The Imagination Pushing Back
"The mind has added nothing to human nature. It is a violence from within that protects us from a violence without. It is the imagination pressing back against the pressure of reality. It seems, in the last analysis, to have something to do with our self-preservation;" --Wallace Stevens, from The Noble Rider and the Sound of Words.
According to the weather clock across the river it's 97 degrees outside. Too hot to do as I did yesterday and take a book of poems (Gerald Stern's This Time) out to the local park to read. There's a cool, quiet spot on Walden Pond where I'd love to spend the day, but alas I don't feel entirely comfortable being there alone. It's too isolated and as a result I'd be on edge about my safety. *Sigh*
My grandmother, aunts, and mother, knowing how I love the city at night, and out-of-the-way places by day, have suggested I carry mace or pepper spray. It's an option I suppose, but one which I intensely dislike. Weaponizing myself would not so much put my mind at ease as remind me of the possibility that I may need to defend myself. I'd rather pass.
After all, it's not the real danger than bothers me so much. Stranger crimes are exceedingly rare. It's the needing to remain alert so as not to become a victim of my own stupidity. For instance, yesterday at the park I'd chosen a little shady area well away from the road and other people. A man came out of the woods behind me and to the left. Had he kept walking straight across the park at an acceptable distance, all would have been well enough. Instead, he cut to the right, walking directly behind me until he got within about ten feet of me, then went around me on the right. At at about fifteen feet ahead of me, he slowed to a near halt. Was he a jerk, or just completely oblivious to the fact that his behavior might be perceived as threatening? I don't know, but I thought it prudent to move to a more visible area of the park. I'm not sure I felt unsafe, but I did feel as though that's what a woman is supposed to do in that situation.
And this is where politics merges with the every day. The conservative solution is more police, more arrests, more prisons. The first sounds like a nice idea, but realistically there will never be enough police protection to go around. Imagine you're in the middle of being mugged, and just as the mugger's about to make off with your wallet a police car pulls around the corner. What do you say to the officer? A) Fantastic! I'd been expecting you! or B) I'm so lucky you happened to come around the corner when you did! More arrests and more prisons, on the other hand, are matters of law enforcement not crime prevention.
For myself, I think going out alone would feel entirely different were the phrase "at gunpoint" eradicated from our cultural vocabulary. One would still have to deal with "at knifepoint" but then the guy would have to work for it, and at risk to his own person, which levels the fighting field somewhat.
An aside: I just looked out my window and saw people canoeing! Just the other day I was thinking how nice it would be to do such a thing, but I had no idea one could paddle down this part of the river. They look so small and strange from here. Makes me wonder if the ducks and otters aren't much larger than I'd imagined.
