Random Seattle Thoughts

While there are admittedly days that I would like to return to Laos for the friends, the food, the warmth (who would've thought? but it is so cold here already and Fall has only just begun), the scenery, the music of the language (not the music itself, mind you), etc. I am happy to say that Seattle wins my heart over more often than not.

For one, I've found a job working as a "residential counselor" with the Downtown Emergency Service Center, i.e. I'm working (on-call) at a homeless shelter in Seattle. The full-time staff handle bed assignments and other matters of consequence. My duties are serving coffee, cleaning doorhandles, learning how to play cribbage, and finding some dominoes so I can play that as well during my "floating" shift (when I wander and talk to people). Yesterday was my first day and it went smoothly, save for a couple tense moments and the guilty use of a styrofoam cup, and I am excited for my next shift-- the bus ride down, the entering of another world when I turn off of 3rd through the shelter doors, the excitement and monotony of my responsibilities, the walk home through the international district.

And again, I went on a run today (a rarer occurrence than I'd like to admit, in all honesty) and it was blissful. The act of running was itself surprisingly nice-- my lungs didn't ache like last time and my body seemed happy to move and I felt no self-inflicted or race-preparing pressure to run a certain distance or speed or route-- but the fact that I was running in Seattle where it smelled like Fall and like Sweet Alyssum, where it was sunnily warm but with hints of coolness and clouds, where there were trails and parks that I didn't have to drive to reach, where there were hills but none that daunted me...

All that is to say that I'm happy to have found the work that I have in Seattle, that running and Seattle sometimes go perfectly together, that Seattle and autumn sometimes go perfectly together, that doing something because you want to do it without have any other "good" reason is a very good thing, and that there is truth in this sense that I got from The Brothers K that life is ugly and painful and ridiculous and unjust but still somehow beautiful and good and something to find joy in and be grateful for.