It was one of these days that just turn out differently than you thought when you got up. First of all, it was grey and cold in the morning. No beach or park.

I headed to Joe’s Bar as every morning for my coffee, croissant and wifi, and then decided to go downtown to SAM, the Seattle Art Museum.

But first, a quick stop at the Pike Place Market, more precisely at Beecher’s Handmade Cheese. They’re a local producer of cheese, you can watch as the milk gets turned, actually, into cheese, and they sell handy portions of delicious Penne ‘n cheese.

 

With that in hand I walked over to the little green spot at the end of the market, Victor Steinbrueck Park, to sit in the sun and enjoy my lunch.

Squeezed in between the market and the major highway unfortunately separating the city from the water, it’s a hangout place for both tourists and homeless alike.

There I saw this woman sitting on the green, in a foldable chair, holding up a sign: free listening. Next to her a young girl, talking.

Over the course of the next 20 minutes or so I saw several people sitting down and talking to the long haired woman with the friendly face. A young woman apparently read something to her from her iPhone.

Then, a free spot on the chair.

I had finished my lunch, so I walked over and took a seat. We just talked, for what may have been five or ten minutes… mostly about this trip and how it is going along.

But I was also very curious about this project. Allison joines the free listening project in her free time, and usually sits at specific places, mostly parks, for three hours, listening to strangers.

She has a job, but sacrifices her free time to listen to people who just need to talk about something.

No judgement, no advice is given, and what is said is never revealed to anyone:

We believe that everyone deserves to be heard. Being heard without judgement or advice creates a space for self-evaluation, acceptance and sometimes, self-intervention. We listen with no expectation of an outcome or personal gain. We listen so that others may feel listened to.

Sometimes people come up and talk to her even in a foreign language that she does not understand, but it is all the same, the idea being to offer someone an ear that listens.

I found that idea really intriguing, and it reminded me a bit of my friend Arié’s project The HugTrain.

It’s a beautiful idea. I joined them on their Facebook, and I’ll look out for another listening session.

 

Oh: In the end, the art museum turned out to be closed for the day. So I hung out downtown, found the amazing Metsker’s Maps store again (a dream for every map obsessed traveller), had coffee and stared with disbelief at the Seattle Gum Wall.

Later on I met up with my friend Joe, a painter, for drinks and pizza in The Alibi Room, a hidden place in the middle of the Pike Place Market tourist frenzy, totally overlooked and known only to locals. What a perfect day.