Mental Health

No Credible Threat /  by Akira Ohiso

There were recent threats to our local schools posted on social media. Parents receive emails from the school principals stating threats of violence are taken seriously and handled by law enforcement.

We know from our history that school shootings often start with these early signs from troubled teens. The recent Apalachee High School shooting had the same early signs of gun violence posted online. School officials and law enforcement investigated at the time and concluded the student had no access to guns.

A year later, four innocent people are dead.

Not to say that Seattle Schools and law enforcement are doing the same thing, but, as parents, we don’t know. In America, mass shootings are like apple pie, so “No credible threat” does little to allay fears. Instead, students stay home, and parents oblige.

Today, my kids stay home. I feel helpless; keeping them home is my only sense of false security. Perhaps young people will refuse to go to school; then gun violence and legislation will be addressed.

***

I enjoyed the welcome rain this weekend, which soaked the dirt, earth’s forgotten natural sewers. The weather is still a divine act; humans can try to control, predict, and influence the sky with policy and drive-time weather magicians with blue screens and meteorologists' degrees, but the earth heals when we get out of the way.

Watching the country Cougs beat the downtown Dawgs at Lumen Field was refreshing.

An estate sale on our block creates unwanted traffic on the slim Seattle Streets. Young couples scoop up Silent Generation antiques that were supposed to be heirlooms, but their children didn’t want them. When leases end, those same antiques will be on corners -FREE-and as disposable as chipboard Allen wrench furniture.

I text STOP to endless political campaigns asking for my hard-earned money. You are on every political text list for years if you sign one petition or donate to one candidate.

STOP

UNSUBSCRIBE

BLOCK

REPORT AS SPAM

GET A DUMB PHONE

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Float For A Bit /  by Akira Ohiso

When I gamify my health, I have improved outcomes. The Habit Tracker reminds me to eat an apple a day, which keeps the nurse practitioner away (who can prescribe while the doctor is on vacation).

***

When I need pomade, a hibachi, and ingredients for a chopped Greek salad, I go to Fred Meyer. I drive through the Ballard industrial zone, where breweries have not reached yet. Near the defunct 7-Eleven and Big 5 Sporting Goods, there is human activity outside broken down vans and cars with plastic bag windows.

Jaywalking ghosts shuffle draped in wool blankets in the sun. Leaves drag like a ceremonial train. A woman sits in a broken wheelchair on the threshold of a corner sidewalk ramp and the street where puddles collect when it rains. A man sleeps in a blue recycling bin turned sideways, used food and beverage containers surprisingly far from the blue bin, yet strangely constellatory.

Once anchored by New Seasons, which closed after just two years, the mini shopping center is a place to turn around or stop to answer a phone call as smaller stores languish. Dented Winnebagos park until they are moved along by police or a homelessness task force, leaving random mechanical innards in pools of oil.

***

I go to my son's high school graduation at Memorial Stadium. The stadium was constructed in 1947 and dedicated to Seattle Public School students who died in World War 2. Seattle Public Schools owns the stadium and mainly uses it for football games, but with minimal upkeep, it needs to be updated.

Wooden benches designed by the Silent Generation, who didn’t speak up, trigger lower back pain and gluteus Maximus cheek shifting. My Tempurpedic upbringing couldn’t handle it. The once elegant water fountains out front no longer work, and the press box attached to the ceiling of the North Stands roof is brutalist, perhaps luxury seats for the autocracy.

Still, there are plans to either renovate or rebuild a new stadium, with a groundbreaking scheduled in 2025. The old structure has charm, and I hope the developers will pay homage to it.

In true Seattle fashion, intermittent cloud cover spits moisture as Seattleites flip up Patagonia shells or do nothing. Lights on timers get activated by the lead-grey sky. Getting him through high school in these challenging times is a relief as a parent. It’s not a relief that he took a step up a rung on the social ladder, but that he is free from an educational environment that was detrimental to his mental health.

For him, it was an educational experience forever interrupted by COVID-19, helicopter teachers with political agendas, asynchronous learning, and wealthy, competitive parents looking to give their children an edge. Millions of angsty selfies are buried in the depths of Snapchat servers documenting the highs and lows of mental health since the pandemic.

My son, float for a bit…drift…bob…

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