I walk through quiet Sunday gray, my neighborhood awakening
around me. A newspaper flutters on a front porch, a vestige of times gone by. I
wonder how many papers are still delivered in West Seattle.
Tom sat at the kitchen
table each morning, the newspaper spread before him. I complained about the
stacks of advertisements collecting on the floor, about the newsprint dirtying
the tabletop. He switched to The New Yorker, The Smithsonian. Now he reads his
phone.
The black and white cat sits preening herself on the block
she owns. Fearless and proud, she expects traffic to stop for her, pedestrians
to pay her mind. When I walk my daughter’s dog, I avoid this block.
We never had cats, not
even a barn cat to control the mice. Always dogs, but what good was a dog for
catching mice? My mother – or was it my father? – didn’t like cats. Now I am
not fond of them either.
A motorcycle roars down Charlestown hill, a slight slow at
the stop sign, no stop at all. The bright red streak flashes before me, shaking
me from my morning musings.
The hill where Dad
once flipped his Harley. Going up, not down, on ice. The hill high school
graduates paint every June now reads Class of 2019 in colorful joy. What did it
read the year my father graduated?
Madison Middle School towers on the hillside above me. The
2005 renovation to the stately 1929 building began the year after our daughter
moved on to high school. I trace the track and circle the building as I climb,
catching my breath under the giant tree at the top of the hill.
Images of Erin and her
friends float by, teenyboppers full of youthful sass and energy. Getting into
trouble, finding their way out of trouble, discovering who they were, who they
would become.
I continue walking and soon West Seattle High School looms
large along California Avenue. Built in 1917, the Neo-renaissance building
retains much of its architectural charm after an extensive remodel, completed
in 2002. A year later, Erin followed her grandfather’s footsteps by attending
his alma mater.
I see my father in
faded photographs, football tucked under his elbow. He wears a leather helmet
and a cocky grin, a dark curl hangs forward. Black and white photography does
no justice to his brilliant blue eyes. I wonder if the trophies bearing his
name are still on display.
On the opposite side of the street a new building takes up
the better part of a city block. The tile work – what looks like large subway
tiles – on the exterior of the new four-story structure was completed more quickly
than my small bathroom.
Was it fair of me to
leave the house so early, to make an escape from the dust and noise of our
remodeling project? I left as my husband tested the table saw and measured his
first cut of the day. I left before the confrontation with the contractor over
the unacceptable tile job. I left before more tears of frustration and anger.
I wind through the gentle silence of Hiawatha Playfield,
under enormous oaks, past the tennis courts and the community center. The wading
pool forlorn and empty. Does the Parks Department still fill it each warm
summer day? Check the water quality every few hours?
Did I take Erin often
enough as a toddler? Was it a welcome summer escape during earlier remodels to
our small West Seattle home? She began swimming at the YMCA so young, she
seemed to outgrow the wading pool overnight. She grew up overnight.
I follow the graceful curve of Walnut Avenue. Mid block, I
pause before a house my father once remodeled. A house where I lived as a child
too young to remember. A house whose interior I know only through family lore
and longing. It is the only house my father remodeled, preferring to build from
foundation to rooftop.
I hear the echo of
Tom’s angry words from the day before. “It would’ve been easier to tear the
damn place down and start over.” Maybe. “We’ll get through this,” he said as I
left the house. Although it is hard to believe his words of comfort, my morning
walk settles my soul.
