Hip-Hop and Health

(A quick note: I work with several blogs, because my blogging tends to cross a variety of different topics, and I have not yet figured out how to build coherence into these topics in a way that I think I could create and maintain a single source. Sometimes, however, the topics inter-cross. So, accordingly, the report below also is available to view at http://movingyourbody.wordpress.com/2013/07/27/movements-in-the-city/)



The countdown to the Fronhofer Tool Triathlon is now exactly one week. If I had been training for this event a few years earlier, I would be feeling some major stress. Instead, I feel an incredible sense of well-being and relaxation. I don't know what the outcome of the triathlon will be, but I do know that I plan to be at the starting line and will do the best that I can.

I have been in Seattle since the night of Monday, July 22. Sunday, July 21, was supposed to be a three-event brick workout, but turned out to be mainly a day of harvesting garlic, doing laundry, and running errands. Friday, July 20, was an unbelievably hot day, so instead of doing the three-event brick that I'd hoped, I ended up settling for a fairly long swim in the cool indoor pool. The upshot of all of this: the last time I ran was about nine days ago; the last time I bicycled was about ten days ago. I will hope to get some running and biking workouts in early next week, but I also know that at this point the best thing I can do for my body is make sure I stay hydrated, well-nourished, and rested.

So why am I not stressed out?

Well, the week in Seattle turned out to be glorious. Every day that I was here (including the Monday night when I got in close to midnight) was clear, sunny, and hot but not too hot. Mount Rainier graced the skyline every day, and the only reason that I did not see the Space Needle was that I didn't look in its direction. My gaze was fixed toward the south and east parts of the central city, where my research on hip-hop and community building is based, and where some of the city's best walking routes and swimming beaches are located.

Having lived in Seattle from 1988-95 and again from 2006-10, I know that the sunshine and summer glory that I experienced this week has been a gift as summers here can be cloudy, gray, and never get warm enough. If you have a good summer, you need to take advantage of it, as much as you can. So, I swam in Lake Washington four days this week, and I walked and walked and walked: 6.5 miles on Tuesday, 5 miles on Wednesday, 7 miles on Thursday, and 9.3 miles on Friday. I probably will walk another two miles today, and I probably walked about one-and-a-half miles on Monday. This walking, coupled with the 30 to 45 minute swims that I did each day in the lake, feels like it might have been one of the best tapers for a big sporting event that I, in my current physical condition, could have pulled off.

I received a second gift in Seattle as I encountered old friends and acquaintances. On previous trips back to my old hometown, I have worried quite a bit about the health of the people I know as well as the long-term health of the communities in which they reside. Seattle, for all of its glamor, is a rather divided city, stratified somewhat on the basis of race as well as its perpetual cross-cutting intersections with class. A ship canal that links Lake Washington to the Puget Sound divides the city into north and south segments. Research on the health of the city was beginning to show in the first decade of the twenty-first century that obesity rates south of the ship canal were considerably higher than those north. It is perhaps no coincidence that the southern areas have proportionally higher racial and ethnic minority populations, and house the high number of new immigrants and refugees who sought sanctuary in this generally liberal city in the 1970s through early 2000s. It is perhaps also no coincidence that the southern parts of the city historically have had fewer parks and easily accessible outdoor exercise spots, and that the economic demographics of the neighborhoods south of the ship canal are considerably poorer.

I always lived south of the ship canal, and for sixteen years owned a house in Seattle in its historic Central District. As a young adult who loved being out on the town in her twenties and as a slightly older person who loved building community via backyard barbecues and late-night strolls through the inner city, I always loved the mix of urban vibrancy and nature that I felt I could find in the central city. In my latter years, my passion for the south part of the city has translated into a rather unfair but frank dislike for the northern neighborhoods. I apologize to friends who live in these areas, but I find them too quiet, too plain, and too fearful of difference.

So, to the point of the gift. Absence always makes the heart grow fonder. And working vacations in a city that one knows very well perhaps create a rosier-than-thou lens for viewing change. Those disclaimers in place, my walks and my encounters with people I knew and places I feel affinity with showed me a place that had regained a sense of good health and vitality for life. People were thinner and smiling more. Beaches were filled with swimmers. Walking paths had been better marked, and sidewalks seemed to be in much better shape than I'd remembered.

I was pleased, and also perplexed.

"You look great," I remarked to Brian McGuigan, of the Richard Hugo House.

"You look great, too," he responded.

We both really meant what we said, because the truth is, we both looked as if we had been taking care of ourselves.

"Everyone I keep running into looks great," I added. "What's up with that?"

He laughed and shrugged. "We don't want to die yet," he surmised.

The health of a community runs deep in my understanding of hip-hop. Browsing books in the African American collection of the Douglass Truth Library yesterday, I found a text entitled Foundation, by Joseph Schloss, who described himself as an out-of-shape white professor in his thirties before he began hanging out with b-boys and b-girls. They invited him to practices, and before long, he was learning the basics of break-dancing. I didn't have enough time to read far enough into the book to see if he stayed with the discipline, but he did note around page 20 or so, that after six months of break-dancing practices he was at a much healthier weight and in the best shape of his life.

My motive in walking the city was about my own health, but it also was about understanding -- or trying to detect, at least -- an intersection between hip-hop and its impact on city life. What I saw in my excursions up and down hills, through highly urban and densely populated communities was a city: decay, revitalization, despair, and increasingly hope. One can walk and munch on wild blackberries that populated the brush overhanging sidewalks. One can cross a street full of traffic, noise, and urban pollution into a quiet neighborhood where pumpkins are forming on vines in a garden placed in the middle of a sidewalk. And one can cross from a crowded street into a small forest within a few blocks. And throughout these areas one also can see the traces of hip-hop: flyers promoting events, community groups organizing for racial justice, music pulsating from car stereos and area businesses, gardens being maintained for feeding the hungry and educating school-goers. I hope to report on this more in future posts, but I do think that these healthful roots are a part and parcel of how we might articulate an understanding of hip-hop and health for the present and future.