“One with the land”

Today on a walk

in my new neighborhood

North Berkeley

At sixteen hundred hours and twenty minutes

I watched a group of young boys

age three to maybe eight

play a game of war with sticks.

It was a kind of game I had played as a boy

and I’m sure every generation of boys before me did the same.

There was no anger or hurt feelings in the children,

they were smiling and having fun.

But here the teams were chosen based on race.

(team white was outnumbered)

The youngest looked for bigger sticks

but couldn’t bring himself to be too far from his big brother

because he didn’t really know what was going on.

Parents were on their phones

eating cheese

sharing their traumatic experience of having heard a helicopter at night.

(Berkeley. Verb – to make oneself feel better by telling a stranger how they should live their life.)

I wanted to Berkeley the shit out of them.

My social crime today is having not done that.

The crime is cowardice.

I considered making a little video of the children in the park as proof

but that’s really, really creepy

so I did not.

Humans,

children are watching.

Also, pretty sure aliens are also watching

but that somehow has managed to just slip under everyone’s radar.

How convenient for the aliens……

I’ve been social-distancing too long.

Now if you’ll excuse me I must muster the courage to go on Nextdoor

and fail at finding a non-triggering way of saying “you’re a bad parent.”

Black Lives Matter.