We live near Boulder. Yesterday, a killer murdered innocent people in cold blood in a grocery store there. I didn’t know any of them personally, even though some of my friends live near that store. I’ve been there with them to pick up things, stopped there to grab picnic food, and eaten at the restaurants next door. My friend got a vaccine there last week.
When I was a teenager, I spent some quality time cowering under a magazine rack while a gunman robbed a Walgreens. I wrote about that before. I spent a good amount of time reliving that last night, my heart racing and cold sweat beading the back of my neck while my daughter sat next to me on the couch playing video games. PTSD is hell. It took a lot of meditation and walking myself though old therapy routines to sleep. I did eventually.
It’s spring break and my girls wanted to be out. They wanted ice cream and I had promised. I had to convince myself it was safe to do so, even though I knew it was. It was a pretty day even though it was cold. We went downtown and visited all our favorite shops, the bookstores and the gem store and the ice cream shop. Everyone was very friendly, in that exhausted, sadly smiling the way they are when they’re all weary. Everyone was waving and smiling behind their masks. They smiled and waved from cars and sidewalks. They chatted in the shops. They called “Hi sweetheart!” at my girls. You could feel it in the air. We all made happy conversation that wasn’t quite happy because we all hurt but we all wanted to be together.
On the way home, I was sitting at a stoplight by the courthouse. A man was hanging the flag on the flagpole. It was windy because the next storm was blowing in and it was getting colder. He pulled it up to half mast and just stood looking at it, and the look on his face was one of utter devastation. I almost can’t describe it, but it was heart-rending. I don’t know if he knew someone. Maybe he was a police officer or maybe he just felt it in the air like we all did. I cried all the way home.
There’s such heaviness in the air, such despair. Such indescribable pain.
I’m not writing this for a gun debate or politics. Don’t bother with those comments here.
Edge Pieces 