Maddy Walking

I live in a neighborhood that used to be made fun of on a local late night comedy show.


We were known for driving with the blinker on, eating smelly lard-preserved fish and responding to everything with a deadpan repetitious catch-phrase.


Now we are impossibly hip and are regularly spotlighted whenever national publications feature Seattle.


But before all that, before we were cool, there was Maddy.


I first noticed him shortly after quitting my job to stay home with my first child, around ten years ago. The neighborhood renaissance was just beginning and as I walked the 'hood with my stroller, wondering how I would keep myself occupied during the long days, I noticed I wasn't the only one walking.



Our first independent coffee shop had opened, with fabulous European-style pastries. I used it as my reward, trying to get through as many hours as I could before allowing myself to visit. I even tried to structure naptime around it.



The shop closed at 3:00. Sometimes I would skate in just prior to closing and there would be Maddy, bantering with the barista. I have to admit, sometimes that frustrated me. I wanted my coffee and I didn't want to wait for the banter. Sometimes it frustrated the barista, who would often be trying to close. But Maddy would stay and talk while she mopped the floors and wiped down the tables and she always had a smile for him and gave him all the time in the world.



I started spotting him other places, always walking. My house is between a commercial street and a bluff overlooking Puget Sound. Maddy would walk from the coffee shop, along my street, and over to the bluff, day after day.



I began to wonder if the walks were his reward too, his attempt to fill up the long days, that like mine, used to be filled by a job and meetings and other important-sounding events. He was old, but not that old. But as the years went on, I added another child to my stroller, and found new ways to fill up my days, I would still see Maddy walking, eventually leaning on two titanium canes. Sometimes I would encounter him in other shops and it was the same. Everyone made time for him. He was a local personality.



The street with the European coffee shop now sports an artisan beer shop, a sushi bar and a bakery. The street closest to the bluff is home to a Green Grocer, a video store, and a new Italian trattoria. I don't walk as much as I used to and the other day I got to thinking that I hadn't seen Maddy recently.



But on Sunday, while selling Girl Scout cookies outside the video store with my now ten-year old daughter, I ducked into a nearby coffee shop, decidely un-hip and a favorite with the neighborhood stalwarts, who are fewer and farther between, and I saw a sign on the window. "Closing at 6:00 for a memorial service." I wasn't surprised to walk in and see Maddy's obituary propped up on the counter.



In our busy world, none of us walks or banters as much as we might. I feel privileged to live in a neighborhood and to have a life where that is still possible. My husband and I talk about whether we should move to a town closer to where he works and with a more solvent school district and I say no. "I wouldn't be able to walk," is my reasoning.



From the window of the room where I write this I can see the street where Maddy used to walk and where other old and young people walk each day. I recognize them and I am out walking they recognize me, though we've never been introduced. We nod a quiet acknowledgment knowing that we are participating in a vital, yet dying pursuit.