(photo R Thompson)
No Hope = Riots
Hope = Dancing in the streets
I moved to the D.C. area from my beloved Poulsbo, WA in June this year.
In July as I walked around the White House streets in Lafayette Square, the tension was insurmountable in D.C. . You could feel in the air that at any split-second people could start rioting, and the Secret Service would be enforcing the gates of the White House…
No one was happy. No one. It was a build-up of the last year, the last 4 years as well.
The fence around the White House had hundreds of pictures of folks of all races attached to it. I saw one picture in particular that looked familiar. It was a picture of a man that was shot in Poulsbo last summer. Shot in the park next to the marina, next to my boat. It seems like that was the start of the year to come.
Last weekend, I went to the same Lafayette Square Park, as I go into downtown D.C. with my Segway scooter and zip around the city often. When I approached Lafayette Square, which is not blocked off, (Black Live Matter BLVD is now the closest you can get) ……it was different..
The tension was not there. In fact, people of ALL races were literally dancing in the streets. Dancing. (“Everyone around the world, people dancing in the streets” was blaring on a stereo speaker and doezens of small groups of people were dancing and singing along with this song…even some of the police).
The Riots had literally turned to dancing. People were so happy, even the reporters and camera crews.
It can be hard for some folks to read this and not get political. I understand that. What I can offer to you though is simple……when rioting turns to dancing, there is something to be said of that. HOPE.
People need hope. Empathy. Love.
Spain
I think many of us had travelled to Spain to walk the Camino because we needed the same things….
I feel as if a mental weight had been lifted in the past week. I am not minimizing the thoughts of the other half of America, but for me, the effects of the last week is the same feeling of having a warm cup of hot chocolate on a cold winter’s day. Like hearing noise and then you put on the noise cancelling headphones and it is calm…like the sound under water in a swimming pool, calm.
I felt the same way on the Camino. The noise of my life was muffled by nature. By foot pain. By day after day of sweltering, July 2017 heat. By kindness of people. By laughter. By amazing tapas. By town after town of celebrations and people dancing in the streets….
Ryck, CEBC
(Our moon is a waning crescent, 4% illumination)
THANK YOU SO MUCH RYCK FOR THIS PERSPECTIVE ON LIFE AS IT IS UNFOLDING.HAVING A PERSONAL REPORT FROM THE BATTLE FRONT IS VERY MUCH APPRECIATED.
SO MUCH GOING ON–SO MANY DIFFERENT WAYS TO SEE THINGS–SO MANY OPINIONS.
YOUR COMPARISON TO THE CAMINO RINGS TRUE WITH ME.
I DO HOPE WE ALL LEARN TO LIVE IN HARMONY DESPITE HAVING DIFFERENT POINTS OF VIEW.
PRAYING FOR PEACE ON THIS PLANET.
THANK YOU RYCK.
On a more geographical than political note.i have noticed that fairly close to Santiago de Compostela is the Parque Nacional Maritimo Terrestre de las Islas Atlanticas de Galicia,which means roughly the National Marine Park of the Atlantic Islands of Galicia.i was reading about them on a website about the Spanish dark skies movement.so near yet so far and I’d never heard of them before.Loads of English people go to Spain,or did,but they tend to head for the south and the Mediterranean Coast instead of the Atlantic Coast I suppose that they reason why go to a place that has a high risk of similar weather to home? tempted to, when I can and who knows when that’ll be,to visit these islands and take in Santiago to boot.althought winter is a bad time and Atlantic ferries often don’t run due to storms but in summer that far north the hours of darkness will be at a premium if it’s stargazing you seek.i was at hospital in Newcastle last week and have to have radiation on my hands and feet plus they are putting me on the anti cutaneous t cell lymphoma drug Bexarotene, tradename Targretin, which would seem to have several possibly unpleasant side effects.it seems to be one of the few things that can inhibit the progress of advanced Mycosis Fungoides but time,as they say,will tell?such is my path through this vast universe.
YES! “… same feeling of having a warm cup of hot chocolate on a cold winter’s day.“ is a great way to explain it!
And that muffled sound of normal life we find in certain environments speaks to me too.
But I’m going to make a ColaCao to live that hot chocolate metaphor.
Buen día,
Dear Ryck,
Thank you so much for this very thoughtful post. I enjoy so much reading you and your perspective on things.
A shift from riots to dancing is the expression of the body releasing the pain and fears… It is the mammalian brain expressing the arrival to a safe place after being in danger…
I told some of our Caminoheads friends and also to other American friends I have, as someone looking at this from a different country and not being American, my body also released pain and fears when the results come, so “everyone around the world” is literally true… We used to look at America with admiration… and we hope to be able to admire America again…
Buen Camino,
Cris