last evening in the park i stared at bare black tree branches against a deep blue sky. it was blue hour, not quite night-night, 6:30pm in early march. the sky dotted with the white lights of planes. and textured with shadows and smoke from our candle flames. wax from my candle dripped onto my hand, a momentary sting. then a comforting warmth.
i couldnt make out anyone’s face in the dark but there were so many of us, memorializing aaron bushnell and the over 30,000 palestinians murdered by israeli soldiers in a US-backed war. a vietnam vet spoke into a microphone about how he and his comrades had been trained in “esprit de corps,” devotion to & defense of the group, always in opposition to the enemy “other.” a mentality invented by governments backed by corporate greed, racism, and a desire for dominion at the expense of its citizens. how, via esprit de corps, a human being will commit atrocities theyd never commit alone, bearing sole responsibility for their actions. this is a theme i’ve seen repeated in other war art i’ve read/ watched recently, like etel adnan’s novella “sitt marie rose,” written during the lebanese civil war, & jonathan glazer’s recent film “the zone of interest,” about nazi commandant rudolf hoss & his family’s “dream house” right next to auschwitz. those who murder under the spell of esprit de corps ultimately suffer for their actions. my grandfather was 19 the first time he killed a japanese civilian while fighting with the us army during world war ii. he was the loneliest man i ever knew. he did not let others know him, know his suffering. he hid behind the money he eventually made as a corporate lawyer & he despised anyone who did not similarly live beneath a sheen of wealth and ease and conservative ideology. as soon as i was no longer a child, as soon as i wrote “no war” on the toes of my blue chuck taylors at 12, he despised me.
last night i was not lonely. i felt “of the world” in a way i rarely do. standing among strangers and neighbors, we were connected in our grief, but also our shared love of humanity. i walked home alone in the dark, “of” the trees, “of” the sky, unafraid.
thanks for sharing, I love the language in the last paragraph especially and how it reflected the intro with the sky and trees. I too have felt a strong sense of unity during this time by being at Pro-Palestine actions with others who are also feeling the immense heartbreak and infuriated by this genocide. and while we continue to be gaslit by those in power, while trying to supress voices of resistence, it feels crucial to organize. ps, great detail of writing “no war” on your blue chucks at 12