*Be Well*

I sat in my living room late at night watching the dark figures of people scrambling in and out of stores looting and destroying property. I was fixed on my computer screen in horror as I listened to the news anchor speak from his helicopter.

‘Now, we’re on Melrose and Spalding. Now we’re on Fairfax.’ One by one the businesses that I have frequented so many times over the years were being vandalized for what felt like eternity. The spa that I worked at for years was right down the street. I was helpless, this was real, where are the police officers to stop the madness? And yet it went on, and on. In fact, it became hateful with words like, ‘F_ the Jews,’ spray painted on a sacred synagogue. ‘Free Palestine.’ Even the criminals had a distorted personal agenda far from their other motive of destroying the livelihoods of innocent, hardworking people.

Then there was the multitude of peaceful protesters. They were from all walks of life, saturating the streets of West Los Angeles with their chants and signs. They were there for justice and change. A police officer murdered a man during an arrest in Minneapolis.

George Floyd was his name.

Despite the resistance they continued in peace. It was like the wonder of the human physic, when you attempt to find your way through your mind to get to the truth. There will always be a resistance getting in the way. So, eventually the peaceful protesters prevailed, and the evil doers dwindled. The masks may still be on to protect oneself from a virus, but the underlining substance was being revealed. They had the antidote.

Black Lives Matter.

In a natural world of course they do, all human life is sacred. It wasn’t enough to social distance, that is not the natural way. Human life is meant to bond, to care, and to flourish. Police brutality must end. Human brutality must end period, in the way that the horrific tragedy of loss of life becomes the only way to revert us back to our compassionate selves. This is the year 2020.

We should be there already.

When the new normal greeting becomes, ‘Be safe,’ it leaves us with the fear of the unexpected. May we all, ‘Be well,’ and continue to move closer to who we are as interconnected human beings.

Patricia Huff