9. Walks

Shortly after Dad died, I took Mom on a walk up Capitol Hill to get to Group Health for a checkup. In other words, a two-mile walk pretty much straight up hill for the first mile. She did it. I had no thoughts of her being old or weak, I just assumed: she can do it. The thing is, she could do these things. She was strong enough. That first year she was in Ravenna I bullied her into walking more than she wanted to. I have memories from just after Dad of the wall of rosemary and lavender past the laurel hedge which was draped with blackberries. I would pull the long sharp-edged thorny strands down for us to pick and eat. The smells of late summer flowers and the rushing up cool air flowing from the trees and water below when we crossed the footbridge over Ravenna Park. Finding gardens for her to admire.

Walking with Mom was mostly sun and slowness and a pulling on my right arm. I don’t remember rainy winter walks; I know we must have taken some, she needed exercise. But that summer after Dad died when she was broken hearted and I was frozen numb aching bereft unmoored exhausted angry defensive alone sad was the summer of walks. With her or alone.

Long long walks when I was alone, climbing up Queen Anne, up Capitol Hill, up Phinney Ridge, up the hills the hills of Seattle, always another hill, always something to climb. More stairs, more hills of blackberrys and laurel. There was green and the smell of the lake and the moss on the tree roots down at the park by the Yacht Club next to the University Cut. More blackberries, the smell of blackberries in sun with dust and cars too close by and old oil and old houses. Downtown it was homeless people. The stink of homeless people with nowhere to wash or pee. Fear too. Downtown at night on the bus or wanting to be on the bus and giving up and calling a taxi which always took too long. Why Uber that’s why Uber because the systems didn’t work. Busses filled with stinky old or homeless people and young mothers and rabid teens and druggies and it can be scary to ride the busses downtown. On game nights anyway there is no room because all the sports fans crowd in at the stadium and then if you are waiting to go home from your downtown job you can’t get on the bus, it’s too full. That summer, fall, winter I learned about these ways Seattle fucks its citizens. Sleep on the street and enjoy it. Wait out in the cold.

At home Mom was aching and waiting. Craving warmth.