Category: Seattle

Categories
Nonfiction Observations Seattle

Bridges, Frustration, and Coping.

The longest floating bridge in the world is in Seattle. It is 7,710 feet (2,350 meters) long and spans beautiful Lake Washington. Locals call it the “520 bridge” and, in its current incarnation, only cars may use the bridge.

Yesterday, the Washington State Department of Transportation hosted the grand opening of the new 520 bridge. On the bridge were several food trucks, booths with information related to the engineering and construction of the bridge, and equipment and heavy machinery used in its creation.

To get to the event from Seattle, people had to take shuttle buses that originated at the University of Washington campus. The buses drove about three miles on the old bridge and delivered the crowds to the start of the new bridge.

Tens of thousands of people took the opportunity to walk across the bridge and enjoy the surrounding views that, prior to then, one could only enjoy by car.

In the early afternoon hundreds of people got in line to get back to Seattle. A young man wearing an orange vest carried a sign that read “End of the Line Here”. He folded the line back and forth to compress hundreds of people into a narrow area while we awaited the shuttle buses.

Behind us were two women who appeared to be in their 60s. One wore a visor that pushed her short white hair out of her face. The other had a greying bob.

“This is ridiculous!” Visor exclaimed. “This isn’t organized at all! We’ve been waiting in line for over 30 minutes and I don’t see any buses coming!”

“I know!” Grey Bob agreed. “We haven’t moved at all. This is terrible. This is ruining the entire event!”

Thin white clouds were streaked across the bright blue sky. A refreshing breeze swept around us. Mt. Rainier stood in the distance, a lenticular cloud atop its peak like a floating hat.

“OH MY GOD we’re actually moving!” Grey Bob squealed as the line shuffled forward. “We might actually get off this bridge!”

“I’m not going to be that optimistic,” Visor replied. “I’m going to wait until we actually get to UW before I say that.”

Shimmering white light danced on the dark blue ripples of Lake Washington. As the clouds dissolved under the sunlight the snow-capped peaks of the Cascade Mountains revealed themselves. A media helicopter, less than 100 feet above us, drifted past.

“HELP US!” Visor screamed at the helicopter.

When we could no longer hear the helicopter, Grey Bob sighed, “It’s been over 45 minutes. This is unacceptable.”

“If I have to wait in line any longer, I’m going to jump over the side of the bridge and kill myself,” Visor squawked.

Grey Bob laughed before commenting, “The barriers aren’t that high. Someone could really jump over. It wouldn’t be that hard.”

“Oh yeah, you’re right,” Visor said, her voice non-plussed. “That’s not good.”

At around 55 minutes the line was no longer still. We walked in quick strides towards five buses. Two of them faced West to go to UW. Three of them faced East.

“All the buses are gonna go to Seattle,” the event planner shouted at us. “Get on any bus on the other side of the barrier. All the buses will go West.”

I smiled as I watched my father scramble over the barrier—while not a spring chicken, he is still spry—and my husband and I made a point of scurrying away from Grey Bob and Visor. The three of us got on a bus facing East.

Nearly 100 of us packed into the bus. My father sat to my right. A woman in her 50s wearing a bicycle jersey sat to my left. My husband gave up his seat in an act of chivalry for her. He stood near the rear exit of the bus.

The bus headed East towards the fancy-pants neighborhoods of Medina and Hunts Point. Once the bus was off the bridge, it passed an exit. Then another.

“WHAT?” Bicycle Jersey exclaimed. She leaned forward and barked at her friend, an older woman with glasses reading a newspaper, “Why is the bus driver not turning around? Doesn’t the driver know that we’re supposed to go to SEATTLE?”

Someone pulled the wire to signal the bus to stop. People snickered.

The bus slowed to a halt at an intersection with several other shuttle buses. It did not move for nearly 15 minutes.

“This is so disorganized,” Bicycle Jersey said. “This is not worth it. This has ruined the entire day for me.” Her right thumb scrolled through an article by Nick Kristof: “When Whites Just Don’t Get It”.

The bus then crept north towards Kirkland.

“WHAT?!” Bicycle Jersey shouted. “Why are we going to Kirkland? We’ve been on this bus for over half an hour! We should’ve gotten on a bus that was going the other way. They’re already back home.”

“I never take the bus,” a woman standing over my dad said to no one in particular. “I’m never doing this ever again. Unless it’s a shuttle bus at a really nice wedding. And I mean a REALLY nice wedding.”

A young man with facial stubble near my husband hugged a pole. “We’re almost out of water. We’re going to die on this bus.”

“It’s like we’re hostages on this bus,” Bicycle Jersey spat.

The bus stopped at the Kirkland Park and Ride, but not at the curb.

“He better not make us get off this bus,” Bicycle Jersey said.

One man got off the bus.

“Did we come all the way here just for that one guy?” Bicycle Jersey continued. “What about the rest of us?”

The bus rolled back down the hill and stopped at an intersection.

“WHY WON’T THE DRIVER GET BACK ON 520?” Bicycle Jersey shouted. “TURN RIGHT HERE.”

“We’ve been on this bus for almost an hour,” Facial Stubble announced.

When the light turned green, the bus turned right and we were back on 520.

“We’ve been on this bus for almost an hour,” Facial Stubble announced again.

The bus rolled past the line of people waiting for buses. It was nearly a mile long now.

“DON’T GET ON A BUS HEADING EAST,” Bicycle Jersey shouted at them. None of the windows of the bus were open. The bus was going over 40 miles an hour.

“We’ve been on this bus for an hour now,” Facial Stubble said. “This is the worst mistake of my life.”

Some people have to wait over an hour every day just to get food and water.

I’m going to guess that you ate breakfast this morning. I’m also going to guess that you’re going home. Because you didn’t have to work today.

You’re not showing any overt signs of dehydration. Shut up. You’re not going to die.

The only person holding you hostage right now is you. Your bitterness isn’t going to make us get back to Seattle faster.

If you are joking about suicide because you’ve been waiting in line outside on a beautiful day for 45 minutes, how do you deal with actual stress?

Maybe you sustained a brain injury in your frontal lobe and that’s why you have low frustration tolerance.

Maybe your prefrontal cortex hasn’t fully developed yet. That process isn’t complete until your mid-20s, at which point you’ll hopefully have better impulse control.

Maybe no one ever taught you emotion regulation and distress tolerance skills. So maybe this is a skills deficit.

Maybe you’re having a rough time in life right now. Maybe a relationship you value is ending. Maybe someone you care about is sick and dying. Maybe, under different circumstances, you’d exercise more patience.

Maybe you’re a victim of specific operant conditioning: Maybe you’ve learned that people only pay attention to you and value what you say when you’re expressing snark or distress. And that people will only take you seriously the louder you talk.

My dad shrugged.

“We just had bad luck today.”

Categories
Observations Reflection Seattle

10,000 Windows.

“I think I can see 10,000 windows,” my dad said as we looked out of his apartment. On the other side of the glass was a view of downtown Seattle.

“10,000?” I did not mask the incredulity in my voice. “Is that a good thing?”

“Yes, it is,” he replied. “More windows means more people. We all need people in our lives. According to feng shui, the more windows you can see, the more influence, more popularity you will have.”

“But 10,000?” I asked again.

“Yes,” he said. “I can see the Columbia Tower and that alone has several hundred windows. Think about all the other windows of the skyscrapers….”

“Yes,” I said. “10,000 windows.”

We had lunch at a hole-in-the-wall restaurant in Chinatown. He expressed his pleasure with the food to the waitress. She had immigrated to the US about ten years ago. My father had immigrated to the US nearly 45 years ago. When he spoke to her in Mandarin, he used a phrase to describe his immigrant status that I didn’t understand.

“There’s a special term for us,” he said. “We were born in China, so when we fled to Taiwan [to escape the Communists], we were considered ‘mainlanders’. We were different. Not everyone from Taiwan had the opportunity or means to immigrate to the US. So we were considered different again. When we immigrated to the US, we were considered ‘Chinese’ and still different—”

“—an alien no matter where you went,” I finished.

“Yes!” my father exclaimed with a smile.

My father always insists on picking up the bill when we go out to eat. He and the waitress began talking again:

“Have you lived in Seattle since you immigrated?” the waitress asked.

“No, I moved up here to be with her,” my father said as he pointed to me. “She’s my daughter. My wife passed away last year.”

“Oh. She was born in the US, wasn’t she?”

“Yes, I was born here,” I answered in Mandarin. “That’s why my Chinese isn’t very good.”

“It’s not that your Chinese isn’t very good. You speak with an American accent,” the waitress said to me. Turning to my father she continued, “She’s very well-mannered. I could tell when you both walked in.”

Suddenly, I was eight years old again. I sat still, said nothing, and kept my face neutral. This is what you’re supposed to do when your elders say nice things about you.

My father nodded and smiled. “She is courteous; she has class.” After taking a sip of tea, he continued, “My daughter is also a doctor.”

I winced. They only saw me blink.

Daughters must be humble so their parents can show their pride. I swallowed my embarrassment with my tea.

My mother used to do that all the time, too: Out of nowhere she would tell strangers that I was a physician.

“Why do people need to know?” I used to complain. It never changed their behavior, so I stopped sharing my objections with them.

There are now other things I don’t share with my father.

“How’s work?” he asks.

“Work is fine,” I say. Work is always fine. I don’t tell him the terrible things patients have said to me. I don’t tell him about the injustices of the system: Was it designed this way? Are these perverse outcomes from good intentions? I don’t tell him that I hustled him into a restaurant to avoid an encounter with a patient I worked with in jail.

Every time we see each other I tell him I love him—a brash thing to do in a culture that values stoicism. I don’t tell him how anxious I feel when he doesn’t respond to my text messages within an hour: Did something happen to him? Is he okay? Did he die?

I don’t tell him how I still feel sorrow for the the death of his wife. I simply cannot imagine his loss.

He must know, though, just as I know about the heartache he still feels. It’s in his face, the way he looks into the distance, as if the past was just beyond the horizon.

We instead go out to lunch. I let him buy it for me and listen to him speak of the beauty and power of 10,000 windows.

Categories
Homelessness Nonfiction Observations Seattle

Street Scenes.

The woman walking in front of me on the sidewalk was wearing a short skirt and a sleeveless blouse. After stepping out of the street he readjusted the strap of the large duffel bag on his shoulder and began to drift towards her. Uneven stubble covered his face and his hair stuck out in several directions.

“Hi,” he said, smiling with both his eyes and lips. “How are you?”

She swept past him without turning her head. Unfazed, he then saw me.

“OH, COME ON!” he exclaimed, his voice more delighted than annoyed. He clearly recognized me.

As he continued to grin at me, I offered, “Hi.” I know you, too…

“Hi! How are you?” he greeted, his voice warm and his eyes bright.

“Fine, thank you. How are you?” You were one of my patients, but from where…?

“I’m good, thanks. It’s so nice to see you!” Neither one of us stopped walking, though he slowed down just as I began to cross the street.

I waved good-bye to him. He waved back.

Oh! I last saw you in jail! You thought you were a machine! You told me that everyone could read your thoughts! You shouted at the walls of your cell—

—and how much better you look now![1. The moment someone changes out of a hospital gown or a jail uniform into casual clothes he will immediately look more healthy, independent, and dignified.]

My father was telling me a story as we walked past the corner store. I’m not sure if he saw the man approach me.

“Hey, can you spare some change?”

Turning my head with a small smile and looking at his face, I said, “No.”

“Oh, hey now,” the man said, starting to walk next to me. He then reached out and stroked my arm. “I just want to touch you.”

“DON’T TOUCH ME!” I shouted, still walking. The man stopped. My father, taken aback, looked at the man over his shoulder, though remained silent.

“Go on,” I said lightly to my father, who then did. However, I didn’t hear anything he said. Did that actually just happen?[2. In my years of working with people who are homeless it has been rare for anyone to touch me. This includes people who were actively psychotic or acutely intoxicated. Furthermore, when people have touched me, it was within the bounds of social convention: We shook hands, gave high fives, bumped fists. Hence my alarm after this man touched me.]

The yellow sign on the fence reads: “Illegal activities and loitering not permitted.”

Within the confines of the fence are at least ten tents arranged in a half circle. Some are reinforced with several layers of duct tape. Others are covered with blue tarps.

A small barbecue grill, round and uncovered, is in the center of the circle.

A freeway ramp is on the other side of the fence. Trucks with 18 wheels, cars running on electricity alone, clunkers painted different colors, sleek sedans with round logos, and vans carrying kids, groceries, sporting equipment, and DVDs roll past.

The camps have grown this year.

Categories
Medicine Nonfiction Observations Seattle Systems

On What Medical Directors “Should” Look Like.

I recently answered a survey about race. One question asked:

“If you ask to speak to the leader of your organization, can you expect to see someone of your race?”

I snorted. I didn’t mean to. I just had never thought about that before.

In my previous job my title[1. As I have noted elsewhere, “titles, at the end of the day, are just words.“] was “medical director”. During the first few months of that job the title felt alien to me. It was as if people at work said, “Oh, Dr. Yang? She’s the one over there with the blonde hair.” Meanwhile, I’d touch my black locks, feeling perplexed.

Early on I conducted interviews to hire staff. One applicant, a psychiatrist, was a Caucasian man in his early 50s. His greying brown hair was cropped close to his head. A striped burgundy necktie adorned the light blue dress shirt underneath his navy blue suit. Cuff links poked out from under his sleeves. A silver pen was clipped into the breast pocket of his jacket.

Turning to the program manager, I murmured, “THAT guy looks like a medical director, not me!”

She, a Caucasian woman, laughed before she said, “Yeah, you’re right!”

In the jobs I’ve held the medical directors have all been Caucasian males, with the exception of my first job: He was Asian. In residency training the chair of the department was a Caucasian male. The paintings and photographs of leadership that lined the halls of the medical school were all of aging Caucasian men.

That’s how I came to learn that medical directors don’t look like me; they’re older white men.

Leadership at this agency believed I had sufficient qualifications and hired me, an Asian female, to serve as the medical director. However, the idea that someone in this position “should” be an older white male persisted in my mind.

What does it mean that I felt doubts about my ability to work as a medical director simply because of the way I look?[2. While this post is focused on race, it could easily focus on sex, too: Most medical directors are men.]

Categories
Homelessness Nonfiction Observations Seattle

Simple Pleasures.

People hung hammocks between trees and suspended their disbelief in novels. Cyclists rolled past, talking to each other over their shoulders. Parents pushed sleeping babies in strollers while sipping iced coffees and slushies. Couples held hands and shielded their eyes from the afternoon sun. It tossed silver glitter onto the blue water of the bay.

Not a cloud was in the sky: Mt. Rainier loomed white and massive to the south. The Olympic Mountains, also capped with snow, rose in the west, its jagged ridges carving a grey-blue line on the horizon. Trees full of green leaves covered the islands in the distance.

The man was wearing baggy pants and dirty work boots. Over this was an oversized and puffy winter parka, tattered at the edges and the hood pulled over his head. A duffel bag that was half his size hung from his left shoulder; as he walked he listed to the right to maintain his balance. People gave him wide berth as they walked past him. He held his head low.

He dropped his bag on the boardwalk and sat down. Sitting against a post, his back to the brilliant sun and shimmering water, he zipped open the duffel. From it he pulled a brown paper sack. He used one hand to rustle through the contents within.

He pulled out a small item wrapped in white. With expectation on his face he opened the package. Leaning back, he took a bite from the chocolate-covered ice cream bar. A small smile crossed his lips.