...continued from the stay the Suburban Farm
It's just around sunset when I hear the first explosion. I glance up at Nathan to see if he's noticed but he doesn't look up from the book he's reading.
You get used to anything after a while, you know.
Part of The Accidental Theory: A journey to freedom
Read from the beginning >>
I once lived next to a double lane highway that separated a waterfront development of serene upper middle class from an area renowned for the Gangs of our "Cape Flats".
I became accustomed to the sound of gunshots over the years. These and the sound of Octane high, revving engines as the illegal drag races took place, way past midnight, on the wide straight highway only one cottage removed.
Yeah. You can get used to anything.
But this isn't always a good thing.
In fact, I'd suggest it's sometimes not a very good thing at all since change is inevitable, nothing is finite and everything generally seems to work both ways. Or more.
"Duality", Jung called it.
Another likely fact of life we often ignore because of fear, I guess. Fear of the Unknown. It's always The Unknown. Isn't it?
I lived some years of half alive and wishing I was dead because I feared change and now I've grown accustomed to the not knowing.
I've even made peace with it.
But I'd never have pulled off the learning if I hadn't been nudged shoved of the precipice and seen that I could fly.
So many remarkable minds sharing so much wisdom...
yet we make it all intellectual like, instead of applying most of it.
Maybe sometimes, when it's not too hard to half do, we may have a small go at applying bits of it that suit us. But rarely undiluted or consistently enough for much good to come of all this great wisdom.
Because we can become accustomed to anything, really.
Even discomfort.
And, in some support of the concept of duality, this can also be a very good thing as it turns out.
But back in that little cottage, way back when, sporadic gunshots became a normal part of life.
And some of my best ever memories are from the years that I lived there as well.
The later years, that is. The earlier ones were hard. When I had just bought the place and moved in. When I had to abandon my lifestyle of trading markets with my own t-shirt business, and all the freedom that afforded me even though I couldn't afford much materially, to take employment in a more corporate environment under the thumb of a boss who never seemed to stop working. Or even sleep at times.
I had a young child to be responsible for and a bond to cover. I thought some semblance of stability should be a priority.
Looking back...
a less stressed out mom, who had more free time for her child, would have given my daughter far more stability than that cottage and that office job ever did.
Hindsight, right?
Or just the wrong information, really.
Nathan doesn't seem to notice the first few loud bangs but, at around bedtime, their frequency has escalated. Eventually he looks straight at me and asks, "Are those gun shots?" "Yes. I think so." I answer, as casually as I'm able to.
His eyes widen and he's clearly frightened. I'm also scared but I'm not about to scare him even more. This isn't just a random shot or two. Not even close.
"They're pretty far away." I state, matter of factly. I then go on to tell him about the cottage I once lived in, with his sister, and how we used to hear them there. I explain, again, that we're right next to a part of the Cape Flats that, again, is well known for its gangs.
I go on to tell him we're well away from the area it's happening in, across another large double lane highway and enclosed in a secure, high, electrified fence. "The guard dogs on the property would go wild if anyone tried to get inside." I say.
I imagine, out loud, that it's a bunch of drunk people having a Sunday barbecue. That they're firing shots off into the air, or at targets, for fun. Inebriated, raucous and fueled with fire and testosterone, no doubt.
I lightly make fun of the brazen macho manliness that's still considered masculine around here, even though it results in such violence and destruction. Often for the boys that exude it as well. As much for them as for any unfortunate soul they share it with.
I move on to talk about how common it is in our country for people to carry firearms and how easily accessible they are. And then to talk to him about his father's gun and his own first experience of being offered a pellet gun, by his dad, to shoot.
This gentle conversation to defuse things seems to calm Nathan down a bit. As we climb into our respective beds and I turn the lights off, however, I can sense him lying stiffened in the dark.
Listening. Just as I am.
The frequency of the bangs has intensified even more while we've been talking.
After a few minutes I ask him straight up. "Are you okay?" "I'm scared." he replies. His voice is smaller in the dark and a feeling of total powerlessness washes over me. "Yeah. Me too." I reply honestly, so that he won't feel so alone and because I am scared as well.
I've never heard this many at the same time.
The bangs seem to be happening in a cluster, now moving to the West of us still some distance away. Then some silence for a bit.
It sure does sound like a fight of some sort but I maintain some drunk young studs are partying, saying that if it were an actual gang war we'd be hearing sirens by now. This doesn't alleviate our fear much though. Feeling stuck in it. Now at the center of it as it circles around us even wider.
I pick up my phone and tell Nathan I'll find a new place for us to move to in the morning. As I start looking for options he finally falls asleep.
I look for a short while but there's nothing I can afford and nothing to fall back on.
I put the phone back down on the table next to me and lie the dark, listening to what now sounds like a serious gunfight escalating within a couple of kilometres from us.
I lie there, with this feeling of absolute powerlessness washing over me, and my frustration at my inability to protect my child over these last years from the brutal nature of man...
slowly turns into unadulterated rage.
I feel the intensity of the emotion as it flushes throughout my entire body. Prickly and heated. A red hot heat everywhere.
A thought punctures the sensation and I want to reach out and grab the phone next to me. I want to write long angry messages to the person that started this, to the private professionals who enabled it and to the government officials who did nothing to stop it.
I want them to know where they've left us.
I want them to know what they're responsible for.
I want them to know that my child is afraid.
And I want them to know I fucking hate them for this.
I don't do anything though.
Not anymore.
I'll just be one more "crazy bitch" trying to engage with an already too broken system and I no longer bother fighting this plain fact.
Not like that anyway.
No. I've learned some over these last years. I've learned to pick my fights more carefully. I've also learned better how to fight. And both of these lessons have been entirely dependent on me understanding what my weaknesses are. Both my personal weaknesses and those cast upon me by the vision of a still vastly and selectively blind society.
I am only a woman after all.
They probably won't even read my email.
Or, if they do, they'll simply assume I'm "unhinged". Or lying. And any of these could be used against me, without question or investigation, in any way someone sees fit to spin things.
So, these days, I just observe this rage.
This righteous rage.
This valid reaction.
I know this anger is valid because, these days, I've come to accept all feelings as valid.
This is the instinctual rage of a mother protecting her offspring. There for a reason. There to kick me into fight / flight to take action to protect my child. Natural. Rational. Constructive. Instinctual.
Only if I don't acknowledge this, I may not take well considered action and, as a woman, I'm also not supposed to fight. Or to even be angry anyway. Only "crazy bitches" get angry or fight. Right?
No. I'm not allowed this because of my gender. Despite Mama Bears being used as metaphors all over the place.
Once again, we've intellectualized a natural instinct and pathologized it to the point that we're not even allowed to fight for our own children's safety or wellbeing anymore.
In fact...
we could lose them if we do.
As it is.
I've learned to not fight this reality.
As it is.
And so...
I lie in the dark...
observing the sensations of this fierce emotion in my body instead.
I don't distract myself with angry messages or action.
And, since I'm already in the dark, there's nothing to distract me anyway.
I simply lie there.
Observing how this anger feels.
I turn my awareness inwards and begin to scan my body and the sensations arising. I allow them. I don't try to change them. I accept these sensations as they are.
I also don't stop or linger on these sensations. I don't judge them either. I just observe them. The uncomfortably prickly pins and needles of my skin. The heat all over everywhere. My Palms.
My palms feel as though they're burning and I turn them upwards, allowing the heat to emanate from them. I don't dwell on it though. I just observe it as neutrally as I'm able to and I keep scanning.
Up and down. From the tip of my head to my neck. Down my arms to my fingertips and up again to my shoulders. Over my collar bones and down my spine to my feet and back up again.
And, as I do this, these sensations of anger begin to dissolve into lead.
I lie there, in the dark, and the sense of powerlessness moves into a deep heaviness.
I become cold.
Suddenly I want to weep with frustration. With despair. With grief.
At how much I've lost. At how little people seem to care. And how, despite giving it my all and speaking only the truth...
I have been, and still am, unable to protect my son.
all our friends are laughing at my crazy ex, he said
as I ran myself ragged to the bone trying to make him stop
because I didn't know enough yet
to stop it.
It's almost 11:00pm and there's a cacophony of bangs in all directions by this stage.
It feels as though we're completely surrounded.
On all sides.
But, as my awareness shifts back out of my emotions body and into my surroundings again...
these gunshots sound far too many, far too often and everywhere all at once now.
I'm calm again.
My mind is clearer after allowing these emotions to rise and to, naturally and inevitably, subside again.
Lying in the dark, choosing this experience of no action in this circumstance, is the action that drives this practice home to me in full.
My understanding of how and why it works, I mean.
Because, as I lie in the dark with a smile spreading slowly across my face, I'm actually trying not to laugh out loud now.
I've put two and two together and the oh-so active, weirdly mobile, surround sound "gang war" suddenly makes complete and utter sense.
I've also suddenly realized why "V for Vendetta" is back on Netflix again.
I reach for my phone to double check I'm correct this time.
I guess not having a school schedule or a business anymore can make calendar dates seem less important. Or result in them being entirely forgotten and discarded.
We don't have many fireworks in the more reserved suburbs I used to frequent more often. Fireworks aren't legal in most areas in my country.
But, it seems, folks around here are still far more wild and free. They still celebrate Guy Fawkes without restriction. Like no holds barred let it rip hard fuck restrictions anyway without restriction.
I've never seen heard anything like this in my almost 52 years of living in the Western Cape. In fact, I have some FOMO now and consider waking Nathan up to see if we can spot any fireworks on the horizon.
But he needs his rest.
So I lie there in the dark, laughing silently at myself while I hope the animals out there are safe. Yes, I do hope they're safe. But I also can't help feeling slight awe and real admiration for the fearless display, so obviously happening big time and all over the place, out there.
I begin to doze off, through the last trailing crackers, as silence jaggerdly decends at last.
Thank fuck I never wrote all those emails and messages.
