Three weeks ago, when Jan and I were in Minneapolis for the Addiction and Faith Conference, at the end of a long day of presentations and technology challenges, we took an Uber to the George Floyd Memorial. I confess that I didn't realize there was a memorial. I thought we were simply going to see the place where George Floyd was killed. Since it was after 9 p.m., we asked the person working the hotel desk if it would be safe for us to go after dark, and she said yes, so off we went with our friend, Michelle.
Our Uber driver dropped us a block away from the intersection, and we slowly walked toward the corner where Cup Foods is located. When I saw the first sign that said, "Here you enter sacred space," I felt a deep reverence come over me. For a long time I just walked around the edges slowly, taking everything in. It seemed disrespectful to talk or to take pictures or even to move inside the barriers protecting the memorial from cars passing by. I couldn't speak.
It was a warm night with a light breeze. The area was well lit with a succession of vehicles passing through the intersection. Cars aren't permitted to stop there but have to go around the piece of the memorial that now fills the center of the intersection. There were SO MANY PLANTS and FLOWERS. Some were artificial, but many were live and others had once been living. A green house sits to the side of the main part of the memorial. In an ever widening sprawl sat plants in pots, bottles, and planters. A garden of offerings: flowers, candles, stuffed animals, lanterns, signs, photos, coins, graffiti, chalk drawings, paper cranes, bottles, shells, pieces of wood, rocks, toys, letters, and more. It was hard to know where to look. Messages of anger, despair, hope. Quotes from famous people, names of others who died without justice.
It was both peaceful like a cemetery and overwhelming with stimulus. I was not afraid, but I didn't know what to think or feel. I could not process what I was seeing, and so I simply gazed around me. At one point, as I stood on the sidewalk behind the memorial and close to the entrance of Cup Foods, a door in the wall opened, and a woman came out, scowling. I wondered if we were trespassing and if she was coming out to tell us to move along. She didn't speak for about five minutes, at which point she shouted down the street to a man who eventually strolled up and went inside with her. Jan told us to stay close, and we made sure to keep an eye on one another. Later she told me that had been a drug deal. I can be very naïve.
Writer that I aspire to be, I have not had words to describe this event. Jan asked me the next day why I hadn't posted my photos, pictures that I had finally started taking in order to remember what I had seen. I didn't want to trivialize the experience. I didn't want to read potentially negative comments or arguments. It was a sacred space, and I've been afraid to disturb it. Here are some photos. I will let them speak for themselves.
I haven't known what to say, and so I haven't said anything.
Lately I have been reading about trauma. I highly recommend My Grandmother's Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies, by Resmaa Menakem, for anyone who wants to start the process of healing from ancient radicalized trauma. "We cannot think our way out of racism." We all have to learn how to settle our own bodies so our lizard brains don't overcome us, leading us to fight, flight, freeze, or annihilate. We have to learn to breathe and settle our own bodies so that we can be our best selves, even in the midst of conflict.
I've also just finished reading What Happened to You: Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing, by Oprah Winfrey and Dr. Bruce Perry. It is an exceedingly helpful book that details the neuroscience of trauma and explains what happens to the brain and how we can work toward healing. I learned from this book that one of my usual methods of handling trauma is dissociation. I suspect that's what happened the night we visited George Floyd's memorial. When there's too much to take in, I dissociate. I cannot tolerate the pain, anger, despair, hurt, grief, and so I go away somewhere. It's not intentional; it's simply what happens. It's taken me this long to find any words to share.
Renakem says we need to metabolize our trauma so that we don't blow it through other people. We have to learn to stay present in our bodies. Perry and Winfrey say we need to ask "What happened to you?" rather than "What's wrong with you?"
My thoughts on all of this are still incomplete. I don't have a lot of wisdom to share, just impressions of what I saw and felt. A memorial to the pain and death of people of color who have died unjustly and too soon. A memorial to the ways in which breath has been taken from fellow human beings. A memorial created both to remember and to inspire.
Keep breathing everyone. This is sacred space.
