I went through a serious backslide yesterday. I had a couple of good days in a row, but yesterday made up for them. I seemed to experience double the pain and sorrow. I am a different person now. I hate the unknown, yet I am deviating from the routine; I am doing everything differently. I am acutely aware that nothing is guaranteed, and I know that everything is temporary. The only thing one can count on is that everything will change.
It began when I was in Santa Cruz and I went to my usual place to get a latte. I usually walk with Hardy to do that, but this time I drove, because he's gone. Anyway, when I got there the place was closed - as in no longer in business. There was a notice on the order window that said their last day would be June 13th. So that means Monday, June 14th was their first day to be gone. I don't know why, but it felt good to me that no one could go there anymore, not just Hardy and me. I am certain that other people are really missing that coffee place, and the owners are most likely lamenting over their loss. It helps when I don't feel alone.
I also notice that I seem more intrigued by sad events happening to other people. Misery loves company, I guess. I read in the news that a baby died in New York over the weekend. A mother and her six month old were positioned under a tree in Central Park while the baby’s father took a picture. Out of nowhere a tree branch fell on the mother and child. The baby was pronounced dead on arrival, but the mother was listed in stable condition. It served to reiterate an uncertain truth for me: nothing in this life is guaranteed. Nothing.
The backslide has to do with a camera - a cell phone camera, to be exact. I was wondering about what that picture looked like. Then I thought about the man who was shot and killed on New Year’s Day at a Bay Area BART station. A bystander filmed it. Then I remembered the dog attack and the woman who was standing behind me with her cell phone open, but not calling anyone. In fact, she didn’t dial 911 until I screamed it at her. I remember thinking at the time, why is she just standing there? Why isn’t she helping me? Then I knew. She was filming what was happening with her phone!
This caused me enormous distress. I freaked out and relived the battle again and again until I was so exhausted that I went to rest on my bed and fell asleep. When I woke up, the harsh reality came back, like it always does upon awakening, and I wept as if the attack had only happened a couple of hours ago. The hysteria I felt on the day of the attack was the same; only this time I saw the event from a new lens. One that I remembered in my subconscious of a woman holding her camera-phone up in front of her face as the bizarre event was unfolding before her.
At first I thought the recording might have been for sensational reasons, but now I’ve come to believe that she was doing it to help me. She was just as shocked as I was about the attack in our neighborhood, and she was helping me in the best way she knew: recording the incident. I know she was one of the witnesses who spoke to the police. I wonder now if she mentioned the recording to them in her statement. I wonder if she still has it on her phone. I wonder if anyone else has seen it.
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