June 03, 2010
Traumatic
This post is going to be about something disturbing and traumatic that I saw today, so if you are easily upset about the condition of the world, please don't read on.
This morning, Jason and I were biking along the beautiful beach path from the Pacific Palisades, through Santa Monica and down towards Venice Beach. We were having a particularly good time together, and I felt a sense of safety and well-being, which is not a common thing for me.
I looked out over the rolling waves of the ocean, and I felt a certain goodness and thankfulness in my being. There has been so much trauma and stress this year, and it is still inside my physical body: without warning my muscles engage and lock into tight knots, a wash of debilitating poison flows through my veins, and I brace for the onslaught of emotional and psychological terror. It usually results in a migraine or the inability to sleep and ensuing exhaustion. My body has reacted this way since I was a small child.
To combat this instinct, now that much of the trauma seems to come in aftershocks and we seem to be out of the epicenter of crisis, I've had to deliberately focus on good things, being mindful of my thoughts and essentially running them through a sieve. So this morning, while I was biking by the sea, I was breathing in deeply on purpose; intentionally filling my lungs with the goodness and beauty that was surrounding me in order to chase away some of the vast lingering darkness and anxiety.
We wound our way around the sandy, serpentine path and talked, and I felt a sense of simply being. I was actually present in the moment and not in my usual state of fighting being worried about what horrific thing may be right around the corner.
As I was riding along, I looked around and to my right I saw the sand, the gentle waves of the beautiful Pacific Ocean. To my left, green and towering mountains. The Santa Monica pier in the distance and white gulls flying overhead. The wind was at my back, and my defenses were down. I mean, if there's anywhere to let my guard down, it's on that beach path. The beauty of my surroundings was enough to fill my mind if I let it, and I wanted to let it. To push away the trauma that I've carried inside myself for so long. The chaos-stained world that is my internal reality much of the time faded into the background, and I was content to leave it there. What would I possibly encounter on a quiet Thursday morning, riding a bike by the sea, during time I had set aside to deliberately put aside my worries?
As we rounded into the beach town of Venice, we saw a yellow-taped-off square of space at the entry of a store front. A small crowd of people stood and looked on, as if there was a show about to start. Jason asked me if they were shooting a movie. I glanced over. Then I saw it.
The dead body of a young man, a white death-cloth haphazzardly thrown over him and blood pouring from his temple, lay eerily still on the sidewalk.
The thing that I cannot erase from my mind is the techno-music blaring from the beach store that was the backdrop for the crime. An obvious tourist was snapping pictures with his digital camera. People were shopping in the adjacent shops. There were two police cars near-by, but no officers. No one was scurrying around, there was no sense of immediacy or crisis. A young man with new-looking black canvas One-Stars had been shot in the head and lay lifeless on the sidewalk, and no one seemed to be doing anything.
Why didn't someone turn off the music? Where was the respect for his life? All I could think was, this is someone's little boy. Somewhere there is a mother who has no idea that her son lays dead on the sidewalk on a quiet Thursday morning in front of a shop on the beach.
I felt like I was going to pass out and throw up. We instinctively turned our bikes around and started riding back towards our starting point. I tried to maintain strength to move myself away from the scene and not black out from the shock of it, and to do so I had to force myself to think of other things. The wind blowing into my face, and sand crunching and crackling under my bike tires.
Innocent, happy people biked toward Venice, toward the dead body, and as I rode, I had an overwhelming compulsion to warn them to turn around. But I was unable. I envisioned myself slamming my bike in front of the oncoming traffic and screaming, "A boy has been shot up ahead and they don't have the human decency to turn off the fucking throbbing techno music! Turn back-- please don't go any further!"
But I didn't. I couldn't. All I could do was pedal ahead, shocked, ashamed, powerless to save anyone from anything. I've never been more aware of that in my life than I am now. Every day, I will continue to see those who are sprawled out, alone and bleeding on the sidewalk, and those who are obliviously headed toward the trauma that is this existence. And there is absolutely nothing I can do to stop it.
Posted by darbydinatale on 06:42 PM | Comments (13)