I moved back here to Seattle only nine months ago after being away from the Pacific Northwest for a few years. And since my home-coming, you, my people, have stolen my heart. That’s what I came for – the embracing of values too universal to owe any skin color or continent, any creed or sect. We are all basking in the blender of cultural connections and thriving in the smooth Seattle traffic snarls where turbans wave baseball caps into their lanes alongside folks of multi-colors waving and smiling and showing kindness and respect for us all.
And yesterday in line in the grocery store, an older woman, nearly my age (!) smiling like she knew me, walked right up to me and asked, “Ya know where those dimples came from?” I told her I wasn’t absolutely sure but probably NOT eBay! “It’s where the angels kissed you when you were born. It means you’re special!”
Most of the world I’ve known is lacking in the human quality of civility that I have found gloriously abundant in your midst. And before we face our unknown fury of a flying meteor the size of a barn, exploding like 30 nuclear bombs and unleashing holy hell on all of us, I just wanted you to take a peek at your glowing aura from my perspective, and then just glimpse, if for only one bright shining moment, the grandeur of achievement in the realm of respect for human dignity that we find pervasive here.
In my lucky profession, I go into people’s homes and look for ways to save money on the energy bills and to improve comfort levels. But the one thing that I almost always find is a warmth of spirit and a down-to-earth gratitude for the blessings we share here.
And before one of us might go missing or get squashed by some ancient evergreen tree upended by the torrential blasts from some screaming extra-terrestrial barn exploding at the speed of light, my heart told me to let you know how much your kindness has meant to an old man who has traveled a long way through life to rediscover this home as the bright spot, a beacon of decency because of the most neighborly people in the civilized world.
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