Yesler Swamp, Seattle 
What does a swamp possibly have to do with health, homelessness, and community health nursing?
Quite a lot as it turns out. I have spent the past year exploring possible answers to this question, as well as many other “swamp questions” and “swamp lessons.” It has been—and continues to be— a weekly deep-dive radical self-care sort of exercise. At the end of each week, I walk to the closest swamp or swamp-like spot of nature, wherever I am in the world, and I sit, observe, and write reflective entries into my swamp journal.
While I have traveled outside of Seattle fairly frequently and lived part of the past year in the UK, when I am at home I always walk to Yesler Swamp on Union Bay in Lake Washington. The photographs included in this post are from my Yesler Swamp walks over the past few weeks.
My weekly practice of swamp walks has been an important source of grounding for me (yes, pun intended since swamps are, at best, ‘quaking ground’) as I have navigated the interesting murky waters of being a leader of the community-campus Doorway Project. The politics involved with this community health project have been considerable. Subtext. Subterfuge. Unnecessary dramas. Wanting to shout “Bullshit!” in so many meetings I have lost count. Take it all back to the swamp and sit with it and see my way through.
Also, my weekly swamp walks and reflections have helped me wade through the new-to-me experience of dealing with the emotional weightiness of developing empathy with ‘historical figures’ such as “insane paupers,” homeless people I have come to know (at least at some level) through my research and writing of my current book project, Skid Road. Who knew (not me) that homeless people long dead could be just as real and deserving of compassion and empathy as those still living?