A few months ago the city stopped and we all collectively held our breaths, waiting for the crisis to pass. The sad irony is had it not been for George Floyd breathing his last on the other side of the country, we’d still be here…holding and waiting. These weeks of people flooding the streets, against curfew and opposition, screaming Black Lives Matter, has sparked life and purpose into a city that was limping along like a wounded animal almost two weeks ago.
Brooklyn is learning to breathe again, albeit through masks, but breathing, moving, running, laughing, and yelling all the same. There’s noise where there once was a barren and crushing silence. Movement where there was hesitancy and trepidation for some.
The traffic is flowing and getting stuck at junctions, moving around the more open streets or idling patiently through a wave of protesters. Riders are returning to the buses and trains. Delivery guys crowd and customers line up outside a Peppa’s, Popeyes, or bodega, having acclimated to a new normal of distancing.
Almost daily a small herd of protesters travel up Utica Avenue chanting.
At night, a cacophony of fireworks jars me out of sleep. Their explosions sound so close behind the house that they ripple through the wall and hit me in the chest. For a fraction of a second, I remember what an actual gunshot sounds like, what height its light sparks from, and the succession of sounds of multiple bullets fired off. I take a deep breath to let that go and open my eyes to the dazzling sparkle of colors that light up my dark room. I watch for awhile through the bars on my bedroom windows.
The new neighbors next door at Old Man Jack’s house had their century-year-old looking monster of an oak tree, that once towered over both our houses for decades, cut down to the roots recently. We called her Big Bertha. I’m miserable about her death, but the view of the sky is uncanny.
I can see a gray cloud of smoke that hovers over the McDonald’s and the bank, but there’s no epic sirens or helicopters pursuing anyone at the moment. It’s an unexpected, somewhat inconvenient show, but it’s pretty and familiar.
I’m hazy as to why fireworks are being blasted off without any real adjoining holiday these days, but maybe people are just in a celebratory mood. It’s hot in the day and breezy at night. There’s a policy change, and frank conversations about race happening in all places not just the stoop. The constant running joke and consistent theme of Black people being shot or harassed by the cops that has filtered into every facet of our media, creative content, arts, and culture for years is finally being looked at. There’s an attempt at comprehension, but more than that, there’s outrage and calls for justice.
It feels like joy, or at the very least people having fun at the prospect of blowing their fingers off. It feels like the in and out, the push and pull of lungs expanding.
Anything’s better than watching them live in fear, whether that be from a virus or the police. A fear that has lessened, I think, because no one wants to die in their home having done nothing to honor George Floyd and countless others.
