Fourth (and concluding installment) in a series of Special Reports:
With a quiet solemnity usually reserved for funeral processions, a team of Maynard Park Neighborhood movers and shakers filed nearly motionless into Sam & Ella’s Fish Shack for what was to have been a celebratory coming together of the community. A month ago, this conclave of neighborhood visionaries (who called themselves W.I.M.P. or We Identify Maynard Park) set out on a mission to visit as many other Seattle neighborhoods as possible to find out what makes a neighborhood special. It was the hope of all involved to find inspiration for something to make Maynard Park just as special.
Instead of returning with a sense of renewal, what I witnessed at the Fish Shack felt like the death of a neighborhood. Since this was a formal meeting of the Maynard Park Neighborhood Municipal Urban Council, it began customarily with several gavel strikes from Council President Pamela Stockingbird. In the absence of any chatter whatsoever from attendees, the sound of the gavel only served to break the uncomfortable silence.
“Our order of business today,” Pamela announced to the crowd of downward-looking heads, “is to hear a report from the W.I.M.P. team on their findings and recommendations. Who will be speaking to that?”
“Maynard Park is a joke of a neighborhood…” someone heckled from the back of the Shack.
The comment echoed the mood of the dejected participants upon conclusion of their exhaustive tour of Seattle Neighborhoods that began last month amidst much excitement and fanfare. Instead of being filled with inspiration, the troop returned deeply disappointed, crestfallen and heart-broken in their conclusion that Seattle’s Maynard Park Neighborhood had nothing to offer anyone. Some were so dispirited that they even considered moving away to one of the neighborhoods they had visited.
“We’re not even recognized by the Seattle Department of Neighborhoods,” lamented neighborhood poet, Ed Mantra.
“We’re not special, and we never will be,” Gretchen Oublie quietly added, as tears began to visibly well up. “We can’t compete with all the other name-brand Seattle neighborhoods. We’re nothing…”
Ed Mantra continued poetically, “We live in the mossy cracks and odd plots scattered in-between the supposedly ‘real’ neighborhoods of Seattle. Maynard Park may as well not even exist!”
Just as it looked like hopelessness and resignation would ignite the Fish Shack, there was a shout from the back of the room. “Wait! You have this all wrong, people!” Into the light stepped neighborhood historian and statistician Clarese Sagesse. Approaching the podium, Clarese turned to face the dejected crowd of Maynardites.
“Maynard Park may not have a Troll, or a Statue of Lenin, or even a Taco Del Mar. We don’t even have a big rock moved here by a glacier. There’s no place in Maynard Park to safely roller blade, and there’s not enough room for a lighthouse, and we’ll never have brass dance steps embedded in the sidewalks that threaten litigation for copyright infringement. But, it’s not about what we have, what we don’t have, or what we’ll never have. It’s about who we are. Am I making sense?”
There were only blank stares from the faces in the room.
“Okay,” Clarese went on, “Where are we?”
“In the Fish Shack, obviously…” someone answered.
“No, think bigger…where are we?” Clarese challenged.
“We’re in Maynard Park, in Seattle…” someone else added.
“Bigger than that…” Clarese swept the room with her eyes, and then someone finally said it.
“We’re in Washington State.”
“That’s right! We can let all those other Seattle neighborhoods be who they are. That’s them, and they’re all special and part of what makes a community, but in Maynard Park we think big, because we represent the great State of Washington!” Clarese continued, as heads began to nod and eyes started to widen. “Did you know that the fun and popular games Pictionary, Pickle-Ball and Cranium were invented in Washington State? Did you know that Washington State is first in the nation in the production of red raspberries? Did you know that our State insect is the Green Darner Dragonfly?” The once quiet crowd began to stir with the buzz of comments and the marvel at facts. “The mean elevation of the state of Washington is 1,700 feet above sea level, with the highest point of elevation being 14,410 feet above sea level!”
“I never thought of it that way,” I heard someone observe excitedly.
“But, think of it,” Clarese expounded. “We, the State of Washington, have one of the most remarkable petrified forests in the world. We’re also the 2nd largest premium wine producer in the United States. We have over 740 wineries, and we have the lowest per capita church attendance in the contiguous states. We’re one of the top wheat producing states in the country. And did you know that it’s illegal in some parts of the state to display a hypnotized person in a store window? Don’t let anyone tell you that we’re not special!”
The excitement in the room was palpable, and more than a few smiles started to blossom. Clarese was working the room in her inimitable style.
“We ARE ALL THAT here in Maynard Park! Do you know what state people think of when they think of volcanoes? I’ll tell you…it’s Washington State. Even though Alaska has the most active volcanoes in the United States, people think of us because of Mount St. Helens and because of that movie, Dante’s Peak, with Pierce Brosnan. It’s because we know how to spell Lahar around here.”
It was at this moment, in the meeting of the Maynard Park Neighborhood Municipal Council that something magical happened. A soaring, collective, group-mind vision began to swirl above the now upraised heads and imagining eyes, transfixed with Spielbergian awe and wonder at the shared sight of…
“A Maynard Park Volcano!!!” screamed Ed Mantra. “When people think of Washington State, they think of volcanoes, and when they think of volcanoes they’ll think of us, if we have one, and IF we have one, they’ll think of Maynard Park!”
Ed had put it all together, and the room exploded with every imagined human emotion. It was the birth of a new identify. From a journey that began by looking everywhere else, Seattle’s Maynard Park Neighborhood found its identity in the very earth it stands on in Washington State. Drawing inspiration from magma—which is lighter than the solid rock around it, which rises and collects in magma chambers, until it eventually pushes through vents and fissures in the Earth’s surface—the earth-rich pride of the Maynard Park Neighborhood erupted into a community project to construct and place a giant “active volcano” on top of the roof of the Maynard Park Community Center. Everyone in Maynard Park will be getting involved, starting with the community collection of 6,000 pounds of flour, salt, chicken-wire, recycled newspapers (this will be a “green” volcano), and non-insect based red food dye.
As Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “life is a journey, not a destination.” If that’s true, then Seattle’s Maynard Park Neighborhood has arrived.
The Maynard Park Neighborhood Blog will eagerly post photos of the Maynard Park Volcano when completed (though it should be noted that it will be a multi-phased and funded, multi-year project.)
