“Each morning new
Each day shot through
With all the sharp, small shards of shrapnel
That seem to burst out of me and you.Head down toward Kansas
We will get there when we get there,
don’t you worry
Feel bad about the things we do along the way
But not really that bad
We inhaled
the frozen air
Lord, send me a mechanic
if I’m not beyond repair.“
I wrote copy in the recent past that evoked the notion of “Seattle nice.” Maybe you’ve seen it. The idea was to grab the attention of the connection and community starved in this city and invite them to a thing that would draw them into conversation. It seemed to work. Many swore by the concept. It hadn’t worked for me when I took part in it myself, but in spite of what you may have heard about me, I do try to relativize what I think as much as possible. I bracket off my feelings and assume I must be the odd man out.
But there’s only so many brackets in the world to box up our experiences. Eventually, those compartments have us so divvied up that there’s nothing left to hold it all together, and in a serious way, we stop existing; we just take up space.
The thing about “Seattle nice” is that it’s not very nice at all; it’s conflict-avoidant and inauthentic and masks a viciousness and lack of empathy behind a veneer of politeness. We kind of all know this. And yet, those who succeed in cutting through it to create pockets of love and care also know that the remedy isn’t as simple as a smile and a story. It takes work to undo the damage. Sometimes too much work.
There’s a lot of talk in woo-woo spaces right now about this being a time of transformation. Change is in the air. You’ve probably felt it too even if you’ve never even heard of a “Finger of God” and are too scared to ask; you just have to look around you and see the evidence of old things dying and new things struggling to come true. Or maybe you don’t read the news anymore (and who could blame you), but you see it in the faces of your anxious friends. There’s an energy. It’s electric.
I’m going through it in a big way. In typical fashion, it’s happening all at once too. This moment feels like a million and one questions I’d left unanswered all bursting out of me like pitchforks and scythes, and I can’t tell which piercing pain is an answer and which is yet another layer of self-delusion.
In any case, I’m here for it. Like one of my favorite songs based on one of my favorite psalms puts it, let my mouth be ever-fresh with praise.
“Then said I, Lo, I come: in the volume of the book it is written of me.”