How Does She Do It?

Jen Gay and Elizabeth Klob of Cicada Bridal: Doing Traditional Women’s Work in a Non-Traditional Way

- Janet Pelz

Like the French bakery whose scent lures me with the promise of butter on the tongue, I’m drawn to Cicada Bridal to tease my fingers across the textures of raw silk and lace. Not to mention dreaming in the stunning designs and outrageously rich colors.

Starting the day at Cicada, 1121 1st Avenue Seattle 98121

I’ve been pulled in like this on several occasions since that magical day 15 years ago when I exited the dressing room in a lavender shantung silk column dress to see my friend Judy dialing her cell phone. “I’m calling Mario’s to tell them not to hold that other dress,” she said nodding at me, “because this is what you’re wearing for your wedding.”

It was an odd place to find a dress shop, on an upper floor of the old Rainier Office Tower, and one that I happened upon only because of an overwhelming need to pee and a memory of the public restroom hidden nearby. It seemed that much more fatalistic to have found this store, clock ticking the days away before my wedding -- way too soon for a future bride with any sense of decency.

I was rescued then by the artistry of Jennifer Gay and Elizabeth Klob, the pair that owns and manages Cicada Bridal as well as designing and sewing the unique pieces of art hanging on the racks where we now sit, in their current shop on First Avenue in downtown Seattle. 

As they will do throughout our interview, the two throw back their heads in laughter thinking back to that old location. “What were we thinking? Why would ANYbody open a dress shop there? It was huuuuuuge; it was like an indoor golf course. All the space you could ever wish for, but nobody could find us.”

Playing off each other they recreate some of the more outrageous stories from that phase of their career, including the time an employee took after a thief with a couple of their prized  gowns in a backpack.                                                                        Elizabeth (left) and Jen in the shop

Jen and Elizabeth were in the back of the store, where they spent much of their days at their sewing machines. “You would think half of the dresses would have been stolen,” says Jen laughing.

But as odd a location as that one was, it was at least bigger than their prior 1,200 square-foot shop they shared with the go-to designer for the city’s drag queen clientele. “There was a fire in that building,” says Jennifer thinking back. “A fire, but no flood -- there,” Elizabeth picks up. “We’ve been through fires and at least three floods in our current building. I’ve had our insurance on speed dial. It just happens when you’re a retail shop in an old building and you’re underneath condos with plumbing problems.”

Oh well, just one more obstacle -- rather, learning opportunity as they prefer to call them -- to push through. If they knew when they first met in the basement of Retro Viva, stitching up creations from whatever bolt of fabric awaited them in the morning, that they would journey together through so many misadventures to get where they are today.... OK, after talking with them for a couple hours I have to guess they would probably do it all over again.

“So many young women want to interview us to find out how we did it. Our friend Maggie called. She used to work for us and she’s opening a bridal store in Denver. ‘Oh my God!’, she said, ‘I think about you every single day! How did you do it?’ Here’s how -- we didn’t think about it!”, says Elizabeth, laughing.

“We are hard as nails,” declares Jennifer, seriously. “Yes, we are hard as nails, Elizabeth agrees. “We didn’t have time to think. All these people call us and ask how we did it -- It was really 90 percent balls and ignorance. Really!”

Jennifer can’t wait to agree. “Oh my God, not a day goes by that we don’t fuck something up and learn a valuable lesson.” This line gets them laughing in stereo. “We are crazy!” says Elizabeth, stating the obvious.

Crazy maybe, but after 18 years, also very successful at what they do: designing, sewing, and fitting the perfect dress for any special occasion, from holiday party or prom to wedding.

They met when Jen stopped by Retro Viva to sell some hats she had made. “The big drag queen who worked there was like, you gotta meet Elizabeth down in the basement! And he takes me down to this dank, crap-ass basement, not even a daylight basement, but a basement basement with concrete floors. There’s Elizabeth, working away all by herself down there, weren’t you?” She turns to Elizabeth who throws in a response from the reception desk where she’s attending to details, making it clear that the two are used to jumping seamlessly in and out of each other’s conversation.

Jen joined Elizabeth in the basement until the store owner realized she couldn’t make dresses for less than they cost coming from China, “so she very nicely said, “I don’t think we can do this anymore,” and we said, “well, how about we do it ourselves?

“One of the things that was helpful is that we weren’t friends first. We walked into the relationship like work associates. It was a totally clean slate, with no weird pre-history. I mean, we learned we could work in a basement eight hours a day without killing each other!” laughs Jen.

With a boost from the store owner, who rented them all the equipment at a reasonable rate, they started a wholesale line selling mostly through trade shows. Their showroom was in Georgia “because that’s where our rep was based,” explains Elizabeth. “We were just flying by the design seat of our pants.”

“It was a lot of work for just two people,” adds Jen, thinking back. “You’d get an order for a dozen shirts and you’d have to sit down and make a dozen shirts.”

After listening to them describe fabric shopping trips to the garment district in New York City and a business where items were made in Seattle and sold in Tennessee I asked for specifics, like how much time and money they were putting into those shirts, and how much they had to charge in order to pay themselves?

“Those are GREAT questions that we probably should have been asking ourselves!” answers Jen, laughing once again. “That’s when we realized, we didn’t have any trouble selling our garments,” adds Elizabeth. “We were selling them way too cheap!”

“But then we decided we didn’t really like doing wholesale -- it was kind of soul sucking,” Jen reflects. They were running into problems collecting. Some stores went out of business, others bounced checks. “That was really new to us, having to chase down money. And at the same time we were getting a lot of requests to do wedding dresses. The business kind of suggested itself to us. I think we had done about five or six wedding dresses before we decided to put a really small collection together.”

Jen and Elizabeth will both say that the essence of their job is to make each customer feel exceptionally beautiful. “The thing with wedding dresses, we get to buy really top quality fabrics,” says Jen, and it’s evident that behind that statement lies years of polyester and velour remnants. “Really high quality fabrics and we get to put a lot of time into a very special item.”

(right: Elizabeth describes a gown she particularly likes these days, noting the textures, layering of fabrics and asymmetric hem)

A student of acting, Elizabeth appreciates the dramatic quality of the wedding, with the gown the essential costume. “There are so few rituals left in our lives – I’ve always been drawn to the ritual of a wedding. A woman gets to transform herself as if she’s on stage.”

The two of them take seriously their role in making that transformation exactly what their clients want. Says Elizabeth, “If I were asked, What’s the biggest things that’s saved us? Customer service and really listening to our clients. In this business people are so emotional, there is so much at stake. We hear time and time again about bridal shops that are indifferent to their clients. We really, really take our relationships seriously.” And in return? “We get hugs, tears, thank you letters. For all the trials and tribulations of owning your own business, this really means a lot.”

Jen handles most of the customer service on the floor while Elizabeth does most of the custom work. They credit their solid work relationship to having discreet areas of responsibility “without getting in each other’s hair,” Elizabeth observes. “We used to fight a lot before we did that,” pipes Jen. “We’re both east coast girls, so we speak our minds; we don’t hold back. When something is wrong we get it out!”

There are many gorgeous choices on the floor but if someone is coming in for a specific style, Elizabeth will do a custom design. “I work a lot with full-figured women who can’t get something off the rack but who really want something to flatter them. When we first started out I was eager to please no matter what. And now I’ve gotten to a point where I will not do something that’s not going to look good on the person’s body. I ask them to trust me. Or they say, thank you very much I’ll go elsewhere. But that doesn’t happen too often.”

“She’s very good at looking at a ridiculous number of pictures and distilling them into one dress,” says Jen admiringly of her partner. “You’re really good at that.”

(left: Jen shows one of her favorite party dresses, hand-beaded in India.  One thing Jen loves about owning her own store – the ability to pursue new creative directions.  “Some work, some don’t” she admits).

Most of their bridal gowns range in price from $1000 - $1700 with a custom design starting at about $2000. Since the economic downturn they’ve added a less expensive line, more appropriate perhaps for a beach or destination wedding. And on the opposite side of the store is a fabulous variety of eclectic designs for special occasions. So even if you aren’t planning a wedding any time soon, there are dozens of reasons to consider a shopping trip – or sensory indulgence – to Cicada. Either Jen or Elizabeth is likely to be the one welcoming you into the shop.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  (A bridal gown and evening dress in the Cicada collection.  To see more, visit their web site.  photos by Rathbone Images)

While they love their work, it’s not all that fills their lives. They both had children during the course of their partnership. “And we’re both really active, creative people outside of work,” says Jen earnestly. For her part, as you might expect of someone who spends her days sewing wedding gowns, she fills her non-work hours playing drums in local punk bands. She started on her son’s rejected miniature drum kit and still takes lessons at Seattle Drum School. “I love learning new things,” she effuses. Click here to listen to her “girl punk” band Minirex, for whom Jen designed the group’s costumes, of course. You can hear her keeping the beat in the sample songs there. Or you can find a youtube video of her playing with Witches Titties in a show with Alice Bag, whom Jen describes as Chicana Punk.

Having a teenage daughter at home with a penchant for reality shows, I had to ask about the impact to their business from shows like “Say Yes to the Dress.”

“I don’t have a television,” admits Elizabeth. Jen has seen the show once or twice when on the road. “Why would people bring so many people to their appointments? And everybody wants to have to have alcohol. We don’t allow that. They need to think about it sober -- we do not want any bubbly decisions that are regretted later.”

For her part, despite the craziness of the business, Elizabeth has nothing to regret. “I want someday to walk out of this and say, that was the best decision I’ve ever made. It’s still what I want to do – I love coming to work everyday and I’m not good working for someone else.”

(In the back of the store where the creations are made)

Jen and Elizabeth’s Not-So-Secrets for How They Do It?

• I’m not sure I’ve interviewed anyone who had an answer for this question as quickly and as categorically as Jen, who looked me straight in the eye and pronounced: “I don’t quit. Anything. I will do it until I’m the last person doing it. I will never give up. I never stop doing what I start doing. I will always be the last man standing. They say that 90 percent of success is showing up. I keep showing up.  It would never would occur to me to pull the plug.”
• And here’s probably the most important factor in their success – Elizabeth picked up precisely where Jen let go. “I personally don’t know when to say no. We never quit. Nobody has ever been backing us. We weren’t given any financial support to get started. It’s just us and two crazy credit cards.”
• And then of course, the two started laughing in stereo again.   Which suggests another key to their success – finding the humor in any situation.
• “Underlying everything is a huge amount of trust. This is paramount. Mistakes happen. We’ve been at it since the beginning and we’ve made every single mistake we could make. There is no escape. You’ve got to trust each other.”
• And as for the customer service end of the business? “You have to be really present and observe what’s going on. If I see some subtle thing on a client’s face coming out of the dressing room, I have to get to it right away.” Jen will often take the dress to the back of the store and make the alteration right then while her customer waits.

What has Jen read recently?

• Violence Girl: East L.A. Rage to Hollywood Stage. A Chicana Punk Story; by Alice Bag

“I mostly read biographies, non-fiction and brain science books.  I lost my appetite for fiction.”

Who should I interview next?

• A friend of Jen’s, who plays in the band, leads Ghost Tours of Pike Place Market and makes dolls.

Wrapping up Detective Cookie

It has been a couple weeks since I posted my story about Detective Cookie, which brought with it a wonderful new friend and some readers new to my site. It’s a nice feeling having a friend in the police department.

I loved Cookie Bouldin’s reaction to seeing her story among all the others I’ve posted: “It makes me want to meet all these amazing women! Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could all get together and learn from each other?” Which is basically what I hope this web site could do, without the challenges of organizing schedules among a few thousand calendars.

If you’ve learned something from Detective Cookie, I hope you’ll share it with her by clicking the red ‘comment’ link below as others have. Meanwhile, the last additions to her story:

How can you support Detective Cookie’s Urban Chess Club?

Donations can be made to the Seattle Neighborhood Group Inc. for the Urban Youth Chess Club at 1810 East Yesler Way, Seattle, WA 98122. The phone number is (206) 323-9666.  SNGI website.

 

Seattle Police Department Detective Cookie Bouldin protests the shooting death of unarmed Florida teenager Trayvon Martin.  Photo: JOE DYER / SEATTLEPI.COM

Cookie Bouldin’s Not-So-Secrets for How She Does It?

• Lacing through her life story is the theme of taking counsel from others and passing it along. Detective Cookie credits the pivotal points in her own life to the people who took time to share advice with her, and not just in her past. She is energized by each new person she meets who can motivate and inspire her. She oozes enthusiasm for what’s still possible, what more she can learn, how she can grow.

• She’s determined not to keep that inspiration to herself but to pass it along. She measures her career success in a list of kids who went to college and got good jobs. Everyday she hopes to add someone to that list.

• One piece of advice she gives to kids? Have more than one goal. Don’t limit yourself to one. She points out that when she was young she had four: be a dancer, be a model, be a teacher and be a police officer. “And I reached all four. I was a dancer on Soul Train when it was taped in Chicago; I’ve appeared in major fashion magazines; I’m teaching anti-violence in the classroom; and I’m a police officer!”

What books has Cookie read recently?

· Letters to a Young Brother: MANifest Your Destiny; by Hill Harper

“Letters to a Young Brother is drawn from the humbling life lessons Hollywood actor Hill Harper learned on the road to his Ivy League education and beyond.”  – Amazon review

After being contacted by Detective Bouldin, Harper sent some copies to help her start a book club. “I gave it out to boys who needed that brother. Just yesterday I had a young man call me saying he was in college in Hawaii. I used to see him at the rec center, always with a basketball in his hand. I told him then that he needed to go to college. He thanked me for giving him the book three years ago.”

· Standing Above the Crowd, by (former Seattle Sonic)James Donaldson

“Standing above the Crowd is jam-packed full of success strategies that I've used throughout my life in the areas of athletics, business and community.” -- Donaldson

“James has been a mentor and role model. His book tells you the right things to do -- never be satisfied with someone telling you you’re not good enough, keep going, keep trying. I keep it in my car, close to me all the time.”

Detective Cookie Bouldin: Stopping Violence with a Chess Board

- Janet Pelz

It seems like everyone knows Detective Denise “Cookie” Bouldin, even at the times she hadn’t known herself. In the Chicago projects where she grew up, opportunities to make the wrong choice were a plentiful commodity. But thanks to strict parents and a number of adults who took the time to care, Denise Bouldin learned to know herself. And she’s determined to return the favor those people paid her, in a hundred different ways, every single day.

In a loud and lively lunch spot in Seattle’s Rainier Valley, I wait my turn to say hello to Detective Bouldin. Dressed in police blacks with a purposeful bearing, makeup and nails mastered from her days modeling for Ebony and Jet Magazines, her entrance commands the attention of wait staff and diners alike. She knows someone at every table, shaking hands and patting shoulders, some stopping her proudly to show off their children and grandchildren. She finally takes a seat at my table, but not before her eyes meet most every other pair in the room.

Everybody here knows Detective Cookie.

(photo credit: KING 5 News)

I came to know her after listening to a story about her by Jamala Henderson on our local public radio station KUOW.

I stayed in the car until the piece was over and scribbled a note to myself. It took a while to track her down and find a time to squeeze into her schedule for a quick lunch between two elementary school classroom visits where, as a community relations worker for the Seattle Police Department, she delivers lessons in anti-violence. And chess.

It started like this. A while back she was given the task to organize an activity for kids in the neighborhood – something healthy for them to do while interacting with the police in a positive way. So Officer Cookie organized a basketball game between the neighborhood kids and a police team. It was a rousing success. The kids outlasted their grown-up opponents and relished the chance to rub it in.

So, when time came around the following year for another activity, she assumed she’d be organizing a repeat match.

“But the kids said, Officer Cookie, ‘We don’t want to do a basketball game again. Not all of us play basketball.’ And when I thought about it I realized, there were a lot of kids who didn’t play basketball but just sat and watched. So I asked them, what did they want to do? And a few of them said, ‘Let’s have a chess tournament.’ A chess tournament? That’s the last thing I expected to hear. But I’m saying to myself I gotta make this happen, so I said, OK!”

But then what? Officer Cookie didn’t know much about the game and what she did know, she didn’t particularly like.

“As a kid, I was pretty much brainwashed that I wasn’t smart enough for chess. I never saw a black person playing chess. Never. And then someone showed me all the pieces on the board and said, ok this is what this one do and this one do, and I got frustrated ‘cause I kept forgetting. And I said, you know what? I hate this game, I hate it, hate it, hate it. Don’t ever want to play it again,” she declared, hand sweeping the table as if she were clearing the board. “My brain just wasn’t made for chess. And when anyone would try to teach me I would say, I can’t do it, I’ve tried.”

But this was for the kids, not for her. So she went to the Parks Department and got some chess boards and organized a picnic in a local park.

“So, we got ready for the chess tournament and I set up the boards, and to my surprise there were only a couple of kids who knew how to play chess and the rest of them were just standing around watching.                          (photo from Detective Bouldin)

“I asked the kids, be honest, how come you don’t play chess? And they would answer, ‘I’m not smart enough to play chess. I don’t play because chess is for smart people. Chess is for white people, for nerds.’ I realized that the answers these kids were giving were the same answers I gave for not playing chess. The same reasons!

“Now, I was a real good, set-the-chess-board-up-person. And making sure kids came. But whenever the kids wanted me to play chess I would just mimic their moves. Wherever they moved their piece, I would move my same piece. I had no clue to why or whatever reason it got there and for what purpose.”

She was getting ready for another such match when she heard a little kid whisper to her opponent. “He was about 4 or 5 years old and he said, ‘don’t worry, you’re going to beat Officer Cookie’, and I’m like, oh no he didn’t! No, he did NOT say that! All I could do was laugh, but he was so right!”

So Officer Cookie connected with the American Foundation for Chess, who promised her she would be playing chess in 30 minutes or less if she came to one of their trainings.

“So I went. And they taught me chess piece by piece. We started with just pawns. And after about 20 minutes, I was playing chess and I was LOVING it, I could not get enough of it. And I wanted to play chess day and night.”

And the more she played chess with kids in the neighborhood, the more she realized that it was much more than a game.

“I use the chess boards to teach anti-violence and to teach about making good choices. Cause if you don’t make good choices, there will be consequences. If you’re so quick to take somebody’s pawn and you don’t notice that there’s this knight over there hoping you make that move so he can take your queen, it’s going to kill you! Same thing on the streets! You’ve got to make this choice -- do you want to be in a gang? Do you want to pick up a gun and shoot somebody? What are the consequences? I’ve had kids tell me, Detective Cookie, you know, chess is like real life! And when a kid tells me that I know I’m getting through.”

(photo from KING 5 News)

Denise Bouldin knows well what real life is like for these kids.

“In my neighborhood people tried to get me to do drugs, to sell drugs, to do prostitution. I refused to do that, basically because my parents were strict. Back in the day, you knew you would get a whipping -- you wouldn’t get a time-out or spanking, you got a whipping. After you get one, you don’t want to get another. That’s not to say I didn’t try. Some times I would meet my friends dressed in hoochie-mama clothes,” she confesses, arching her eyebrows to make sure I knew just what she was saying.

A young Denise showed up once at the local Boys and Girls Club wearing some super-tight pants when an older woman pulled her aside to offer some advice. “She said, you know what? You’re not that type of person. Because of your clothes, it’s going to make people think different of you. She gave me a long talk about it. Back then, everybody could say something to a kid; everybody was your parent. I tell people today, talk to kids, cause sometimes just saying something can make a difference like it did with me.

“I trusted what this lady said and I never dressed like that again. I started thinking about how other people would see me. It made me realize, I had friends who were gang members, but I wasn’t in the gang. I didn’t want to be seen like that so I had to give up some of my friends. Someone could come by in a drive-by shooting, they’re not going to tell me to move aside because I’m not in the gang. They just shoot.”

When Detective Cookie addresses third graders at a south end elementary school, she shares this life history with kids who sit up straight, hands folded on their desks, listening intently.

“There’s going to be times when someone is going to ask you to do drugs -- by the time you get to high school, maybe even middle school. You will have to be ready with your answer. If you have a weak ‘no’ they’ll hear that as a ‘maybe’. Don’t be afraid to say no; you have the right to say no; you have a right to mean no. Make your no mean no.”

And then Detective Cookie gets out the chess boards. Quietly, the group divides into pairs and sets up. The kids have all learned the lesson of the first move – reaching across the board to shake hands. And then they get started. Most of the students seem to have a good command of the game. Solid moves and captured pieces activate the classroom. The few who are still learning the game work together in one corner where Detective Cookie circles back frequently to answer questions.

In the school hallways the kids smile at her and wave. “Hi Detective Cookie!” is offered down the line. She knows these kids and she knows their families. If one of them misbehaves in school she’s got the family’s number on speed dial in her cell phone, and she’s not afraid to use it.

This kind of police work has earned the recognition of many notables. In 2011 U. S. Senator Patty Murray awarded Detective Bouldin a “Golden Tennis Shoes” award. In accepting the honor, Detective Cookie used the podium to inform the crowd the chess club would be coming to an end due to lack of funding. Read this clip from The Stranger about her moving address. 

 

 

 

In 2011 she received a Community Builder Award from the Seattle Neighborhood Group. In 2010 she was chosen as the Best Police Officer by the Rainier Valley Post.

Becoming a police officer would surprise the people she grew up with. Back then cops were rarely your friend. “I hated the police, just like everybody else. I thought all police harassed young black people.”

(photo credit: Red Fish Blue Fish Photography)

But when she got to high school, “I met a police officer who was at our school everyday, it was his assignment -- and this police officer was the nicest person. You could go up and talk with him. That’s when I started thinking I might want to be a police officer like him, interacting with people.”

Success in the Seattle Police Department didn’t come easily. “When I came to the Academy they thought I was sort of joke, because I didn’t look like a police officer. When I went to my personnel interview I dressed like my other job -- a professional model. I was in my modeling clothes; make-up perfectly done.”

There was one white woman in her Academy class along with about 25 men. And one African American woman in the entire Seattle Police Department.

After she graduated she learned that her classmates had placed bets that she would fail. “The ones betting against me didn’t make it through the Academy themselves! What they didn’t know, I’m from Chicago, I got five brothers, I’m street smart, very street smart, I’m athletic, I’m a tomboy.”

After the Academy she had to make it through training. Although she met some encouraging officers along the way, “some were trying to get me to quit. We would sit down for coffee and they would tell jokes about the white man, the china man and the black man, and always the black man would get the butt of the joke. I didn’t say anything, all I wanted to do was to get through. One guy wrote me up for taking too long to do my report. He didn’t mention that before we got to the precinct he had us running all over town picking up his laundry and all his other jobs.

“I had a supervisor tell me the same thing, I took too long on my call. But you have to realize what I’m doing! This old lady got in a car accident, it totaled her car. I’m waiting until the tow truck comes to get it and I’m not going to leave this little old lady ‘til the cab comes to get her. We once did a raid on a house and I stayed a little longer because I saw that there were kids in the house with no food, so I went out to get some. And then I volunteered to take the kids to child protective service so they could get in a foster home. It takes me a little longer because I’m not going to leave until the job is done.”

(KOMO TV: see the full clip here)

Detective Cookie finally made it through training, and this day over her lunch order delivered to the nodding waiter as ‘my regular’, she realized she had just passed her 32 year anniversary on the force.

“I tell kids, you gotta start planning your roads now. What you want to be way down that road to success -- start that road right now. Even if you’ve done some wrong things in the past, you can make a change right now. I stopped hanging with people doing the wrong things, and it allowed me to become a police officer. “

As a police officer Detective Cookie has experienced some of her proudest moments. She was a body guard to Rosa Parks when the civil rights leader spoke at Garfield High School. “And I was one of the Seattle Police Officers on security detail for the inauguration of President and First Lady Obama. I had tears running down my eyes. I got a beautiful gold badge. This is something I will cherish for my whole life.”

Look for an upcoming column on Detective Cookie along with directions for how to support her Urban Chess Program.

Looking Forward this New Year

- Janet Pelz

New Years rolled in like a mild surf on the bay, the days as small waves lapping on the shore. Back in the times when New Years seemed like something that didn’t come around very often, January would crash with a resounding wash of foam upon a waiting beach. 

I’ve been aware of a numbing around the edge of days. I imagine this like a type of encroaching blindness where the periphery loses to black while only the center image remains. Is this a simple reaction to aging, I wonder, or is it a response to our moment in history? Is it internal to me or shared by everyone else – everyone outside that periphery?

Four years ago I thundered with anticipation of each new day. We were moving toward a moment in time when something remarkable would take place. The election either of the first woman or first African American President, a dramatic reaction to the prior eight years of chest beating and dumbing down. The news was thrilling – I drank it thirstily, absorbing each nuance that suggested that the country was coming to its senses and that our side might actually prevail. My children watched me weep along with hundreds of others when my brother announced that our state had voted for Obama and the march of other states seemed to be doing the same. And then there were the images from Chicago – the beautiful family, Jesse Jackson crying quietly on the sidelines.

And the morning of the inauguration, watching throngs crowd the Mall despite the bitter cold to witness history. I welcomed in the elderly women in my neighborhood who I knew would otherwise be watching all alone in their homes. “Hurry!” I said, choking down tears, “Aretha Franklin is singing My Country Tis of Thee!”. The pundits were calling Republicans irrelevant. The country was a blank slate for us to fill, with wisdom and generosity and justice. I felt electric with possibility.

And then came the frightening power of no – the Republicans believing their best strategy was to prevent any forward movement. It was as if we had been walking through a dark cave for years towards an elusive light – experiencing first the almost imperceptible shade of gray, the expansion of air, a thin strip of yellow that leaked in through a fissure, and then, finally, the full brightness of day stinging our eyes at the mouth of the cave. And just as we were ready to step out of the dark confine, the doorway collapsed, leaving a heap of jagged rock in our path. The light was still perceptible, but nearly impossible to reach.

The escape has been difficult, and it feels like we’ve had to shed so many parts of what we aspired to and what inspired us to be able to surmount the immense pile of rubble in front of us. And where normally I would have the ambition to help lead us out, instead I feel as if I’m climbing each boulder one at a time, with lots of deep breathing in between. I’m grateful for the protestors in Madison and the 99%-ers who are doing their best to drag us along – it seems right this time to be led rather than doing the leading.

Hopefully in this year upcoming the path will be cleared. When presented with the alternatives, common sense will prevail. Our country will find again a sense of community and embrace the least among us with the same fervor as we did those who exploited credit default swaps (and who understand what those are). I’m working on reigniting my optimism.

In this New Year, I hope to find the means to issue a steady parade of meaningful waves on the shore – I’ll stick to the bay and leave the ocean to those with a surfboard to navigate.

                photo credit: Nathan Griffith, featurePics

You may have noticed I haven’t posted in a while. Since my last post, I came by some writing gigs that actually produced a paycheck and they filled the hours between managing the family’s comings and goings. With those behind me, I’m looking forward to writing about other (extra)ordinary women. Those I’ve met in the course of this project have lifted my spirit and inspired me onward, and, if you just read everything that preceded this, you can see that both are needed.

Let me know if you have ideas of women I should meet. I’m in the process of setting up some new interviews, but I’m always eager for more ideas.

And in the meantime, if you have a glimmer of optimism for the year ahead, please share it by clicking the red “comment” link below and submitting your thoughts. I’m guessing we can all use it.

Thanks for sticking with this through the quiet times.

An Opportunity and a Gallon of Milk: Revelation at the Downtown Seattle Food Bank

- Janet Pelz

Part way through my volunteer shift distributing food at the Downtown Food Bank a face came through the line. I went through the data bank of my memory – did the person evoked have a job the last time I saw him? Yes – a good one working for the State. Age similar? No, this face was much older. I shut down the computer on that file, but a thought lingered. Something about how any of us could end up on the receiving end of a food line one day, and that you’d be surprised at who you might see….

After a river of faces flowed by I closed the file on that idea as well until I saw him.

He might have accepted my choice of milk or orange juice and moved on like any other, but the line had slowed just as he approached. And there on his chest was a badge identifying him as a seller of Real Change, the newspaper written and distributed by the homeless. And on that badge was his name: Scott Harper (not his actual name).

The computer in my brain booted up again whirring through files of names and experiences of years past. I studied him a bit – the last time I saw a person by that name he would have been 12. How many years ago? Maybe 18 by now. What would a 30 year-old version of Scott look like today, adding a few extra years that the streets would have worn on him? He waited there longer, almost as if the line had stopped deliberately to help me put the pieces together.

These pieces.  Those 18 or so years ago I was heading up the Seattle Center Academy. The program was a brainchild of Virginia Anderson, then the Center’s Director, to match the tremendous artistic assets of Seattle Center with young people at a particularly impressionable age. Each student had the choice of one group to study with in the morning and another in the afternoon during their two-week summer session. Hip Hop dance and pottery were among those most often requested. Pacific Northwest Ballet offered a class in the old Opera House rehearsal hall. It was filled almost entirely with girls in pink leotards. And one boy – Scott Harper.

He arrived in a pair of gym shorts and a t-shirt.

I stopped by that first class, knowing the one boy might need a bit of encouragement and support. Although he wasn’t fixing his hair or comparing leotard colors with his other classmates, he nonetheless seemed comfortable enough in that group. Put in other words, he didn’t do what we would have understood in that context – the pre-teen bolt. Instead, he joined the line when the instructor organized the group, and when the first chords of music struck, he straightened his back and extended his arm so gracefully that those of us watching caught our collective breath.

Most everyday thereafter I would wander by the rehearsal hall and peek in to see how things were going. Scott was always participating with commitment equal to any of his female peers, but with an innate sense of grace that exceeded any others. When I got a chance to talk with him about his choice of classes, he responded straightforwardly, “I heard that football players take ballet to improve their footwork and balance.” Scott played football.

At the performance on the last day of camp, Francia Russell, co-artistic director and director of PNB’s prestigious dance school was clearly impressed. “We’ll give him a scholarship to study at the school if he’s willing to make the commitment,” she offered enthusiastically. We spoke with Scott and we spoke with his mother. The deal was sealed.

 

PNB’s DanceChance Boys in Modern class.
©Angela Sterling

When the Scott Harper standing before me declared his preference for milk I asked the question in the best way I could, not wanting to probe the circumstances that had brought him to this place in front of me. “Are you a dancer?” I asked.

He raised his head, looking directly at me for the first time. “Hey,” he said, “I remember you, from Seattle Center, right?” He delivered his words with a full smile, as if we had bumped into each other browsing the neighborhood book store. “Yeah, I had a full ride at PNB, and then I broke my leg.”

And then he was gone. Accepting a bag of potatoes from the next volunteer in line and looking ahead to what followed.

He left me there, leaning on the table to keep from falling over. Such a flood of emotions, the first, until I realized the egotism of it, about me. I had felt so good about making a difference in this young person’s life.

On the shelf in my office I still hold a ballet dancer’s black shoe. On the bottom the following is scrawled in black ink, “Janet, Thanks for sending Scott to PNB. The best to you always.” It is signed by the woman who taught that Seattle Center Academy class.

And then, once realizing that I was not the casualty in this story, I wondered about the parade of events in this young man’s life – in anyone’s life – that had brought him to selling Real Change on the street corner while relying on the food bank for his meals.

For me, yet again there was first a lesson in humility. As exciting as the possibility might have been that his life could have been turned around by one contribution I made is, of course, unrealistic vanity.

And then there was a small sense of satisfaction, that I could have touched this one man’s life twice – once to give him an opportunity and another to give him a gallon of milk. I hope there are others in his life to give him more of both.

 

Want to know more about the Downtown Food Bank, including how to volunteer?

Dignity and service are at the heart of the Downtown Food Bank’s mission. In 2010, the Downtown Food Bank handled approximately 45,000 visits and provided more than 269 tons of groceries to the elderly, homeless and working poor within the Pike Place Market and downtown Seattle communities. The Food Bank also provides clothing, baby supplies and hygiene products, which are donated by the community.

Dedicated volunteers -- many of whom are clients of the Food Bank themselves -- contribute thousands of volunteer hours to help meet the growing demand for the Food Bank's services. If you would like to volunteer, contact Kevin Futhey.

You can make a contribution by clicking here.