Seattle, School, Swimming holes, Stories, and a Sunrise

Jessie Landis

Apr 12, 20232 min read

Little Stories from work the past two weeks:

As the COVID point person, I am constantly coming across moral conundrums. Usually when a guest is asking for a service that we do not offer, I am met with "please can you help me? Can't you see I need this?" But the other day a man said the thought that was going through my head, "But you would be helping out another person." The greatest challenge for me this year is trying to figure out how to treat each interaction as a unique situation, making accommodations, etc. without getting stuck only talking to one person the entire day. I struggle and learn through every interaction, whether it's a pit in my stomach or a feeling of satisfaction, my body usually announces the quality of a decision.
Over the last couple weeks we are beginning to see more people from Mauritania. One afternoon a guest was speaking Arabic into Google Translate on my phone and I did a double take. I recognized one of the words he had said, "mushkila" (problem). I only studied Arabic for a short time in college and I don't remember enough to even introduce myself, but it was a cool feeling to hear something familiar come from his mouth.
A few days this last week I was not COVID point person, instead I was escorting those who tested positive over to the waiting room, and announcing who was negative. I noticed myself smiling more than usual throughout the day and joking around with guests. It felt really good to not be delivering bad news to people all day long. I think this will be important for me as well in medicine, to be in settings where I also get to deliver good news and talk to healthy people as well.
When I was talking to a four-year-old's parents, he reached up for a high five. The high five continued into a rhythmic series of handholding, fist bumping, and high diving for the remainder of my conversation with his parents. Every time I passed him after that he would reach out his hand for a fist bump.

Outside of work:

Galavanting around Seattle with college friends.

Roadtripping out to Yakima to visit PNWU (my soon to be home!). Huge shout out to Allison and Nicole for accompanying me on this important trip!

I was amazed at the differences of landscape over the short drive between Seattle and Yakima. Within the course of 3 hours we experienced the raining coast, coniferous PNW forest, snowy roads and jagged mountains, and finally sloping desert hills that reminded me of AZ!