7 am.
A single scooter swerving in between sidewalk and broken line. A lone rider. Face covered in a oversized bandana, large eyeglasses shield most of the rest of your face. All that is visible is a shock of black hair standing up like small snakes trying to pull free from your scalp. Upon first glance, you look almost alien, an energetic being somehow out of place.
You gyrate provocatively as you ride along. Almost crashing twice at the side of the road in you exuberance to mirror fornication. It is early, there is almost no one around and you seem unaware of anything other than the rabid desire to pleasure yourself with clothes on in open space in transit to an unknown destination. You dance along to no music.
7 am.
I see you riding along in heat and all I feel is a primal fear. My skin prickles as energy moves to my extremities just in case I have to respond, to defend myself from your exaggerated masculinity. I wonder if you have lost your grip on the shared reality and then feel that it may not even matter because if you think you are a God amongst men, you will act to take what you feel is owed to you. That is terrifying.
Then there is anger. Anger at a society where I know that some would believe that it was my fault for taking an early morning walk to enjoy the sunrise and the quiet of nature before the world got too hot and not a man’s because he didn’t understand boundaries; because he chose not to understand that my presence as a female was not permission to do as he pleased; because for some, having and respecting boundaries doesn’t present as a choice. Anger at how sensuality — something so natural — can incite fear, disgust, and censorship because of puritanical social constructs. Anger that if this young man was high (on drugs, on spirit, on life, on something else) that only in this state could he feel free enough to act out “taboo” behavior in such a frenetic manner.
7 am and it wasn’t just about race, age, perceived gender, mental health, or any other identifier on the long list that flash through the conscious and unconscious mind when one human sees another.
7 am and the biases that I have showed up once again and I recognized that my feelings weren’t really about him as he rode off into the sunrise as happy as a lark in heat unfazed by my presence but perhaps for my judgmental, poorly concealed stare. Once again, it all boils down to a person can preach all the love, sit in meditation for hours, go to church, or donate to any number of causes, but until one deals with the feelings of anger, fear, sadness, hurt that arise when one human sees another human living what appears to be the best version of their life that they can muster, great progress will forever be incremental.
Just tiny baby steps of change that one may have to walk back when another test arises.
7 am.
The importance of working on the self before passing judgement is reaffirmed.
Caia Rose 