Wherever you go, go with all your heart. (Confucius)
I know terrorism well. Evacuated my River Road apartment braless and in pajamas on September 11, 2001. Watched people jump to death. Felt the first tower collapse over me. Then the second. Lost my unshakable faith, my place, my ID temporarily. Hallucinated. Terrified my terrorized room mate. Will never live in a city with tall buildings again.
Ever since, I am convinced that today is the day an airplane will run into something especially when the sky is crystal clear. Sirens conjure a flashing, panicked image of West Side HIghway and dead firemen. I have a distinct sense that I will experience another attack. When I change direction on any given day, I imagine I am making the move that will save me when lightning strikes. Avoid public transportation and mass congestion like The Plague. I dwell in the realms of post-traumatic stress.
And abortion care.
Every time an overtly-Christian stranger friends me on Facebook or blows-up the abortioneer inbox with hate mail, I imagine myself hostage. Every time I walk to the clinic, I imagine today is the day it will explode. Recently, I began getting along with my doctor swimmingly so I'm convinced they'll shoot him any day now.
Who? Well, you know, the terrorists. Around here they also call themselves Pro-life. Imagine that.
In my deepest corners where I am chronically terrorized, I never want to die in a terrorist attack--burning in a plane or jumping from a sky scraper, suffocating to death in a stairwell, smashed by asbestos and godless things--in these wretched places, I wish to find the origin of terrorism and weed it out and give it kisses until its fragile terrified hate is love.
River Road? As in Roosevelt Island??
ReplyDeleteBless. Big hugs. And much love.
ReplyDeleteOh. And a lot of thank yous.
<3
I know the feeling (though not as profoundly as your linkage to 9/11). I am a volunteer escort who runs patients through the gauntlet of "Christian" "Pro-Life" "Driven by Love" protestors, some of whom have been investigated/convicted of domestice terrorism.
ReplyDeleteWe can go for weeks - us escorting - them harrassing. Then, one gesture, one stratetically placed comment... and we start wondering if today is the day when one of them decides to take us all out in a blaze of misplaced martyrdom.