Work is gut-churning, so much so that I have lost my appetite. I slog my way through a run, beating myself to wring out every step. I sigh my way home, feeling like some days are a pointless grind of work, running, taking out the garbage for the building, jumping the car’s balky battery so I can play opposite-side-parking street hockey.
I open the front door, and someone has shoved papers under it into the vestibule. This is not unusual, today it seems like yet another of the endless streams of business cards, menus, flyers, supermarket circulars I am forever chasing down the sidewalk, picking up off the stoop, clearing from the hallway floors.
I look at the papers to see how to relegate them and the little negative head flow of pity-me dries up. Two pieces of paper, folded together. There is no envelope, but the insignia of the Brooklyn DA’s office. Unpleat their accordion to reveal the missive is from the sex crimes unit. It is a summons to appear, an order to testify, it belongs to someone in my building.
She could be a witness to the crime, she could be a character witness, she could be the victim. Whatever she is, it is none of my business. I am horrified at the invasion of her privacy, that everyone in the building could know. That I know. I ring her doorbell and hand her the papers, mortified, apologetic for the inappropriate knowledge I have, tongue tied by awkwardness.
Last night when I came home, a further summons, the card of the detective, was stuck in the front doors, with her name hand-written on it. I gave it to her, and she gave me cookies she had made, an astonishing act of grace for one so violated.
posted by ttractor @ 4:02 PM
3 Comments:
nothing like the suffering of others to snap your head around
the tragedy, the misery - the havoc that we wreak on eachother
how does one account for it
is there a way to arrive at peace beyond understanding
I wrote this in response to you having your bike mauled. When I saw the DA's emblem, I felt a little trill of excitement. It was promptly squashed by the gravity of the situation, but there was that tiny feeling of "wow, I'm in the big city!"
I try not to be obnoxiously self-absorbed. And I really have a problem with the "I felt bad for myself cause I had one leg until I saw the man with none" kind of thing. My misery is mine, and although I try not to steep myself in it, neither do I want it discounted (oh, not that you are doing this, I just mean in general).
It all flows into the struggle I have with grace every day. Those who have seen me in action have seen me fail, spectacularly, falling on my ass, with my metaphorical skirts over my head, revealing my gray underwear with the humiliating busted elastic.
I have done things out of fear, ignorance, selfishness. For some the canvas for their inchoate pain is large, encompassing the world, or another person. I hope to keep mine as small as possible...I am not sure there is anything else to be done. Anyone with an answer, id be so ahppy to hear it!
I'm not necessarily flogging myself...but I do feel the need to be honest, or at least try to be, about where my emotions come from. And while I would like to beleive I am giving and careful and empathetic, my behavior reveals taht this is not always the case.
What I write here is often the most beautiful, gentle thing I experience all day. Something that happens when I am most open, or the thing that opens me the most. That can give a lop-sided view of how I really am, which is, entirely human and fallible.
That being said, I am glad I found the paperwork and not anyone else in the building. I don't want anyone else to bear the burden of that knowledge, the fear of not acting appropriately, the discomfort of assumption.
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