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Washelli Evergreen Cemetery, Seattle |
I've thought several times recently that I'd like to start recording a few thoughts and experiences during this unusual time we are in, using my daily walks as a sort of marker. I recoiled at the thought of all the background I'd need to recount, but at length I've decided to just get started, and catch up on context as we go.
As I walked today I remembered a time many years ago driving near my neighborhood with my co-worker Geoff. The subject of our conversation was my wife, who had passed away, and with whom my co-workers at our company had been especially kind. Talking about this never bothered me, but people generally assumed it would, and at some point Geoff decided to lighten the topic by asking about the neighborhood. "What's that?" he asked, pointng at a medium-sized building. "That's a hospice," I informed him. "Oh geez," he said, then gave it another try. "What's that?" he said pointing at the park-like space on the other side of the road. "That's a cemetery."
Washelli Evergreen Cemetery was my walking destination today in part because it is one of the most scenic parts of our neighborhood -- at least among those not still busy enough with other people that I could properly follow the "social distancing" guideline of staying beyond six feet of all others -- partly because it felt appropriate to revisit the military graves as I was reading a book about Churchill at war, and partly out of simple attempt at some randomness in avoiding repeating any one route too often. To minimize encounters with other humans, as we are obliged to "flatten the curve" and slow the spread of the Coronavirus to mitigate overwhelming hospital resources, I cross Highway 99 near our house and walk a block behind it before turning northward. Thus I pass behind the long-closed pet shop, hair salons, and tattoo parlors, as well as the still opened pot shops, which, to the considerable relief of several of my friends, are classified as "essential," along with the grocery stores and auto repair shops.
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Ries Niemi's Light Bulb Bench
Seattle City Light North Service Center |
Drama is rare walking down the residential streets, but I do encounter a bit on this first stretch. Ahead of me a man walks out of a house, pulling a suitcase behind him as he heads down the street in my direction. For a while we engage in this new element of such walks, where we each wonder if the other might turn before we pass, and if not, who will be the first to cross to the other side of the road, or if necessary, walk down the middle of it, to maintain the currently required distance. After I cross the street and pass him, a young woman rounds the corner still ahead, perhaps from the bus stop there, and yells at the man, "Really, Mark?!?!?" She flips him off as she walks without a response from the man, and repeats, "Really, Mark?!?" before conceding, "Okay, just go!"
I should like to be empathetic to the personal struggles behind this little episode, but I confess to also being grateful for breaks in the monotony. Today marks 5 weeks since I was let go from my position at Expedia Group, about 4 weeks since most people in the Seattle area who could work from home were advised to do so, and imminent major events began to cancel, 3 weeks since the first of a series of plunges in stock market values, and 8 days since the governor of Washington made the social distancing guidelines more formal with an executive order, now forcing the issue of preceding guidance, closing non-essential businesses, and requiring all state residents to cease leaving their homes except to conduct "essential activities" and "essential business services."
The grounds now called Washelli Cemetery have served as burial site for European settlers in the Seattle area since 1885 and beginning with members of the "Denny Party," the very first of white people who founded the city. The military portion of the grounds are now home to the remains of over 5,000 American soldiers, from the Spanish-American conflict onwards. A very few others roam the grounds at mid-day, making it easy to abide social distancing guidelines. My wife, who passed away some 35 years ago now, is not among those buried here. She made such arrangements herself once her prognosis became fatal, to spare me the anguish, and she disliked the haughty attitude of the officials there, eventually settling on a family-owned plot on Queen Anne Hill overseen by an offbeat and less fussy elderly woman, much more her style.
Heading back home toward my house and my now fiancee, the pleasantly gray skies suddenly darkened an opened up with a torrential rain and hail storm, drenching especially my feet and legs. I resolved to check my weather app before tomorrow's walk.