Wednesday, August 09, 2006

When Bombs Blast Through Our Doors, and Rockets Rain Down

My husband purchased a new DVD release today. Half way through it I had to leave the room. There were hostages. There were police. There were bank robbers. The moment the hostages were released, they were fired upon. It was a movie I could not continue to watch. I'm sick of guns. I'm sick of violence. I'm sick of movies, music, games and stories filled with guns and blood. There is so much of it in the real world. Who needs blood letting for relaxation?

One day last week I was leaving for work. I was walking towards the train station with my son. The station is two blocks away. When we approached the street where the elevated J train runs down Broadway, I heard a popping sound. The woman walking a few feet before me stopped walking. From where I stood holding the hand of my five-year-old, two men went running down Broadway in front of us in the direction of the subway. The woman in the front of us continued in that direction. I guess she thought it was safe to continue. I turned and headed home. I found it hard to explain to my son what I was thinking. I told him it wasn’t safe. I asked my husband for a ride to work that morning.

I can't bear the pop of a gun. I wonder who is on the receiving end. I wonder about those on the receiving end of guns in Bedford Stuyvesant-Brooklyn, Manhattan, New Jersey, and the so-called nice places like Long Island and Connecticut. I wonder about those who do the shooting. I worry about bombs and rockets landing in Lebanon, Beirut and Palestine. I wonder about those who pay for the bombs, rockets and guns. I wonder why some of us can keep going on about our business. I suppose some of us would only begin to pay attention to the suffering that goes on when groups of armed folks show up at our door or bombs blast through our windows and rockets rain down on our roofs.