Trauma Time – This Ain’t No Disco (a 30:30 Report)

(From scribbles Tuesday morning, June 2 – follow-up editing Wednesday afternoon and evening, June 3, and Thursday June 4.)

Flyaway, go by away, up into the stars. And who wouldn’t want that on a Tuesday. Escape.

My friend in New Jersey posted up some lyrics from Talking Heads’ “Life During Wartime” and I cannot think of a more appropriate song for today. “I got some peanut butter, to last a couple of days” and “It’s only the river” and “Why stay in college, why go to night school”, and none of these are the more confrontational, menacing, threatening, protesting, defending rights, historically accurate lyrics that he and then I were throwing back and forth on FB and Instagram. Life during social media. It is outlandish the police reaction with such aggression, I mean, are they scared? Hard to think it, but give Minnesota Multi-Phasic tests to all the cops and you gotta believe most of them would fail big time, fail in the sense of coming across as with little to no empathy or generosity, nah, dark interior worlds and anger and bullying and, of course and isn’t it painful to write “of course”, but what else would I say, bullying. Of course bullying. Boy, they sure weren’t teaching any of this in US History or Sociology or Biology or any of the regular subjects you got dosed with in public education, and

I guess we be getting a big dose of public education now — the fact we have to even deal with this, the fact that every single person in our (stolen) land of the free where we wake up in the morning, when we’re lucky enough to claim another day, with the constitutional right and inherent intent to chase after life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, the fact that every single of our citizens doesn’t accept those rights as a given makes for a terrible sadness. Sad days and they’ve been long time coming and longtime gone and they’ve been and have been the fabric of daily life since the day honkies stepped onto the original colony terra firma and started wasting the locals. And I grew up 18 miles from Plymouth Rock so believe you me I know of what I speak, and that’s been who we are and what we are so none of this life during wartime should come as any shock, though sometimes the in-your-face-ness of it becomes way too much, too much, Baby, like I get it and I know it and I grok it and still, Jesus, it is too much, and maybe all of us become glued to the drama and in that process and in the 24-hour a day news jamming down your throat we get lost in the trauma as well,

And I have a friend down in Oakland who is all about trauma and it’s workings and effects and she’s been heading up an outfit going around to public and private institutions to train about trauma and look out for it and at it and for whatever you do, do not add to it, do not in the course of doing what you do to try and help people further the experience of trauma, and she and her peeps are providing these trainings to human service networks and hospitals and schools and the whole start of those enjoined to make peoples’ lives better and more filled up with joy and more energized to get on out there and pursue some of that happiness, because if we ain’t paying attention to trauma and the process of being traumatized, well, we all part of the problem versus the solution, don’t need no Eldridge to know that, and here on Tuesday we have those who drive around with we’re here to protect you and to serve you one their vehicles and tanks traumatizing the shit out of kids and parents, out of families and communities, out of neighborhoods and entire cities, and I don’t know but a trip out there into the galaxies don’t sound all that bad, though who is advocating running away,

Because I’m not, but is sure does get tiring and I sure do get weary and I can speak for the many while I talk about myself, and it was just last night while assisting in the preparation of dinner where I lost it, having watched the news and listed to threat after threat and watching trauma after trauma, yeah I lost it and began dropping spoons and stews and veggies on and all over the floor and swearing and not just little swearing but blaring out swearing because it is too fucking much and here is my son standing six feet away telling me I am scaring him, so if anyone, like me for instance, is paying any attention, there I go traumatizing my very own son and probably my wife standing next to me who doesn’t say it and doesn’t have too because we are in this together and weep together and chase after joy and happiness together – though a bit harder now – and so perhaps she is not traumatized by my damn near he be crazy outbursts as just a little sadder, oh my poor husband suffering when it should not be the case, and so I apologize and say come on you know that is not me — which is asking my son not to believe his own eyes and ears since it sure as shit was in fact just me, and asking my wife to put in ear plugs and let me help with the broccoli, I promise I’ll do better now than I did sixty seconds ago and this is me watching the news, my 71-year old self shrinking with viral concerns re the geography of my day-to-day existence these last months and so not out in the streets demonstrating and pursuing my liberties and what the hell do I have to be traumatized about when others are gassed and beaten and shot at by the same folks who couldn’t get it together enough to hand out nose swabs and take temperatures eight weeks ago, and oh what a crazy world we live in master jack,

So yeah, there is Mike over there in the Garden State and he’s got some good news where there ain’t a lot of vandalism and destruction which of course and sadly nearly always hurts the ones we love, and I told my wife just yesterday I can see breaking bank windows and the big corporation headquarters, hell yeah I get that, but not the little call them mom and pops, come on, and then again I don’t feel the trauma that people of color feel and people of other sexual orientations feel or women feel or immigrants or the homeless so I can have my thoughts and feelings and hopefully they line up with justice and equality for all, and I am pretty sure they do, but on the trauma scale and me flipping out in the kitchen because of watching some asshole and shit for a human being say he’s going to send our lovely boys and girls into our very own cities with our very own people who ought to be going about their pursuits of happiness and our folks in uni’s are going to kick ass and take names and so I’m dropping shit all over the kitchen in some kind of mini-meltdown and the tiniest of traumas compared to so many of all of you, and still, it’s kind of my right and duty to feel this way now, and so give and donate money to people doing what I cannot do – which I used to do back during other traumas and national emergencies – and also go on and pray to all the Gods and higher powers I believe in –

Please help!!