2001-07-07 - 11:43 a.m.

Every night for weeks I�ve been hardly able to sit. I sit down by the window, and Nate begins to tell me about the latest crisis going through in his head, or the ordeal of his latest play, or how this one song is the ultimate pop song, as he is wont to do. But a moment later I�m looking out the window, and then I�m jumping up and throwing on my coat. I have to be out there, finding something, because I won�t find it in here.

�Uh. Oh. Dave�s rammy again,� Nate says. That�s short for rambunctious. I tell him sorry, I�m not much for conversation these days; I�m on a single-minded mission, I can�t listen to you like I did in the old days, I�ve got to listen to myself.

This week I�ve been filling my card to the brim with rammy activities. Saturday was the rally against police brutality. Monday was the ONE convention. Tuesday I went to a community policing meeting and this evening, a block club meeting. But it hasn�t been enough, I tell myself; there must be more adventures out there.

So I get up out of my comfortable chair once again and put on my jacket. I pace around the apartment a minute, trying to decide whether I should go to the Green Mill or the lake. And then, when I�m all ready to go, I sit down on the couch a minute and stare off at nothing. There�s a battle going on in my head. The third character of my brain seems to have reappeared. It�s Toothy McGee, the existential fatalist. He hasn�t been in control since I was laying in bed with my headache, wondering if I would die. Now he�s providing a counter-point to Pants LaRuey.

Pants: Time to get out there! Time to do stuff! Come on, come on!

Toothy: What�s the point, Pants? What are we trying to do here?

Pants: Aw, shut up. Just come on and I�m sure we�ll find something worth doing.

So I get up from the couch, letting the go-getter self win the argument for now. I head first to the Green Mill, where they charge five dollars to get in, even on a Wednesday. I don�t feel much like paying, so I wander east toward the lake.

My brain is going a mile a minute as always. I�m think about all these activities I�ve been doing. I try to place them in the context of my life, decode the meanings, keep focused. Think of the poor people of Uptown railing against the heartless developer�

-

I�m sitting in the very last row, listening to this man who doesn�t have to be here defend his condiminium plan to the local block club. He already has approval to build a four-story condo right next door, on Leland and Kenmore. But here he is, standing before the biggest crowd the Leland Square Neighborhood Association has attracted in a long time, drawing angry shouts and skepticism, along with a few voices of approval.

A voice pipes in from the middle of the crowd that I recognize. It�s Charity, from the homeless shelter, trying her best to be civil. He�s the one in control, after all, as much as activists like her try to weild influence through protests and angry voices.

�I realize that you don�t have to do it, but is there any way that you would consider making one or two of these units affordable to poor people?� she asks.

The man waits a moment, sighs, puts on a defeated smile.

�You know, this is a request I�ve heard before,� he says. �I can�t. You see, this is my profession. I�m in this to make money. It would be like� if I asked you to do your job for free.�

Bad choice of words.

�I do give lots of my time for free. I volunteer my time.�

�That�s not the same,� he shoots back. �That�s not the same and you know it.�

In what way not the same? In that you�re a greedy developer whose only concern is to maximize profits? Because it�s your job to make your million off a neighborhood that you care little about, while it�s Charity�s job to sacrifice and give her time to try to counteract the problems he creates? But the point is moot, the condo will go up regardless�

-

This is good. Stay on the path. Fight the machine. Think of those poor people who can�t feel at home in their own neighborhood because of the police�s suffocating presence on these streets�

-

This woman, sitting a few rows over from me at the community policing meeting, is so angry that she looks delirious. She can hardly catch her breath as she screams at the uniformed men before her.

This week, her son was taken from right near her home, a suspect in a beating, and brought to the hospital to see if the victim could identify him. When her daughter called up to tell her what had happened, she came racing down, but he was gone. And the police officers, she said, would not tell her what had happened to him, would not give her the time of day.

�You don�t just tell me that this is none of my business,� she says. �This is my business.�

Her son was released shortly thereafter, but that�s not the point. Why is she not shown any respect as a parent? Why are there so few black officers in Uptown? Why does she have to feel like a perpetual suspect in her own neighborhood?

-

So many questions, just more and more questions with no answers in sight. But I must stay on the path. Don�t listen to those inner demons. This is what I have to do. This is what I want be doing. Is this what I want to be doing? Or am I doing what I have to do? Do I have to suffer? Is this a new me, or is it just the old me, letting himself fall back into the things he doesn�t want to do?

I can�t stop these voices in my head. I tell them to shut up for once, to trust me, but new doubts spring from every conviction. Every time I tell myself, this is good, another voice pipes in simultaneously, is this good? The battle is never won; one side attacks, another retreats, and the cycle begins again. I want my mind to be quiet, let my life happen for once, but it doesn�t happen. I just keep thinking, what is the purpose? Shut up! Stop thinking!� You�re still thinking. Okay, stop thinking� Now! But maybe I shouldn�t stop thinking, maybe I have to let myself think just as much as I want to think. I can�t force it, can�t force my brain to turn off, so I decide to turn off the part of my brain that�s trying to turn the other part off. But that�s another part of my brain again, trying to control itself, which has been proven to never work. I feel I am going crazy, but I have to let myself go crazy, but just thinking that makes me go even more crazy.

I try to fix my mind on some other track. Whenever my mind starts to go out of control, I must tell myself to breathe. And appreciate the simple things. This park. This water fountain, bubbling water from it 24 hours a day, inviting me to take a sip. I dip my mouth in. the water is good. I feel my feet swish through the grass; look up at the sky. This is good.

And then, I can let my thoughts happen, naturally. I am suffering. I am banging my head against walls. But that is okay. I am doing it for myself, or for you. I will walk through the mud. And, as I happen to be walking along a patch of dirt after a week of rainy days, I have a patch of mud to walk through right here. I step in it on purpose, squishing my boots in in and lifting up my heavy feel, feeling the sliminess of it all, for you.

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