Seattle December Flashback

I simply could not see him suffer any longer - he had to go now. But,. who could I call on to help me, with my sprained ankle, to carry a 70 lb dog down the ice-covered front stops and into the car during this December storm? As a single woman, I'm always taking stock of who I can contact for help. I did the obvious - trying my neighbors first. After all, we were friends; we helped each other out, right? At least we had a block party once a year, does that count? What is the definition of "friend" anyhow? I tried several numbers but nobody was home on this Saturday night a couple of weeks before Solstice. Or, everyone was screening their calls. Finally, someone picked up the phone. "Yes," Ethan said. He and Holly would help me. After Gibson was loaded into my Subaru wagon, I drove off into the night on roadways thick with lumpy gray ice towards the emergency vet clinic. I had rarely felt so alone.


Tonight I rarely again felt it. Surrounded by half-filled boxes, a puppy newly neutered, and snow whipping around horizontally before piling up in a fashion unheard of in Seattle, the phone did not ring. My Blackberry did not speak. No emails, no texts. The wind was picking up and the mayor on TV spoke of how to handle power outages. Yes, now I remember. This was why I was moving. No, not the weather (although that didn't help). It was the sheer sense of isolation within the midst of a large city - living with the "Seattle Freeze" during the well-below-normal temperatures of this freak Winter storm. The "Seattle Freeze" is a term used by sociologists to describe a well-known social phenomenon in this area in which normal human relationships do not develop, thwarted by an invisible wall which separates people from one another and prevents bonds from building. That "Freeze" is definitely more chilling than the temperature outdoors.