25 years, unemployment and a poet in the park

Friday I spent the evening helping a friend/colleague get her house ready for the BBQ following the AIDS Walk on Saturday. We drank wine, swept dead leaves away from the back porch, mopped floors, washed dishes and drank more wine. Her home, the house she rents with graduate student, is slated to be demolished in November. It's one of the old houses, so solidly built, meant to last for centuries. I felt a great deal of irony cleaning up a space that is going to be torn down - even in the name of "development".

So for 25 years "AIDS" has been ravaging the continents - creating an artificial hourglass in some populations leaving grandparents to raise grandchildren; transforming into a chronic illness in others. It had just started to rain as Pygmy, Brandi and I left Ballard for the AIDS Walk in Capitol Hill. We found a parking spot far away and hiked a half dozen block to get to Volunteer Park where it proceeded to pour down rain. I guess it had been like this the year before - though that didn't dampen our spirits as our team met up for a photos and cheers as we reached our $5,000 goal (over by almost $500!) which was simply incredible. It is always a great community - those who walk in AIDS Walks - people who have lost loved ones; civic leaders communities of faith; like-minded organizations; those who simply care.

After the very tasty BBQ and a patio party with failed mint juleps, I headed home to meet a friend out for Live Girls! Theater's cabaret which takes place on the second Saturday of each month - the same time as the Ballard ArtWalk. The theme was "unemployment" - the skits were ok. The music was fun. However, there was a woman who created two songs using the tones, beeps, space-invader sounds of an old Gameboy. It was simply incredible! She covered a Postal Service song and created her own. I was blow away by it - she created these songs at the latest job she had been laid off from - with an old Gameboy - who knew!?

Though employed, was a poet sitting at a table at Greenlake where we take our Sunday morning stoles. At a table with a black umbrella with the words "poet" in shimmery sequins was a young woman (ok, my age). I walked over to her and said, "so what are you doing poet?" She told me that her project was to sit out there at Greenlake to show people that their are poets, living, breathing, existing in our communities. She was also a Peace Corps Volunteer in Poland. She was pleasantly surprised at how many artists there were in Greenlake. Inspired, I told her I would visit her again and maybe I would eventually get my act together enough to sit next to her at a table with the words "writer" in bright red glitter.