My husband and I drove to a nature trail lined with multi-million dollar mansions on some cliffs overlooking the ocean in Orange County California. My husband, taking in the view, didn’t notice the couple with the dog. She looked to me like a boxer mix.
The woman looked middle-aged but beautiful in that “no expense spared” sort of way. The man was younger than her, sporty, and the dog was clearly his. They approached a water fountain at the start of the trail and the woman stooped to the spout meant for hydrating dogs and cupped her hands under it. As the water dribbled over her fingers, she called the dog, demanding she drink from her hands. I thought that was strange, given that there were a bunch of communal dog bowls scattered around, including a bright lime green one no one could miss.
The dog circled, wrapping the leash around her legs, refusing to drink. To tell you the truth, I wouldn’t have either. Who knew what kinds of lotions or perfumes she had on those hands? The woman stepped out of the leash, tried a few more times, and then threw the water in the dog’s face. “If you’re too stupid to drink, then you don’t deserve any water!”
At that moment, we rounded a corner, and the couple left my view. I walked ahead stiffly in horrified shock.
“Is everything ok?” my husband asked.
“Yes, fine.” There was no reason to upset him about the dog, too, but I added, “There’s something about this place that suddenly looks menacing to me.” It was true, I saw it in the azure sky, the tiny distant sailboat triangles gliding across the water, and especially in the up close mansions with their pristine unoccupied pools and gardens. Too many places had started to look menacing to me.
The woman with the dog was too stark of a reminder of the brutality of the world we live in and how helpless I often feel against it, as if I have all the agency of a discarded candy wrapper.
We got to the place where the trail descended sharply down the cliff towards the ocean, from that angle, it resembled an abyss-like drop. Like usual, we turned around. It took some time, but I shook some normalcy back into my limbs without being too obvious about it.
For months afterward, the woman and the dog kept creeping back into my mind. I saw her cupped hands, heard her imperious voice, and felt the familiar paralyzing sting inside my body.
But, mostly, I worried about how that whole situation implicated me. “Why didn’t you do anything? Why no vigilante justice?” my imaginary chorus wailed. My only defense is my own sense of powerlessness. For many of us, power only comes when we are in a collective, not as individuals, and I rarely see myself as fit for any collective (as I’ve explained here and here).
I hoped the man had broken up with the woman, but I seriously doubted he did. My faith in humankind was quite low.
Several months later, my husband and I rode the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway with friends to take in the views atop of Mt. San Jacinto State Park. There was still a good amount of snow up there, even though it was spring. It also had some nice boulders to climb and the long, long views to remind us how small we are.
On the way back down, eighty people packed onto the tramway after standing in line for a half an hour. I looked at their done-in faces and thought about how the stress of striving can wear people down until we feel like our souls have become threadbare.
When the tram hit the first pulley, the whole thing bucked and swayed forcing everyone to grab onto something (often another person). Some people screamed, others laughed, other’s made that rollercoaster sound, “Woooooah!” And we dropped further into the canyon. The granite walls flew by, the sky receded above, and the city of Palm Springs, spot-lighted by the sun, hovered on the horizon.
The tramway operator put on the song “Free Fallin’” by Tom Petty, and at least half the car spontaneously broke into song at once. Everyone else joined in on the next verse. Soon enough, we were spinning and singing and the air became electric with communion.
The cold breeze at the top turned mild and then warm at the bottom of the valley. I turned to the windows so no one would see me crying. I finally had the option to stop bracing against the world, even if it was just for a short time.