Queen Anne Hill - Seattle, Washington
The middle of August, 2010

SUMMER LETTER

As a child I had the misconception that June, July, and August were the longest months of the year - and that summer was somehow a larger season than fall, winter, or spring. Summer promised time free of the demands of teachers and the restrictions of parents, when the daily agenda was mine, and the possibilities limited only by my own energy and imagination. Summer stretched away toward an infinite horizon.

It was always a shock when the first “Back To School” signs suddenly appeared in stores offering school supplies and clothes and lunch buckets.
What? We only got out of school last week.

That misconception has lingered in the back of my brain.
The early warning sign that summer has leaked swiftly away again is in the farmer’s markets: local sweet corn and peaches mean mid-August. And I’m already filling in the September pages of my appointments calendar.
What? Only last week it was June.

There’s no time left now to sort out the garage, as planned. Or to finish the revision of a novel and a new book of essays. Or get in the long walks in areas in Seattle where I’ve never been. The trip to the boondocks to cut and split firewood that would then have time to dry in the summer heat and be ready for winter - that’s still way down on my Things To Do list, and it looks like a presto-logs winter. Again.

It may be the weather, which remained cold and rainy into May, and then segued into a summer marked by cool-cloudy evenings, foggy-misty mornings, with sun only in the afternoons. Not conducive to energetic activity. I, who gladly rise up with the sun at five a.m. in high summer, have just as gladly looked out the window into the fog, rolled over, and drifted back into the dreamy sleep. Rare is the morning when I’ve charged up and out into the day ready for extravagant bursts of activity.

It’s not that summer has passed quickly, just slowly, lazily. That’s not a complaint, just a description. Meteorologists say that the jet stream has stayed significantly south this summer, producing weather in the Pacific Northwest more like summers in northern California and the coast of Oregon. It’s weather that calls for reading books, eating soup at home, and a fire in the fireplace almost every evening. Weather that brings on nostalgia, reflection, and, at times, for no reason, grumpy moodiness.

This is inner weather. Odd how, no matter how good life is from a rational point of view, one’s inner weather becomes negative and moldy.  It’s not the blues or depression or the flu. It’s the grays. Nothing serious. And, usually, something can be done about it.

For example, when I’ve had a lumpy weekend, and it’s cold and grainy, and I don’t want to go to bed in a bad mood, I seek out the mind-changing environment of the Little Red Hen in Seattle’s Greenlake neighborhood. It’s the local legendary home of country western music.

Saturday night featured Jo Miller’s Burly Roughnecks onstage, long-necked Budweiser from the bar, professional bull riding on the TV, and a truly random collection of regular inmates who have two things in common - dancing - and topping off the weekend with companionable joy.

It’s like stepping into a documentary film about west Texas in the seventies. Maybe not everybody’s dish of tea, but it’s what I grew up in, and when I walk in the door, I’m one of Them, my mind is back there, and I’m content.

A lady, who asked me dance, said coming to The Hen set her mind up for going to work on Monday - and couple of hours at The Hen, a couple of beers, a few rounds of dancing, and some laughs was the best anti-depressant she’d tried, and it beat hell out of yoga and bottled water.

(Google Little Red Hen and check it out - and come sometime. Even if you don’t dance or drink beer, I defy you to leave in a bad mood.)

When I came home, I opened all the windows to let the night air in, read a few pages from a book of jokes before turning out the light, pulled the blanket over my head and dreamed I was a stand-up comedian whose act included ventriloquism using a dummy who looked like Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones. I kid you not. And I woke up in a fine mood, but unable to remember the jokes from my routine.
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This morning I called American Express to authorize them to allow my travel agent to access my pile of accumulated points for a plane ticket. Elizabeth had given me the number to call. When the connection was made, something quite amazing happened. But I won’t tell you.
Call the number yourself 1-800-296-3276.
Over twenty years of working with my travel agent I have found that her efficient competency masks a wicked sense of humor.
Go ahead. Call. And listen all the way through.
(For those who read this from way outside the U.S.A., I’ll tell you later.)
Elizabeth claims I wrote down the wrong number. Maybe. Maybe not.
But it’s for certain that we both began Monday’s workday with laughter.
________________

While I’m writing this I’m listening to a Mexican radio station. In Spanish.
The announcers have the Juice - energy, vitality, and a little touch of madness. There’s a dose of Ai, ai, ai thrown in for injunctive excitement.
The music features accordion, trumpets, bass, sometimes tuba, and is mostly in dance time - waltz, polka, and two-step. There is news of the world from time to time, but it’s easier to take in Spanish.

For the same reasons I go from time to time to have Mexican breakfast at Senor Moose in Ballard. I sit at the counter so I can enjoy the action in the kitchen. Young, energetic Mexicans whipping the food out in a social atmosphere one step short of a piñata party. Laughing, teasing, singing.
My huevos rancheros come seasoned with Hispanic salsa.

Sitting at bars in restaurants is my preference. Strangers will talk to you, and so will the waiters, cooks, even the scullery crew. And if you ask, they will tell you about specials that are not on the menu - what they like to eat - what’s really good, but doesn’t have a name.

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If you’re beginning to wonder where this is going, I don’t know.
I just started in, as if writing a letter to family and friends, and I have no idea where or when it will end. It’s part of my summer state of mind.

There is a file in my Journal folder labeled “Working Fodder Strings.”
Almost every day I transfer thoughts from my head to my notebook and on into that file. Later, when I pull on a string and it’s attached to enough thought to tie into a bow, then it winds up here.

Some strings are very short and get tied onto an ever-growing ball of string. In school days one could anticipate having to write an essay the first week of class on the subject of What I Did With My Summer.”
What I’m doing now is in that spirit - checking the notes and thinking
I should throw this or that in - it’s not required reading, after all.
I may not even edit this when I’m through - just pass it on.
I won’t say you’ve been warned - just advised and notified.
Quit when you’ve had enough - I’m plunging on . . .

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A couple of times a month I go for grooming. First to my barber, Christine, and then behind the lines into enemy territory to get my toes and fingers tidied by the Vietnamese Nail Squad. Women call this “going for manies and peddies.”

This is a women’s world - customers and technicians. I’m usually the only guy, ushered into a booth on the back wall, more of less out of sight. It’s an opportunity to look through the pile of magazines that are in the category of “Women’s Interests"- about beauty and fashion and sex and weight-loss and yoga and movie stars. And a chance to listen in on conversations to which I am not usually privy. Conversations men do not ever have.
It’s always an educational experience.

This morning three women were talking about where to go in Seattle to buy bras if one breast was significantly larger than the other, and whether the new stick-on, strapless, flesh-colored bras were worth the money, since they tended to lose their stickability after a few washes. I had no idea . . .

Then there was another conversation about dermal filler"- a new technique offered by the spa up the street to deal with facial pits and scars. It’s like putting Bondo on dents and scrapes on a car fender, but not as radical as Botox. I had no idea . . .

I was not included or consulted. And would not have been much help.
But it was amusing. Not for what they said. But because they were all seated in whoopy-do high-tech electronic chairs that gave them back massages and rub-a-dub-dubs that made them all shake as they talked, and from time to time jiggled their shoulders around like go-go dancers, making their breasts shimmy and shake in unison, whether they matched in size or not.

Informed and entertained, I felt like applauding the show - as I slipped out the door, walking a ways barefoot in my tidy toes.
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Spent four days at a tango festival.
How’s my dancing? It’s getting better. Tango takes a lifetime.
I’ve stopped talking about it or writing about it.
The deal is to just keep doing it until you don’t think, just dance.
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One weekend I attended the horse races at Emerald Downs in Auburn.
Such an anachronistic thing to see crowds of people going as mad as ever as ten big horses come thundering down the track, being lashed along by tiny men with quick whips. People jump up and down and shout and scream and let it all hang out. Something you really can’t do on the sidewalk downtown without getting arrested.

It’s about risk-taking, a nice term for gambling. Imploring Fate and Luck to reward you for your profound intuition about the speed of something that eats hay and oats for a living, and runs like hell when whipped.

The track is built on land owned by the Muckleshoot Indian Tribe, and they get a big share of the income. That’s a good thing. They also own a very successful casino and entertainment/shopping complex. That’s also a good thing. They are in the money these days. And money means power. And power means authority. And money and power add up to finally running their own affairs in their own way - making jobs, improving housing and health care, and sending their kids to college. They can hire the best attorneys and accountants and doctors and teachers, too.

So I think of my gambling losses as a small pay back for what my people owe their people. I only bet on grey horses who evacuate their bowels on the way to the starting gate. They’re different and they’re running light.
They all lost.

The same weekend I attended the United Indian Tribes Pow-Wow.
Hundreds of Indians, 25 big drums, booths selling salmon and fry bread and jewelry. And when it came time to dance, the center of the arena was filled with Native Americans of all ages in magnificent costumes of leather, silver, feathers, beads, bells, and blankets. The face paintings alone were enough to make me want to get rigged out and get out in the ring and dance to the heart-throb beat of the big drums being pounded by six to nine men - Whum whumwhum, whum whumwhum, whum whumwhum . . .

But that’s never going to happen. Thinking I’d like to give that a try has got me into some amazing enterprises - tango, for example - but I will never be an Indian. You have to own too much history, too much suffering, too much tradition - and the ownership has to be woven into your heart and mind and body. It’s not how you look, but what you are - way, way down deep.
Just call me White-Man-Wants-To-Paint-Up-And-Dance-But-Better-Not.

My tribe, the pale faces, the Peoples of the Beige Bodies, do have a tribal costume. Look around. Flip-flops, cargo pants, T-shirts, baseball caps. That’s what the women wear. But men and children, too. We’ve become the Wash-and-Dry-and-Wear People. No bows and arrows - just cell phones and credit cards. The Cargo Cult. My tribe.
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Death has been on my mind this summer, educationally speaking.
I was invited to speak at the annual meeting of the Funeral Consumer’s Alliance, a consortium of organizations that promote and protect people’s rights to meaningful, dignified, and affordable funerals. They exist as a response to the abuses and excesses of the commercial funeral industry.

As a matter of disclosure I should say that I’ve long been a member of the People’s Memorial Society of Washington, which has 185,000 members and has been in existence since 1937. (You can Google for more information.)

Some current trends are Green burials - with urns and coffins made of recycled materials or bamboo - placed in cemeteries that are parks without markers. The right to do-it-yourself is another matter that’s becoming acceptable. I picked up a book on do-it-yourself tombstones and grave markers, and another book on do-it-yourself coffins - for pets and people.
And there’s a book how to prepare a body for burial - something more commonly done than you might think.

One topic of discussion was the line of thinking that says I don’t want to live into feeble old age, maintained in a vegetable state at huge expense by heroic measures. There’s too many of us. We’re living way to long.”

OK, that’s my sentiment, too. Ah, then comes the difficulty.  So what do you do, how do you do it, and when? How will you decide it’s time to go? And how will your friends and family feel?

Such a difficult question. I wonder, given the power of the life force within us, if we will ever find some legal and socially acceptable accommodation of this quandary.

I appreciated being with the delegates to the Funeral Consumers Alliance where the matters of death and burial can be addressed openly. As well they should be. Life is a terminal disease. A fact that should not be ignored. In my years as a parish minister I encountered much pain and sorrow that came as a result of a denial of the reality of death and the refusal to plan for it in such a way that eased the way for those left behind.
________________

Enquiry:
Have you ever run for office?
For what position?
By nomination or on your own initiative?
Did you win or lose?
How did the results affect your life?”

Voting is on my mind. It’s primary election season.
And you can’t vote without the other side of the equation: candidates.
So, being a candidate is also on my mind, and I’ve been asking those five questions of friends and acquaintances.

It’s less than a week until Washington State holds its primary and special elections. On the ballot are candidates for U.S. Senator, U.S. Representative, State Senator and Representative, and various court Justices at several levels of the legal system. Because we vote by mail, I have just voted - marked my ballot; signed, sealed, and stamped it, and gave it to my postman.

Whenever you can vote on anything, vote.”
That’s axiomatic on my personal list of rules and regulations.
And I hold in contempt anybody who can vote who does not.

Whenever you can run for office, run.”
That’s not on my list.
I do admire those who do, but I’m not and never will be one of them.

In this I am not alone.
About half of those I’ve asked have not ever run for any office, allowed themselves to be nominated, or been elected to serve in any capacity.
It’s not for their lack of willingness to be useful in the commonwealth.
They’re involved - doing their part in one way or another.
It’s not for their lack of ability to serve.
They’re as qualified for office as most of those who run.
They’re just not wired to participate in the competitive side of politics.

As one expressed it, I don’t know which would make me feel worse - to win or to lose - to beat other candidates or be beaten. Just give me a job to do, and I’ll get it done, but don’t make me compete to get it.”

That’s about where I am, too.

When pressed, some people admitted they ran for office once but only once.
And they lost. And never ran again. Here’s one typical example:

She once ran for a place on the student body council in high school.
She participated in student affairs. She was a member of the debate team, led an active social life, played tennis, and had good grades. Her boyfriend was attractive - but not too attractive. She was pretty - but not too pretty. She had never been nominated for Homecoming Queen. She had good skin, nice clothes, and her own car.  She came from a good family - and went to church and Sunday School. No scandal or innuendo was attached to her name.
The other candidates seemed less qualified or worthy than she.
How could she not win a place on the student body council?

She lost.
Not only did she lose.
She didn’t even come in second.
She finished third.

“I was utterly humiliated,"she said.
Not even close. Third place. THIRD! Out of a field of three. It was the only time I cried in high school. I stayed at home in bed for two days. And I’ve never run for any office since. I never got over being third place. Fear of being third has kept me out of politics ever since high school.”
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It’s late now. I’m out of gas. The clouds of evening have moved in. In the distance I can hear the first fog horn saying that fog has already moved in on Elliot Bay.

For no reason I can think of I wish I could go down to the station and catch a southbound train headed for Barcelona.

I did that once. And put the trip into my novel, Third Wish.
And though it’s a memory, I realize that the station I left from in Paris is still there. The train is still running on the same tracks. Barcelona is still there, going on without me. It’s 6 a.m. The dining car is open. Inside there is fresh coffee and croissants. Outside the first light of dawn is revealing that I am in Spain. The train is slowing as it enters the station . . .
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Enough.
Unedited, there it is. A letter to you in summer, wherever, whoever you are.
Good night.
And good morning . . .

Fulghum