Category Archives: communication skills

Change Your View

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Change your view. Change your point of view. 

Sometimes moving is good for the soul. We are of an age when moving is a huge chore. We have not done the downsizing that anyone our age should have done by now. But we (I, at least) have committed to doing it now. And it actually feels OK. Sorry, mom, but I am parting with some of your things, finally. I wish your grandkids wanted some of these treasures. They don’t, but I’m keeping your favorite knife, and yes, it’s a good one.

Our past addresses include: Seattle: 723 Federal, 742 10th; the pool in Houston, Robinhood in Houston; somewhere in Bellevue; in Seattle: 13th Ave, a different address on Federal Ave, our first house, the duplex, the boat, 59th St apt, 59th St condo; then the Skagit house; back in Seattle: 6501 condo, 1120 Spring, 900 University; briefly Enumclaw; and now Olympia. Eighteen addresses in 58 years. That’s a lot of moving. Our first three apartments were furnished, so we just moved clothes and dishes. That doesn’t seem to be a thing today – furnished apartments, but it was good when we started out. 

Most of our moves had perceptible ambiguities from the outset. They would do for the moment, but there was no sense that they were final. Then we moved to a retirement community that we assumed would be our last and final address. But no. Seven years in, we both felt the need to leave. Part was the neighborhood that had changed so much during our time there. Part was just the realization that I was constrained in uncomfortable ways, part was the fact that it no longer worked for us when my husband gave up his driver’s license. We moved closer to recreation areas that we liked, but we knew it couldn’t be our last address.

It took less time than we expected for us to crave a walkable neighborhood. We had always opted to live in walkable neighborhoods, then we didn’t, and we soon realized that we’d made a mistake. So now, Olympia. And a very walkable neighborhood in Olympia. Across the street from the West Bay of Budd Inlet. Turn left to get to cafes, stores, a bakery,  and a grocery store; turn right to get to free concerts and the farmers’ market. Look south to the state Capitol, north to the Olympic mountains. Can’t drive? Buses are free and easy to access; Uber and Lyft are nearby; there are small stores, big stores, open space and forests and streams nearby. Could this be our last address? Yes, could be, but we’ve learned that we don’t really know for sure. 

So, we have changed our view. What about changing our point of view. Well, as in most places, the chatter I hear here is decidedly one-sided. Granted, I have only met a fraction of the residents here, and I gradually want to engage more of them in conversation. But Olympia, as a community, is perhaps bluer than even Seattle. (Is that possible?) So I might have trouble finding people who inhabit the “radical center,” which is where I position myself. Still, I practice “I Statements” in discussions to avoid making people who want to disagree feel uncomfortable. I suspect there are other centrists who are just too bashful to engage. 

What I always hope to find is someone who is well informed on an issue I know little about (or even on one I know more about) who can talk me out of my leanings, whether left or right, without being obnoxious! “I never thought of it that way,” is something I enjoy saying. Does that seem strange? 

So much about the setting we’re living in now is calming, restorative, just all around pleasant. Will the people be engaging and uplifting? I think so, but I value my online connections in case they’re not. 

Why Do I Love Sabine Hossenfelder?

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I’m taking a break from the depressing state of the world to offer up some fun science videos for your entertainment. I don’t have an actual YouTube account, even though I spend a lot of time on YouTube. My guess is that if I sign up for an account, YouTube will double down on its attempts to track everything I watch, so no account for me. That means that my time on YouTube is much more random than it needs to be.

The great thing about random offerings is that I find surprises in their suggestions that might not show up if I were directing YT to send me in the direction of “my personal silo.” One of the best surprises recently was videos by Sabine Hossenfelder. She has degrees in physics, but now spends a lot of her time as a “science communicator.” That wasn’t an option when I was wondering what to do with my life many decades ago, but I think I would have enjoyed being a science communicator. 

In any event, Sabine has a YT channel with programs on a wide array of topics. A recent one was a about climate change in which she wondered why her videos about climate change get the most thumbs down votes of all the work she does. Watch it and see what you think. 

Oh, and by the way, I just learned today that we can minimize the tracking that YouTube does on us by viewing everything through “Duck Player” from DuckDuckGo. Clever, no? Yes, DDG started out as a search engine that minimized tracking, but now it’s its own browser and video player. Give it a try.

For more free science, try Knowable Magazine. Lots of articles on a wide variety of topics, and did I say it’s free? Yes, they’d love your donations, but they’re not required. 

In any event, it’s all a pleasant relief from fretting about Congress, about the 2024 elections, about Ukraine, about Israel. And about all the other troubles in the world that get very little press. 

Your Neighbors Are Not Fine

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A week ago, I was on my way home from an appointment with my psychologist. Yes, I need therapy. And, not your business. In any event, I took light rail to Westlake, then walked up the hill from there. I met a friend in Freeway Park, we chatted a bit, then I decided to be brave and ask her a question I rarely ask people. 

Her husband died last winter, but I’ve seen her out and about in our retirement community since then, and she looks “fine.” By this, I mean that she is dressed as smartly as ever, seems always to have a destination in mind, and simply looks as she always has. But frankly, I’m curious about how people deal with the death of a spouse, so I asked her how she is with life alone. Without hesitating, she said, “I hate it. I really hate it.” 

“Wow,” I said, “I’m glad I asked because you always look fine, but I don’t know how you could be.” “No,” she said, “I really miss him. I miss the things we used to do together. Everyday, I miss him. I don’t like this at all.” 

Not an hour later, I was leaving the laundry room on our floor and bumped into another friend. I say friend, but in neither case was this someone I would call on for help. Yet, we are friendly to each other, and we chat from time to time. Again, I asked this friend how she was. “I’m finally starting to feel more like myself again,” she said. The last time I’d seen her, it was near noon, and she’d just gotten dressed and left her apartment, still looking a bit disheveled. This time, she was brighter and told me she’d started taking an antidepressant. A closer friend than I had told her she really seemed depressed and needed to get help. Fortunately, she trusted this friend enough that she followed through and did find help. She said the pills were kicking in, and she was doing better.

Those two encounters made me wonder how many other people I pass in the halls or see in the dining room or lounge each day are not “fine” no matter what they say. I rarely tell people when I’m down in the dumps, and I’m sure most of us are pretty good at passing for fine. So how is it that we can not see that some of us need more than a “Hi, how are you?” in passing. 

Many of the 500 residents here had friends or relatives living here when they moved in. We did not. Neither did the friend who was depressed. And we did not find it easy to make new friends here. Yes, there are plenty of activities that we can join in. We have exercise classes, speakers and programs, committees galore. (That is we did until Covid. We’re just starting to get back to a semblance of normal.) I’ve volunteered for a few things, but I haven’t made close friends from those ventures. I have one good new friend here. One. How many others are in the same boat? 

I’m not sure if there’s a fix for this conundrum. But I think we should ponder it. Residents who moved to Seattle to be near children or grandchildren still need friends here. Unlike college, when we were all looking for friends, not everyone here needs new friends. But those of us who do, don’t have an easy way of advertising that fact. And people who’ve moved in to join an existing cadre of friends or family don’t need to reach out. 

At the very least, I will try to be more attentive when I ask how people are doing. Perhaps I’ll follow up with another question or two and give them an opportunity to open up a bit if they choose to do so. And maybe I’ll open up a bit. Truth be told, I don’t always share much during down times when I could really use a friend, and I’m guessing others don’t either. So I will need to experiment. I’ll report back.