Haraszedwski
Blog #1660 Some Race; Others Debase 7-23-22
(pg 1 of 1)

My sister went with her family to watch a big motocross race in Washougal, Washington today. I was excited just to hear about it, since I'm a huge MX fan and even though I can't be there my-
self anymore, there's still a weird connection just in the knowledge that people I know and love are out there experiencing the big events. So, as morning turned to afternoon and I imagined my family out
at the track, in the midst of all those wonderful sights, sounds, and smells that were the backdrop to so much of my life, I was feeling pretty good.

And then, into this little six-person cell that cages me now, a cop came.
He started off with a smile and a friendly "How are you doing?", though visits like this are
unusual and if I were a different sort of person, I'd surely have perceived the menace behind his
mask. Instead, the reality only became clear to me when, still grinning, this malicious pig began a
mini-rampage, ripping down all the "lines" and "curtains" we put together with scarce, scavenged re-
sources to create some degree (or illusion) of privacy and personal space in his cramped little area where
we're all forced to sleep, cook, defecate, and generally spend 80-90% of any given day. It's a small but
meaningful thing we do, putting up our thing, translucent barriers that often take weeks or even months to
accumulate the necessary scrap cardboard, linen, and re-purposed tape to try to attach it all to smooth
walls with no glue, etc. Then this smug, smirking swine trots in and gleefully trashes all of it in 30
seconds, leaving us not only actually exposed to one another, but also feeling psychologically "exposed", vul-
nerable and invaded, starkly reminded that at any moment our fragile sense of stability or normally can be
literally ripped away, without warning and for no reason but to remedy some cops lingering sense of school boy
inferiority by demonstrating his dominance over people even more powerless than he ever was as a bullied kid.

As all this was happening to me, my sister, brother-in-law, and niece were probably all shouting excitedly
as the second moto began, their cheers drowned out by 40 screaming engines rocketing past them. They'd
have no idea that at the same moment, their own relative (or anyone else) was being pointlessly assaulted.
Just as none of us ever really grasp what hells, large and small, others are enduring at any given
moment. Sometimes even right next door.

I wonder who won today's race? I'm sure my sis will tell me all about it later, but I think
I'll probably not bother her with how the bulk of my own day went, though.