At Pike Street Market, Wednesday afternoon/Stapilus

A decade ago exactly, we watched the new year in at a ceremony of sorts outside the Idaho Statehouse, presided over by area elected officials (Governor Dirk Kempthorne and Mayor Brent Coles were there, if memory serves). It was a worthy enough midnight ceremony, in the snowy slush, at a time of peace and economic growth, but an undercurrent of uneasiness persisted. This was the night of Y2K, when people all over the world were wondering if their computer operations – and many of their operations overall – would survive to the next day.

They did, of course. And life went on.

Tonight, we close out a decade that in hindsight turned out to be worthy of real trepidation. Happily, there doesn’t seem to be tremendous concern about entering this new one – more a sense of relief at getting out of the last.

We spent most of the day wandering around Pike Street Market in Seattle, and there life went on as usual – the sellers promoting their products, the fish mongers enthusiastically throwing their fish from place to place. Life went on.

On the ferry in early evening west to Bainbridge Island, the ride had plenty of people, but wasn’t packed. The security was theoretically set on high, and maybe steps invisible to the passengers were taken, but no one seemed too stressed.

It feels like a different kind of new decade opening from that opening the year 2000. Maybe it portends a better decade. At least we can hope.

See you on the other side.