edition. Just in case, though, and because not everyone subscribes to that (or sad to say, any) newspaper, I decided to share it here. It’s a love letter, a fond farewell to an exquisite valley that stretches across an international boundary, a valley bordered by vital shrubsteppes that climb to forested mountains, a valley thinly populated with generous, kindly people:

“When I recently moved from the Okanogan Valley to Seattle, I left behind something important: a large part of my heart. For more than forty-four years I have been nurtured and inspired by the beauty of the Okanogan landscape and the vibrancy of her people. 

“It is a joy and honor to be part of a community that is so committed and supportive. This was especially true during the fourteen years after a devastating stroke paralyzed my late husband, former Chronicle publisher John E. Andrist. That same level of care and support prevailed as I prepared to move. Friends, family and neighbors generously stepped up to help with the many challenges. 

“I’d love to name names, but I fear leaving someone out. I especially thank members of various groups: Okanogan Valley Orchestra and Chorus (OVOC), St. Anne’s Episcopal Church, the NonViolent Communication practice group (LOLO – Language Of Life in the Okanogan), and a particular circle of women who joyfully share their creativity and love of beauty. 

“The part of my heart that I’ve managed to hang onto is deeply grateful.”

As we move into a new year, many prognosticators are planting seeds of fear and foreboding. I would remind us of Casey Stengel’s wisdom: “Never make predictions, especially about the future.” Blissfully ignorant, may we lurch onward.

Be It Ever So Humble

On By Mary KochIn Uncategorized4 Comments

“Money must be a consideration,” said the drop-in visitor as she glanced around my 340-square-foot studio apartment. I was just moving into our downtown Seattle retirement community of 378 apartments (another 152 to come in five or six years). Mine is one of the smallest, least expensive. She was right. Money was a consideration, but probably not in the way she was thinking.

For years I’ve used a coin purse featuring a cartoon character pulling green dollars out of her billfold. My coin purse is so well worn that the caption is becoming unreadable, but still memorable: “Mo’ Money, Mo’ Problems.” 

Snug, liveable, and more than adequate

Those “mo’ problems” were a factor but not the driving motivation for giving up the home and community I loved to move here. I want to reduce my footprint on our Mother Earth as I age. I want to use fewer resources, live in community, take up less space, and spend less money to maintain house, car, etc. Not yet two months into this venture, I occasionally feel unsettled, mourning what I’ve given up, suppressing envy over larger apartments. So I go for a walk. 

From the west wing, I walk across Freeway Park, where I see two camping tents. There are no signs of life but I’m certain the tents are occupied. I walk past a man who is seated, holding a crutch, staring at nothing. He’ll still be there hours later when I return.

I enter the glass-encased Convention Center, take escalators down four floors, and I’m in the heart of downtown. Heading to Pike Place Market I notice a mummy-style sleeping bag stretched out on the sidewalk in an alcove. It appears to have a body in it. I pray that it’s a live body, though I wonder if life itself is any kind of blessing for this mummified soul. 

That same day the Seattle Times reported that both nationally and in Washington state, homelessness is “growing at a rate never seen before.” The official national count is a 12 percent increase over 2022, and in this state 11 percent. That’s based on the annual Point-In-Time Count. I helped with that count as a volunteer at the Okanogan homeless shelter. We simply recorded the number of folks sheltering on the appointed evening. Shelter populations can vary wildly depending on weather, time of month, and other factors. Nevertheless, we know that on a given night there were at least 28,000 people in Washington who had no place to be. That’s higher than the populations of Mercer Island or Moses Lake.

But those are only numbers that don’t really tell the stories — except for some stunning numbers offered the next day, again in the Times, by columnist Danny Westneat. There’s a building boom downtown. Some 7,200 living units (aka apartments) are under construction. Help for people with no homes? Not so much.

“This boomlet isn’t visible at street level,” Westneat writes. “It’s in the sky.” Once again Seattle has more construction cranes dotting the skyline — forty-five of ’em — than any other U.S. city. The columnist warns that high-rise apartments are likely to turn downtown into a “gated community … only vertical.”  He cites the example of a penthouse atop the 58-story Rainier Tower, renting for $19,999 per MONTH. 

I can’t imagine what it would feel like to drive my luxury car from the garage below my $20K-a-month apartment and spot a homeless person, wrapped in a sleeping bag in the sidewalk. It’s hard enough for me, having just left my snug studio, to walk on by, even with a prayer in my heart.

Carried away by the spirit of the season, I bought more than I intended at the Market. The walk back, with awkward packages, was a slog. Arriving home, I was more grateful than ever for a home to arrive to. Gratitude guarantees contentment. 

I’m not so naive to believe that moving into a tiny apartment or giving up my car is going to solve climate issues or homelessness or myriad other problems. But isn’t that a basic message of Christmas? Just another baby born in an insignificant town, and everything changed. It’s clear — to me, anyway — that if enough of us care a little more, live with a little less, we too can make a significant difference. That’s my prayer for 2024.

Uneasily At Ease

On By Mary KochIn Uncategorized2 Comments

A question frequently asked by we who are s-aging is: “How (*insert) did I get here?”

(*Insert whatever exclamatory phrase you prefer, e.g., “How in the world …” or, “How on earth …” or, “How the hell,” etc.)

The “here,” when that question floated into my head, was the lobby of the retirement community that I’d moved into a few weeks earlier. The lobby is nicely furnished, not ornate but more like a mid-priced boutique hotel. On that particular day, the start of the holiday season, it was buzzing with activity and people. The automatic glass doors would barely whoosh shut before they’d glide open again, admitting a constant flow of family delegations coming either to visit or whisk away “Granny,” or “Gramps,” or in my case, “Auntie.”

It’s a significant part of family celebrations — thoughtful inclusion of the oldest generation. Often it requires extra effort, like going out of one’s way to provide transportation, figuring out how to cram a walker or wheelchair into the car trunk, altering the dinner menu in consideration of special diets, arranging chairs and tables just so. I’d done it all many times and loved doing it. 

“What we have once enjoyed we can never lose,” suggests Helen Keller. “All that we love deeply becomes a part of us.”

I believe she was talking about nostalgia, which was striking a resounding chord as I sat waiting in the lobby, feeling out of place. How (*) did I get there? I would no longer be providing for the senior generation. I’m now part of it. My niece and grand-niece would be picking me up, their car loaded with desserts and salads that I had no part in preparing. Arriving at the celebration, I would eye the kitchen filled with busy folks, leave them to it and sit, casually conversing with other elders. Uneasily at ease.

If “My Generation” is uneasy with old age, we have only ourselves to blame. We’ve been in denial since the turbulent ‘60s, when The Who released their signature song. Peter Townshend, who penned the line, “Hope I die before I get old,” is now 78. Roger Daltrey, who — as one critic wrote, “sneeringly” sang it — is 79. 

“Don’t trust anyone over 30.” Jack Weinberg, whose comment went viral before there was such a thing as viral, is now 83. Weinberg has devoted his life to social and environmental activism. In an interview he observed, “I’ve done some things in my life I think are very important, and my one sentence in history turns out to be something I said off the top of my head which became completely distorted and misunderstood. But I’ve become more accepting of fate as I get older.”

The wisdom of age: to more become accepting. Even to welcome, as in the classic Welcoming Prayer, written by contemplative Mary Mrozowski: “I welcome everything that comes to me in this moment because I know it is for my healing.”

Thus I welcomed the opportunity at the end of Thanksgiving dinner to roll up my sleeves and sink my hands into hot, soapy dishwater — no longer feeling out of place, because when it’s time to clean up, there’s ample room in the kitchen for helpers of all ages.