What fear does to home
I was walking quickly through the Salt Lake City airport to get from one flight to the other on Saturday, completely blank-minded, when I saw the cover of U.S. News in a store. "I AM GOD," it said, and I stopped in my tracks. And I just started crying in the middle of the airport hallway. I thought, "You are not God or Satan unless we make you such." And we have. Our new villain. Our new fear. Our new object of hatred, home-bred. How dare this person take that power, and how dare we let him or her?
When I got home and was driving through the town, everything excited me. Good memories, particularly from this past summer, flooded over me as I drove through late-night Columbia. It's easy to imagine nothing has changed in the dark.
I was fooling myself, though. I was prepared to be uncomfortable with how I had changed with regards to my surroundings; I was not ready to see how much we had changed here. People and places are humbled. Little things--every little thing--were affected. I said I was going to a diner; I was told not to stand around outside of it. Several people have said in fairly jovial tones to me not to go get gas. When people hear about a shooting far away, they run and get gas, because hey, that means he's not here.
Last night there was another shooting. I-95 (the highway that runs behind my house, for you silly West Coasters) was shut down. My father told me to go get gas now.
The streets are quieter. People don't go out as much. I haven't seen this kind of attitude in people since the September 11th frantic fear for the safety of our military/government parents and other family members. Both are similar, I think, in that they hit us on two levels: one simply shock at the inhumanity of it, and one close-to-home feeling. People look anxiously about for their loved ones with a worry just a few steps removed from the panicked phone calls last September.
It hurts to see this much fear, and to know that it's justified. There are plenty of people who go on with their lives--because what else can we do?--and some of them get shot. It feels like we're all standing in our own little fields just before a lightning storm. There's such a little chance, but...........
Miw.
-Jenn-
When I got home and was driving through the town, everything excited me. Good memories, particularly from this past summer, flooded over me as I drove through late-night Columbia. It's easy to imagine nothing has changed in the dark.
I was fooling myself, though. I was prepared to be uncomfortable with how I had changed with regards to my surroundings; I was not ready to see how much we had changed here. People and places are humbled. Little things--every little thing--were affected. I said I was going to a diner; I was told not to stand around outside of it. Several people have said in fairly jovial tones to me not to go get gas. When people hear about a shooting far away, they run and get gas, because hey, that means he's not here.
Last night there was another shooting. I-95 (the highway that runs behind my house, for you silly West Coasters) was shut down. My father told me to go get gas now.
The streets are quieter. People don't go out as much. I haven't seen this kind of attitude in people since the September 11th frantic fear for the safety of our military/government parents and other family members. Both are similar, I think, in that they hit us on two levels: one simply shock at the inhumanity of it, and one close-to-home feeling. People look anxiously about for their loved ones with a worry just a few steps removed from the panicked phone calls last September.
It hurts to see this much fear, and to know that it's justified. There are plenty of people who go on with their lives--because what else can we do?--and some of them get shot. It feels like we're all standing in our own little fields just before a lightning storm. There's such a little chance, but...........
Miw.
-Jenn-
posted by Jenn at 10/20/2002 08:12:00 PM
<< Home