I'm 23 year old from Chile, currently living in the capital.
For the past 3 years, I've been seeing how the criminality has been on the rise and cripplingly getting near to most areas of society, from the physical spaces in it or the language being used. The political turmoil alongside the tensions in the health as well as the economical issues only exacerbate this.
I'm from a good part of the city. This means that I don't have to worry about shots being fired during the day or can go out carrying two items from a store without worrying that someone will take this away from me, not so much that I live in a palace or that my family never had to pay rent. Of course, this sort of lifestyle eventually sticks to my gestures, my drives and my speech in real life. The fact of being from another ethnicity only highlights this even more.
For this past two years, my mental health has suffered a tremendous degree, and something that I've been doing to regain my sanity, it's the last thing in the title of this post. Seeing how this creatures behave, and trying to find complexity in a simple thing such as a group of pigeons has brought me great joy. It used to be something that I used to do with more around 4 years ago. When I feed the pigeons, I generally get them to get into my hand even without bread in it, and this of course, attracts the attention of people. Given that it's a "safe area" which is also near a subway station, I often just get stares of bystanders and sometimes, people come to talk to me about life; sometimes kids will approach me and start feeding the pigeons with me while I their parents talk to me. I can't emphasize enough how aside of the pigeons being quite the spotlight of the activity, it's slowly becoming the human interaction I get while feeding the pigeons, that it starts to become more memorable. The warmth and the humanity which often carry the conversations I've had with them are forever stored in my psyche, in a tightly secured safe.
Around 3pm, after church, I went to feed some pigeons near the park. I was riding my bike, so I just couldn't refuse entertaining that idea not only with my imagination and my brain, but my legs and my bike. Shortly after arriving there, there was this one pigeon which that for the past 2 weeks remembers me. He's white with many different colored spots in it and he would get right into my hand when he sees me. Minutes later, a couple approached me with their son. The son might have been around 5 to 7 years old, no more nor less. He was perplexed by the pigeons and he started following them, so I decided to give the lil guy a some bread I was carrying. It was real sweet to see him trying to feed those pigeons while sharing that great moment with his parents. For me, moments like this are akin to several frames of a movie which have the right meaning, color pallet, angles and motion to it. It's a gift to the eyes and the soul. After the son finished feeding the pigeons bread, the three went away. It seemed that they were either from Venezuela or Colombia. We've had a lot of immigration for the past 4 to 5 years.
Some time later, around 15 minutes of just listening to the music coming from my earphones and just feeding the flock of pigeons, this guy comes out of nowhere. He's around 40, high on something and approaches me carrying a beer bottle of around 1 liter in is hand.
"So you're feeding pigeons huh?"
"Yeah"
"You think this is all a game?"
"....."
"I know you saw me coming from the back of the park"
"Sure"
"You're feeding bread to this pigeons, because you haven't lacked bread a single day of your life."
"...."
"You're feeding this things, and you know how they call em? Rats of the sky because of their disease and all....you know jack shit about life"
He got closer and closer to me, while he had something on his jacket that he was gonna pull out. Knowing this and already having been mugged before years ago, I decided to get my bike and simply go.
Knowing things like this are only going to get worse with time near my city and the total feeling of cowardice and impotence coming from my side, being a 23 year old man, is demoralizing.
Where can I start learning how to defend myself? Was this the right approach?
I just don't wanna act like a bitch no more.
Submitted May 24, 2022 at 03:02AM by Saturated_lighting https://ift.tt/fvj6ziY
No comments:
Post a Comment