To Err is Human

The sun is shining brightly as I arrive at the Commons, yet I hesitate before exiting the truck. For those who might be unfamiliar with the area, this a large park right in the center of the Lilac City. There’s a bit of twisted humor for us; lilacs, which represent innocence, purity, divinity, and love, have shrouded this city – with the highest crime rate in all of New Hampshire – in a sweet and satiny veil of duplicity. I contemplate my love/hate relationship with my surroundings as the butterflies and bees take flight deep within core. As always, the gazebo, with its massive size, is the first site to steal my attention. Gazing up at her, I know that I have no choice of where my mind is about to take me.

My husband is the first to invade my mind, as I recall him kneeling down on one knee in the center of the worn wooden floor. I had high expectations back then, and this place had no significance to our relationship. I had been wandering around one minute, reading the various graffiti on the posts, and the next minute I had a beautiful ring around my finger. Disappointment, perhaps at the realization that my life would be no fairy tale, coursed through me. With maturity, I now have a better understanding of the things that matter, like love, respect, and equality. Because we continue to share those things, I have exactly what I wanted all along.

Walking beside the gazebo, my mind shifts to my oldest son, and the night he disappeared (at the age of 13) after we had a disagreement. Eventually, the police found him, and he was safely returned to me. Later that night, long after my panic was whittled down to mere annoyance, the phone rang. The young man on the other end would inform me that he had discovered my name (along with the word “Mom”) and my phone number written in black Sharpie on the railing of this very gazebo. While I dealt with the graffiti in a stern manner, my heart was singing – even in anger, he thought of me!

I take notice of the new playground next to the gazebo, smiling at the children’s delighted shrieks of approval at the updated structure. All I can envision, though, is a giant boulder, standing about four feet high and 2.5 feet wide, and while it had a mostly pointed top, it also had a small area at the very top that is just barely flat enough for a child’s small bottom to sit on. Countless times, I pulled my children away from it, envisioning its dangers before they were old enough to know any better. One day, though, I was distracted by one child, and another saw this as his opportunity to climb that granite mountain. I was alerted to this by the piercing screams of his four-year-old lungs, begging for help. As I rushed toward him, my son, who was clinging to the top of that giant boulder for dear life, let go. Fortunately, he managed to survive this with no more than a scraped chin, and perhaps a bruised ego. There is a strange beauty in the power that a mother’s kiss can hold when their young child is in pain.

Just beyond a small baseball diamond, there is a small dirt track that loops around the entire perimeter of the Commons. When the kids were in elementary school, I’d volunteer for the Walk-a-thon each year, helping to motivate the little ones as their miniature legs completed lap after lap. I would look forward to walking this track alone, too, usually after the sun had set and the air was more tolerable. With my headphones in, it was easy to pretend I was alone, and I welcomed the solitude. In more recent years, though, the increased crime rate has replaced any feelings of peace, leaving visitors to question whether they are safe as they make their way through the shadows. Those who are brave enough to return after nightfall must now do so with the utmost attention on their surroundings.

I sit on a bench now, abutting the area I parked in earlier. Just off to my right, I can see the ugly gray porta-potties, the same porta-potties where, years ago, I would hold my young daughter up in the air, hovering her over the toilet as I begged her not to touch anything. Back then, they were layered in filth, often with empty sanitizer dispensers and no trace of toilet paper to be found. Sadly, one is now more likely to discover the body of an overdose victim behind the closed door, as opposed to urine and feces smeared across the stall. I can feel the weight of this realization anchoring me in place as I shift my gaze straight ahead.

Today, having arrived at about 6:30 pm, there is still a lively bunch of people in various areas of the Commons, with many making loop after loop around the track. However, I am drawn to a lone young woman, seemingly out of place on such a perfect day. Although a typical, humid August day, well over 80 degrees, I can’t help but notice her clothing. She is wearing a long-sleeved black and white tie-dyed shirt and bright blue soccer shorts. She has black tube socks on, with black combat-style boots. She is carrying two large, white canvas totes, one on each shoulder, but the weight of them seems to be causing her to stumble slightly. Curiosity piqued, I watch her stumble/walk over to a giant oak tree and place the totes on the ground. Before long, she is thrashing about, violently shaking her long, bleach-blond hair with about 5 inches of dark brown regrowth, back and forth through the air. After she raises her boot-laden foot and kicks the air a couple of times, she picks up her bags and begins to walk away from me.

My curiosity is quickly replaced with recognition, as the signs of addiction have become too frequent not to notice. When the woman stops after about 20 feet, she wriggles the totes off of her shoulders and dumps them on the ground before hiking up her top, so she is just barely clothed, picks up her bags, and stumbles over next to the porta-potties to sprawl out in the grass. She remains there, staring up into the cloud-riddled blue sky, for the next five minutes or so, until a police officer arrives. While I am barely close enough to hear the conversation that takes place, it is immediately clear that the time has come for her to move along. Watching the scene play out before me, I feel the knot down deep in my belly, which has been present since I first arrived, increase in intensity. The longer I sit there though, the more this feeling eats away at me. Why do I feel ashamed? What have I done wrong? Why do I feel sadness or anxiety, or whatever it is that I am feeling?

The simple reality of this hits me like a freight train: I am guilty, I should feel ashamed, and I am wrong. I see this girl, but I pretend that she is invisible. I have unconsciously and instantaneously decided that her poor choices have reduced her worthiness to be seen as a human being. I became her judge, and I deemed her guilty of the one thing that we are all so guilty of; the one thing that, as humans, we will continue to do as long as we walk the earth – she made a mistake. From where I am sitting now, it is becoming clear that she does not need another judge. After all, she is probably punished by a flood of self-persecution every time she struggles against picking up a needle. While I won’t pretend to fully understand addiction, mental illness, or whatever else is ailing that girl, I know enough to know better. An unsuspecting family can become victims of any number of tragedies in an instant. I’m not immune, and neither are the people that I love. All I can offer this stranger, and the many others just like her, is compassion – human decency.

This park, while it may seem full of not-so-great memories, crime, and presently, an overall negative atmosphere, is so full of life. Not just the bright side of life though, but real life. Sometimes, life is a child screaming in joy as the swing flies toward a cloud, and he almost touches the sky with his toes. Or it could be a group of friends meeting up on their bicycles before they all head off together in the same direction. It can even be the graffiti that lets a mother know she was at least on her son’s mind. Sometimes, life is the less-than-perfect proposal from a person who is perfect for you. Sometimes, life is a trip to the porta-potty in the hopes of forgetting life, even if only for a little while. Finally, it could be that woman who has speed-walked past me on the track about 15 times now, the pissed-off expression etched into her face masking the thoughts, memories, and worries for her own child that are flooding through her mind. Perhaps this is the reason that we can see our own selves reflected in the eyes of another, as a reminder – a warning, even – that we all have the same potential.

Making my way to the parking lot, I allow myself a final glance up the steps of the old gazebo. I recall, once again, my less-than-perfect proposal from my less-than-perfect husband, followed by a less-than-perfect wedding. Now, we live a less-than-perfect life, with less-than-perfect children. Yet, this is perfect for us. I can say with confidence that life comes with a variety of imperfections. It’s a guarantee. However, it is one of those guarantees that can’t be proven until the moment perfection is replaced by something, well, less than perfect

Back at home, I work to convey these images in words, but I struggle to see the young woman’s face clearly now. Instead, she represents someone I know, someone who is close to me, everyone that I love. I wonder if her mother, too, used her magic to kiss the pain away when she scraped her chin on that very same rock. Was she embarrassed by a mother who held her over the public toilet at five-years-old, protecting her from filth? Did she run away from home and find herself lost in this park, waiting for someone to rescue her? She could have been my child, had life dealt us a different hand. Have I walked side by side with her mother as we completed our laps around the track, both lost in our worries for our children? Does her mother, like me, feel the shattering of her heart when magic kisses no longer work to ease her child’s pain?