Evie Mason moved to Seattle from Atlanta 19 years ago. “I’d lived in Atlanta all my life and it was just time to grow up. My husband and I used to watch the travel channel. They were spotlighting Seattle. About a week later I called him: ‘You want to move?’ That was a Wednesday and we left on Saturday.”
“So we get to Seattle. We don’t know where we’re going to live. He was like, ‘I can’t find a room. There’s something called Bumbershoot going on!’” But they found a hotel room and then a studio apartment, all within their first week. “He found a job in three or four days. In less than a month we were both working. We got jobs really quick, which doesn’t happen now.”
Evie expected to live in Seattle no more than five years, but it became home. “[In Atlanta], it was still segregated and here it was like, ‘Wow, everybody’s together.’ Plus I was ready to have a kid. She’s 15 now. Perfect place to raise her.” Asked if she’s found racism here, Evie says, “I’m sure there’s people that are, but it’s more hidden. The first couple of weeks here, I was watching the news and there were some people, ‘Oh, we don’t like Black people, blah, blah,’ and I’m looking at the crowd [opposing the racist demonstrators] and a good 95 percent were White and Asian!”
Evie built a multi-racial community around her. “How do I explain Grandma? That was my friend’s mom. When I got pregnant with my daughter, she was like, ‘Can’t wait for my grandbaby to be born.’ Her ‘grandpa’ is White and her ‘grandma’ is Filipina.”
Addiction problems caused Evie to lose her job. “I depleted my unemployment, my savings and then ended up outside.” Her daughter went to live with Grandma. “Got back on my feet and started trying to work, but working a full-time job and being homeless, that’s two full-time jobs.” There was barely time to take a shower before she left in the morning. “By the time I got back downtown it was close to 6, time to go to the shelter, and there were no in-and-out privileges, didn’t matter if you were working. You think, how do I get out of this?”
“Selling Real Change lifts you up a little bit, because you have money. You want everything when you don’t have money. I remember my past life, having money was just like, ‘oh, I could buy that if I wanted to, but I don’t.’ So it’s just to have that choice again.”
Besides selling Real Change, Evie takes time, often at Green Lake, to sit and think. “Everyone needs alone time, just to collect your thoughts.” She reads and writes stories and poetry. “I’ve got collections of work packed away at Grandpa’s house. My family kept saying, ‘Why don’t you put it together and submit?’ and I was like, ‘because it was always just for me.’”