A Language Older Than Words - Derrick Jensen [165]
In our case, too, seeing the mistake after it is done is not enough. Nor is wishing it away. Nor, especially in this case, is grieving.
When I took her for that walk, I found myself wandering far ahead of this ancient, arthritic, overweight pup. I worried about a train, but not overmuch, because we were in the midst of a long straightaway, at the far end of which, beyond the dog, was a tight curve. When I saw a train round this corner, I began to run toward the dog. Not because I needed to run, but for the joy of running. Then I saw the train had more speed than I had anticipated, and I ran faster than I ever had. And then I saw her tumble into space.
What do you do—what do you feel—when you see destruction rushing down steel rails toward someone you love, and you see that nothing you can do will stop it? You may be a fast runner, but you cannot outrun a train.
I have read that while every culture has invented comedy, tragedies are the unique invention of civilizations. A hero, doomed, stupid, blind to his own faults, falls quickly—or more accurately inexorably—toward a fate he can neither comprehend nor avoid.
I can try to make right those parts inside of me which should never have been made wrong, and I can grieve losses both inside and out, and I can try for all my life to improve my relationships with those around me, human and nonhuman alike. I can even accept that the oncoming train will most likely crush us— or rather continue to crush us—and will stop only under the weight of our bodies and the gumming of its gears by our flesh.
But I will not give up. I know in my bones what it is like to sit stone-faced and frozen in the face of inevitable evil, and I know in my flesh what it is to lie down and take it. I know also what it is like to resist. I know that I am no longer a child, faced with only the options of a child. I know that I am now an adult, and I know that it is at long last time I began to act like one. It is time for me to fight back.
One of the difficulties of our predicament is that once having suffered atrocity, the walls you've constructed become a part of your body, and do not come down of their own when the immediate danger has passed.
Judith Herman said, "In the aftermath of trauma people see danger everywhere. They're jumpy, they startle easily, and they have a hard time sleeping. They're irritable, and more prone to anger. This seems to be a biological phenomenon, not just a psychological one. People also relive the experience in nightmares and flashbacks. Any little reminder can set them off. For example, a Vietnam veteran involved in helicopter combat might react years later when a news or weather helicopter flies overhead."
I remembered that all through my teens and twenties when someone asked me to go waterskiing, my response externally was, "No, thanks," but my internal response was, "Fuck you." I never could figure out why until a few years ago I asked my mother, who said there had been beatings associated with waterskiing trips when I was a small child. I never knew that. I just always knew that waterskiing pissed me off. I told this to Judith.
She said, "Sometimes people understand the trigger, but sometimes they won't have complete memory of the event. They may respond to the reminder as you did, by becoming terrified or agitated or angry. Sometimes it's very subtle. Someone who was raped in the backseat of a car may have a lot of feelings every time she gets into a car, particularly one that resembles the one in which she was raped.
"This reliving, these intrusions, are not a normal kind of remembering, where the smell of cinnamon rolls, for example, may remind you of your grandmother. Instead, it's like playing the same videotape over and over, a repetitive sequence of terrifying images