Bars that are crowded and mystical

I am here now, sitting at my kitchen table. Once again, I'm next to an un-read Sunday newspaper. It’s warm and rainy for January. Just now, my roommate and I laid out an apartment chore rotation. We wrote everyone’s assignment using colorful pens and posted it on the fridge.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the traffic hold up on 93 in Milton and Medford that happened this Thursday. Of all of the people that attached themselves to cement blocks, the detoured ambulance, the school busses, the people late to work.

Last night, one of my friends said she believes it is hard to hate people when you know their story. We were sitting together in a basement bar, and as the night continued people kept coming in. We were in this tiny corner of the city and the country and the world, and even so, the collective energy of the crowd, with their cocktails and lives and worries, felt infinite. How amazing, she said. 

I keep going back to that thought: that it’s the stories that keep us patient and loving. It’s the stories that allow us to let our guard down. Imagining what those stories look like for the people behind the Thursday morning’s demonstration, the police officers descended upon the scene, and the commuters that found their days unfolding in a new and frustrating way, makes it the scenario feel more possible to digest.  

I think that our problem is that stories come way too late. The sacred day-to-day details of other’s lives emerge only after the tragedy hits, and the details have already died with them.  After Ferguson, we started to learn about how Michael Brown went about his day, and about the lives of others in the community. Only after the two police officers died, were we able to contemplate what existed behind the uniform. Maybe the only way to love, and for that love to make a difference, is to crack things open earlier, and see what spills out.

Also, I stumbled upon this poem this week. It’s quick. And very worth it.