Thoughts From Elliot Bay: Editorial

by Anna Forbes

Pioneer Square stands as one of the oldest districts in Seattle, and it also houses my new favorite bookstore, Elliot Bay Books. This old brick building and I were recently introduced by my best friend Emily. We pulled open the front double doors and stepped onto the creaky hardwood floor, at which point I was already captivated. After looking at stationery and the Staff Favorites section, she brought me to the dimly-lit café in the basement. I studied the posters that hung on the brick walls while a man with dreds and tattoos made my hazelnut Americano. This was Seattle.
I sipped my hot drink and scanned the wooden bookshelves, amazed at the size of the bookstore and the amount of information contained within its walls. Lately I’ve been lingering at the Biography and Religion sections. I suppose it’s because at my age, I’m making decisions that will set a pattern for the rest of my life, and I find some sort of inspiration from knowing how other people lived and how I ought to.
These past few months, I’ve thought a lot about my generation’s reputation. Let’s face it: many of us don’t know how to grow up, and quite frankly, we’re scared to. Sometimes I almost feel frozen in place, knowing I don’t want to go back in time but hesitant to step forward, uncertain of where I’ll land. I’m afraid to make the wrong choice, but I think that not making a decision is nearly the same as making the wrong one.
On the shelves in front of me sat the stories of Winston Churchill, Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther and Saint Augustine. Each of these remarkable men was at many points afraid of what the future would hold and wondered what would result from their decisions. Their fear didn’t stop them from doing what they had to. Churchill said this: “Every day you may make progress. Every step may be fruitful. Yet there will stretch out before you an ever-lengthening, ever-ascending, ever-improving path. You know you will never get to the end of the journey. But this, so far from discouraging, only adds to the joy and glory of the climb.” Such optimism in his words!
I stood there for several moments, mulling over these thoughts, and something in me changed. Ironically, I became aware of another choice. I can choose to take responsibility for my actions and take steps toward making things happen in my life, or I can wait on others to pick up the slack for me and straggle through life riding on everyone else’s accomplishments. As I see it now, that is what I’m choosing between. Personally, I would rather chase my dreams as hard as I can and see where God allows me to go with them. The adventure of this is so much greater than living a predictable life where no risks are taken simply for safety’s sake.
The pages of the books I looked at were black and white with words describing the fascinating lives of people who achieved great things with their efforts. They were not afraid to live with fear. They saw fear as the wind at their back; it wasn’t a wall to climb over. These great people embraced maturity and became adults capable of making good decisions. I am almost 22 years old and must do all I can to place myself in that same position.
Right now I’m drifting somewhere between childhood and adulthood, and although it seems like an endless fog right now, it won’t last long. We will all be something, and that will become clear soon enough. So whether you mentor children with special needs, start your own business, clean people’s teeth, or take beautiful pictures, do something that’s worth writing a book about.

Poetry: Issue 2

The Day's End

by Anna Forbes

Stubborn eyelids drop

The rumpled quilt, my magic rug,

Flies me to my dreams.

Shadows

by Allegra Weaver

Regrets, like a flock

Of errant, tawdry blackbirds

Hang over my head.

Letting Go

by Cheryl Hutchison

Tight is my fist

These knuckles are white

Clinging to the dearest things of all

Why must it be so hard

to believe you?

Is it difficult?

I mean your love,

It wraps around me

in a sheet of silk.

Your joy is a

bike ride down hill

in summer dusk with a hint of rain

Surrender is complete

One finger uncurls

Like a rose in the sun

My hand opens to you

A white dove then flies

Away free forever in your sky

Cynicism

by Jared Thornton

The meek and the weak; the big and the strong

Good and Evil; Right and Wrong

Have been debated for so long

The reason why many have gone

Out of control and out of line,

Act just like they've lost their minds

Irrational actions all the time

Never using thoughts divine

Trusting in the heat they pack

And the dividends they stack

The weight of the world is on their back

And true hope is what they lack…

In the Middle of Somewhere: An Adventure in the Arizona Desert pt. 2

by Joe Barnes

Greg stood with his hands on his hips and his head tilted to the right, waiting for a response. Luke and I stood silent. This seemed to be the best option, and a second longer of silence would have communicated distrust and fear. We glanced warily at each other and then simultaneously agreed to follow.

Five minutes later, we drove through a small town hidden between the desert hills. The inactivity and lack of color were eerie. Dilapidated houses sat on small lots surrounded by chain-link fences. The few parked cars I saw looked similar to Greg’s.

Greg slowed down, made a U-turn in the street, and parked along the curb. Luke stopped and rolled down the window, looking to him for instruction.

“Park right there.” Greg pointed to the driveway across the street.

Luke pulled in through the gate and parked, leaving 10 yards between the front of the Jeep and the trailer in the driveway. There was a house with a porch on the left. The piece of plywood sitting on the porch steps bridged the gap between the steps and the trailer door. The small yard was overgrown with weeds and scattered with empty garden pots, big desert rocks, a rusty bike, a golf club and empty spray-paint cans next to a multicolored piece of plywood.

Luke and I waited for Greg to walk past the Jeep before getting out. Greg abruptly stopped, turned around and put his hands on his hips. He glanced down at his feet and looked up at us with a serious expression.

“Look guys, I’m willing to help you, but we don’t exactly live by the law around here. So anything you see here stays here.”

“Yeah, sure,” Luke and I agreed.

Greg turned and continued walking. “My buddy lets us put our trailer home here in his driveway,” he said. “Come meet my girlfriend.” He walked up the ramp and into the trailer.

I walked behind Luke with my head tilted down, making sure to not kick his heels as we shuffled inside. The first thing I saw in front of me was a curtain. The space between the curtain and the wall revealed a small toilet. I turned left and took three steps down the narrow hallway and into a larger amount of space.

“Karen, this is Luke and Joe. They have some car trouble.”

Karen sat Indian-style on the bed in front of us, smoking a joint. “Bummer guys…want some?” Karen asked. She flipped the joint around and held it out toward us.

“No thanks,” Luke responded. I just shook my head. I didn’t say anything because in a weird way, I wanted some. I didn’t necessarily want to smoke with her; I just wanted to be high again. For a split second, I pictured myself grabbing the joint from her hand and taking a seat. I shook my head and rolled my eyes after the thought.

“Me and Luke are gonna go into town to Wal-Mart to get some parts,” Greg said. “We’ll be about an hour, an hour and a half. Take care of Joe…get him a soda or something. Joe, you want a soda?”

“No thanks, I’m good,” I replied.

Greg squeezed between Luke and me to walk out of the trailer. Luke followed him. I poked Luke as I walked behind him. He turned his head and saw me staring at him with raised eyebrows. He raised his eyebrows back and shrugged his shoulders. In the yard, I stopped by the porch and watched them walk across the street to Greg’s car.

“Have a seat on the porch, Joe. We’ll be back soon,” Greg yelled. Before Luke opened the passenger door, he looked at me. “See ya, Joe,” he said, giving me a look that told me to watch my back and be careful.

After the car disappeared from sight, I turned and noticed a bench on the porch. I went to the Jeep, put on my straw cowboy hat, and walked up the steps. I couldn’t help but notice the neon-colored swirls spray-painted all over the bench. I picked it up and moved it a tiny bit forward. Sitting down, I propped my feet up on the banister and started to observe everything around me.

The porch’s forest green paint was cracked and chipped. The rotted siding on the house was gray and faded. On the window sill behind me sat a spray-paint can, an empty Coke bottle from the ’50’s, a tin can with flowers in it, and two dirty, oddly-shaped glass bottles. Tiny, colorful rocks that looked like granite were placed in between each of these. Beside the bench sat a couple of larger rocks with geodes showing. To my right was the front door.

Thirty minutes passed, and four people stopped by. Each walked up to the front door, ignored me and yelled into the trailer at Karen. “Is he up yet? Are the girls up?” Every time Karen answered, “No, not yet, come back in a little while. They’re here…they’ll be up.”

My suspicion grew as I counted the people coming and going. I could only assume that the “he” they referred to was the local marijuana distributor. I wondered what else I didn’t know about this secluded town.

“Heeey!!” someone yelled.

I looked down the street and noticed a man standing there looking at me. I got up and walked to the front of the yard and faced him from a distance. He began to walk towards me.

“Where’s Greg?” he shouted.

“He went to town, to the store.” I pointed behind me.

“I’m Johnny,” he said as he came within feet of me.

“Joe. Nice to meet you,” I replied.

Johnny was six feet tall and had a shaved head. He had a hoop earring in each ear. His Mexican heritage was obvious from his dark hair and skin and his accent. He wore a black t-shirt and black pants and appeared to be in his late 30’s.

Without waiting for further introduction, I explained Luke’s and my situation.

“Yeah,” he said. “Greg called me and told me to come down. We work on bikes together.”

We went back up to the porch and sat on the bench. As I looked over at him, I noticed tears tattooed near the corner of each of his eyes. I remembered hearing that for every person a gangster kills, they put a tattoo in this spot by his eye. As I thought about it, I wasn’t sure if my memory served me right. Maybe the tear symbolized a friend or family member who had been murdered. Either way, he fascinated me. After a series of questions, I learned that Johnny had been released from prison 14 months ago, after serving two years. His demeanor communicated a mental distance from reality, yet he was polite and comfortable as he sat and talked with me.

Karen heard Johnny and me talking and came out of the trailer to join us. She sat on the steps, pulled out another joint, and asked if he wanted to smoke. He nodded.

“Johnny, you need to drive me up to the mountains,” Karen said. “I need to go back.” She looked out toward the horizon at the mountains she was referring to.

For 30 minutes, Karen talked about her mountain experiences. While on top of the mountain one day, God had written to her with clouds in the sky that she was the X that marked the spot where a meteorite the size of Arizona would hit the earth. She didn’t know why she was the X. All she knew was that she had to return to the mountain for further instructions. The FBI, CIA, U.S. military and local police were keeping tabs on her, because they knew that wherever she went, the meteorite would hit. She used to think she was the Messiah, but had disproved that on her own and now only claimed to be a messenger of God.

While she spoke, her eyes blinked quickly and the top of her head twitched to the left. She moved her arms around unnecessarily and changed her sitting position multiple times. She smoked the joint like there was a race to finish.

Except for a periodical “uh-huh,” Johnny remained silent. I could tell by his body language and lack of reaction that he had heard most of it before.

While listening, I inwardly prayed. If You want me to speak to her, give me the words, Lord. I don’t know what to say. I wanted so badly to interject something spiritual. I searched for the right words, but nothing formed into a coherent remark, and I was left speechless.

In the middle of Karen’s monologue, a car pulled up to the house. A thin Mexican girl got out and walked toward us. Her hair was braided, and she dressed minimally. She looked sloppy and unclean, and her teeth looked like they wanted to run away from each other. I knew right away that she was on some variant of meth. She walked up, stretching her arms and legs out in random directions and looking like a malfunctioning robot. Her mouth was wide open, and she kept moving her jaw back and forth as if she needed to stretch the joint out. She walked up to the porch and stuck her face through the wooden rods like a prisoner in a jail cell.

“Is he here?” she asked Karen.

“Yeah, go on up. Do you want to hit this roach?”

“No, I don’t smoke anymore,” the girl answered as she walked into the house. Five minutes later, she came out with her fist balled up. She walked down the steps, but turned around and pranced up to the banister again.

“I guess I’ll take one or two hits before I leave,” she said. She stuck her hand out to grab the joint, took a couple quick hits, and passed it back. She walked off in the same weird, stretchy fashion as she had walked up, got into her car, and drove away.

I now knew that “he” definitely sold something other than marijuana, most likely methamphetamines.

Karen probably would have kept talking, but luckily her Mexican masseuse showed up with his portable massage table, and they disappeared into the mysterious house. Luke and Greg returned just minutes after they shut the front door.

Luke walked up to me with a plastic grocery bag in each hand. “I got us some sandwich stuff. You hungry, Joe?”

“Yeah, really hungry,” I replied.

Greg, Johnny, Luke and I went into the trailer where the mayonnaise, mustard and drinks were. After we ate, Johnny and Greg started working on the Jeep. While Luke and I sat on the porch, Luke told me about the conversations he had had with Greg in the car.

Fifteen years ago, Greg had been released from prison after serving four years for smuggling marijuana into the U.S from Mexico. He was currently second-in-command in the Arian Brotherhood, a white supremacy group. Johnny was a lieutenant in the Mexican Mafia, and this town was the hub for the Mexican Mafia in Arizona.

Greg had told Luke about his spiritually-confused girlfriend after hearing that Luke had studied theology at a Christian college for the past four years. He said he believed the Bible and knew that it could help her, but didn’t know enough about it to share with her. He asked Luke to talk with Karen before we left.

“So, I’m going in there to talk to her,” Luke said.

“You are? Really? You’re in for a treat,” I said.

Karen was done with her massage and was sitting on the bed rolling a joint when Luke and I walked in.

“So Karen, Greg told me you’re confused about some stuff,” Luke began. “What are you confused about?” I stood silently, waiting to hear if her stories would match. She didn’t hesitate and started to tell all. Again, she spoke for a solid half-hour. Her stories were identical. I cringed as I listened, knowing that Satan had a firm grasp on her and that demons lurked in the shadows of her assertions. It was hard to be in the same room with her.

Luke didn’t waste any time after she finished talking. He laid out the gospel as clearly as possible and told her she had two choices.

Whoa! I thought. I had never heard the gospel given so succinctly and accurately; a young child could have understood it. Luke had spit it out easily. I was proud of him for being so bold.

Karen thanked him for the “advice,” and we left to check on the progress of the Jeep. “Ok, we put clean hoses on here so the water can get to the engine,” Greg said. “I didn’t have one long enough, but Johnny rigged one up that will do until you get about 25 miles down the road, to Carney. There’s a Napa Auto Store there. Stop and get yourself a new one to replace it. These should last…I don’t know how long though.”

“Thanks, guys. I really appreciate your help,” Luke said as he shook their hands.

“Did you talk to her?” Greg asked Luke.

“Yeah, I did.”

“Thanks. I’m glad I found you. That’s good.”

“See you, Greg,” Luke said, half-saluting as he opened the driver door.

By this time, I had been at the house for five hours. It was 3 p.m. We got in the Jeep and drove away, glad to be moving on.

God in the Living Room: Essay

by Cole Jeffrey

People often ask if art is useful.

When they ask that question, what they really want to know is if art has any practical value. They want to know if a painting can be used for something more than giving a sparse wall a little color or if music does more than just please the ears.

But the truth is that art is quite useless. It has no practical function in the real world. You cannot “do” anything with art. However, art can do so much with you. You are very useful.

In an essay called “Experiment in Criticism,” C.S. Lewis wrote:

“We sit down before a picture in order to have something done to us, not that we may do things with it. The first demand any work of art makes upon us is surrender. Look. Listen. Receive. Get yourself out of the way.”

What Lewis is saying is that we don’t “use” art like we use a kitchen knife or a vacuum cleaner. Art isn’t used. It is experienced. The value of art lies in the experience and in the subsequent results of that experience. William Wordsworth, the poet of Nature and Experience, urged his readers to give up society and science and enjoy the outdoors. “Let Nature be your Teacher,” he wrote in “The Tables Turned.” Later in the poem, he exhorts his readers to:

Close up those barren leaves;

Come forth and bring with you a heart,

That watches and receives.

Wordsworth was writing as England was on the verge of the Industrial Revolution, ready to take the plunge into materialism and the middle-classes. He was very much alone with his message of nature and beauty. But over a century later, people still go to visit a large hole in Arizona called the Grand Canyon because it’s supposed to be beautiful. Somehow, seeing something beautiful has value to people, even in an age of pragmatically-minded materialism. The experience is considered worth it.

People still read books, listen to music, and visit art museums—all for the purpose of seeing something beautiful. This is because the artistic experience is considered worth it. But it is only worth it if we remember that it’s an experience, not a tool, not something to be picked up and used like a mop or broom. The value of art cannot be translated into practical language. It cannot be expressed in terms of everyday life. Start talking about what poetry means to you, and you’ll feel ridiculous, like your soul is the stuff Hallmark cards are made from. But art has value nonetheless. However, that value can only be realized if we stop thinking about what we can take from it and instead start thinking about what it can give us. As Lewis said, we have to “sit under” art. We have to receive it.

That is why art and God always dance together in my mind. The two cannot be isolated. God is like art, because God is the force behind art and behind human creativity. In the same way that you have to “sit under” art, you have to “sit under” God. You have to receive Him. You cannot come to God with the practical on your mind, hoping to use your religion like you use your kitchen appliances. Too many Christians sit through sermons, taking notes and making outlines as they look for the stuff that can be taken away. But God calls us to experience Him. The value of a relationship with God lies in our experience of Him and the subsequent results of that experience. God said to Job, “Be still and know that I am God.” Stop thinking about yourself and think about Me. On his blog, while writing about God, art, and nature, Donald Miller wrote:

“I am wondering if sunsets, faces, mountains and rivers were not designed to [be] invitations to know God more fully, more completely. This seems the nature of a love letter, in ways. That is, a love letter adores and praises, but also invites a greater intimacy.”

Art is intimate. Whether an artist paints, writes or composes, he is providing someone with a window into his soul. He lets you see him as he truly is. But art is also relational because while you are allowed to see him you are also allowing him to change you. It’s the same way with God. His art lets us see Him, but it also lets Him change us. That’s why we need to abandon our notions of what is practical, of how we can “use” religion, and instead, just sit under Him and be changed. If we only look at a statue, then we will just see a piece of rock carved and chiseled into an image. But if we see the statue, then we will have our minds carved and chiseled into something by the sculptor. So let’s go see God, whether it’s in church while listening to a sermon, in an art museum standing before a Michelangelo, or on a mountain roadside staring out across the great divide. Like Mary, let’s go sit at His feet and fall in love with Him. Leave the dishes in the kitchen, because God is in the living room.

On Language Thoroughness and Gardening: Essay

By Samuel Moore

High school summers and school time Saturdays meant working at a gardening store. I worked with a hopper, scale, and sewing machine, metering out bags of mineral fertilizers. If I worked alone, it went slowly.

If I worked with another employee, we tried to set and break time records. I did this full-time for two summers. Eventually, I was promoted to sales. I stocked the shelves, swept the floors, memorized several pages’ worth of information in order to answer common questions that affected Bakersfield, learned how to test the pH balance and calcium content of soil, and worked the register. Every customer was to be an object of attention, though many people came in with the same problems.

I became used to the hard customers, the incoherent customers and the “enemies” (such as the gardening talk show host who only dealt with the name brand money-makers and not our local products). One day, an elderly man in overalls and thick glasses walked into the store, and I started reciting my lines. “How can I help you today, sir?” But I was taken off-guard by a product request louder than anything I had heard in the store before—except for the gas-powered forklift. He was deaf. I practically ran to the back of the store (after politely motioning that I would be right back, of course) to take refuge in the experienced wisdom of Paul, who had big sideburns and a handlebar mustache and had worked there for many years. Paul took him off my hands.

Apparently, Paul had dealt with this old deaf man before. I suppose that if he had been deaf for quite some time, he might have forgotten how physically offensive it is to yell (unexpectedly, especially) in someone’s face. But there’s also the possibility that he didn’t care how he heaved his language around. I didn’t think it would be wise to ask him at the time which was his philosophy.

Then there was the time when my neighbors came into the store. We established early on that we recognized we lived next-door to each other. They wanted to kill all of the weeds in their front lawn, and I knew what would do the job, so I explained it to them.Here’s some background though: these neighbors were not pleasant. The husband, probably in his late 60s, encouraged his stylized poodle (named Pierre, of all names) to use our front lawn as a restroom. My dad caught him doing it several times. So one day, we sort of didn’t stop our Husky-Chow mix from defending our yard by attacking the poodle, and the neighbors knew. Shortly after that, our dog’s insides turned squishy and her health declined. We had to have her put to sleep soon enough. We had no proof for anything, but we had plenty of suspicions.

I wasn’t surprised when the neighbors didn’t take my advice and walked out without buying anything. A few weeks later I noticed that their lawn had turned yellow. They hired gardeners to tear it out and replace it with new sod, and soon after that, the weeds came back. Did they know that my advice was sound, but rejected it because I belonged to the house of Moore? I tried to let my words be the mediator in the midst of the feud, and I talked to them the same way I did to the customers before and after them. But my favorite gardening-store-conflict was much more subtle, and it happened many times—sometimes several times a week. We sold a selective, systemic herbicide called Trimec, and it was one of the most popular sales. It would kill weeds, but not lawns—if used properly. Of course, there would be people who would use it wrongly, kill their lawns, and come back to our store to blame us for the mistake. Those customers made me laugh. If they got bad enough, I could use my authority to ask them to leave and never come back.

That’s not the best part. Time after time, customers would walk into the store and ask for Triaminic, which is a brand-name cough syrup for children. Most of the time I would inwardly laugh at them and hand them a bottle of Trimec. I tried to understand (or imagine) their logic: Oh, no: a word I haven’t seen all my life...but I’ve heard this word on TV. It must be the same thing because it looks like it could fit. I don’t know how accurate that was, but it gave me peace in my perceived superiority. I distinctly remember one red-faced woman (maybe in her late 40s) with the kind of glasses that didn’t look thick, but still magnified her eyes when I looked at them. She came in blustering. “I need some Triaminic to kill splurge.”

(Note: she meant, “I need some Trimec to kill spurge.” Spurge is a creeping green and purple weed that grows close to the ground and has networking root systems. Also note: I may be mixing memories here. This may or may not be a singular event.)

I coolly responded that children’s cough syrup would not kill spurge, but I did, in fact, have Trimec, which could. She looked up and clearly didn’t get the joke. It was a blank stare she gave, and then she blinked. “How much is it?”

My smugness was wasted. I didn’t question then why I would try to play on customers’ cursive readings of brand names, but now I know that to teach them to do otherwise would have been like trying to teach a rabbit not to hop. It seemed to be so deeply ingrained in their reading skills that only a time machine could have stopped them from misreading words they weren’t used to.

See, there is a difference between clarifying or correcting language for the purpose of communication and doing so for pride. I let the latter happen (or, more accurately, pushed the latter to happen), and I generally helped those bad pronouncers in contempt. I’m glad lessons can be learned after the incident.

But it’s not all serious. Sometimes it’s really funny. I wonder who the first Southerner was who put the “r” in “wash.”