The Thinkulum

It really changes things to know you have a specific audience. I’m not just writing to empty air now. And now I feel like all my entries have to be significant so I’m not filling people’s inboxes with meaningless drivel. No! I won’t submit! My blog shall be as mundane as it has been! And just to demonstrate my point, this entry shall be devoid of substance!

I found out what happened. The police were responding to a report of domestic violence, and they shot and killed the alleged offender when he attacked them. So much tragedy in that building in so short a time …

Life at my apartment complex is getting strange. Saturday we had a fire that destroyed two apartments. Today I got home late from work to find a police car with its lights flashing at the back entrance to my building. When I parked on the other side of the complex, I found another police car with its lights also flashing. Police at our apartments aren’t that unusual, but two cars at once basically surrounding the complex is. They had the whole building that had had the fire roped off with police tape. There were people milling around again, but no one seemed distressed. I asked one guy if he knew what was going on, but he said no. I might go investigate later, but I’ll probably just ask at the apartment office later.

Speaking of which, when I got to my door, there was a notice taped to it that said the complex had been sold and gave us the name of the company to make our checks out to. It’s named after the street addresses the complex occupies. o.O Well, that’s … unique, if not imaginative. There’s a new property manager, of course. That’s nothing new. There’s kind of a high turnover in the management of this place.

Edit: I miscounted. There were at least 4 or 5 police cars of different kinds. I just took a walk around the west half of the apartments, though I didn’t have the nerve to ask an officer what was going on. People are walking around with kids like it’s a normal evening, so I guess it’s nothing serious, or isn’t anymore.

Yesterday was my brother’s birthday. He turned 24. He had a party in the Stupe after the college orchestra concert (which was really good, by the way), but in his invitation e-mail he didn’t tell people it was his birthday–on purpose! We were supposedly just celebrating April 22. People could come to celebrate–and I quote:

– a fine night of symphonic music
– the upcoming end of the semester
– Earth Day
– the passage of the Coinage Act (1864), placing the words “In God
We Trust” on all US coins
– or, any other April 22 event of your choice

But most of the people knew it was his birthday by the time they got there. 😉 The cake was a clue. I had a good time meeting and talking with his friends, and I stayed for a while even after he left. Ah, if only I could do more of that kind of thing, just go places and hang out with interesting people.

As I was leaving my apartment to go to the concert, my neighbors were standing outside as if they were waiting to go somewhere. I thought maybe they or someone was grilling dinner, as the people here sometimes do, because I smelled smoke. But as I came out of the side walkway of our building, I saw the smoke floating past in billows overhead, and my eyes followed it back across the courtyard of the building next door, where I saw flames licking the door and window frames of the upstairs corner apartment. Fire engines were already sitting at the curb, and other tenants were standing outside watching. I stood there with my mouth open for a few seconds, but since there was nothing really for me to do, I continued to my car. A woman walked past me weeping. I figured she must have lived there.

As I drove away, I thought about how devastated and helpless the family must feel. Having your home and possessions destroyed must cause a sense of loss on many personal levels, but it has to be bewildering even from a purely logistical point of view. I mean, you suddenly don’t know where you’re going to sleep tonight or how long you’ll have to wear the clothes you’re in now, and after the immediate concerns, huge waves of life-rebuilding details are waiting to surge over you. I felt helpless in December when my car wouldn’t start in the in the library parking lot. It was during a really bad snow storm, I don’t have a cell phone, and the library was closing. And that problem was a relatively simple one that was eventually solved after I got over my initial paralysis. It must be a thousand times worse when your home has just been consumed.

And I thought about the fact that I was driving off to enjoy a concert and a birthday party. What a contrast. Here I was going on with my everyday plans while other people were experiencing tragedy at that very moment. I didn’t really feel guilty about it. If I had been needed at the time, I probably would have stayed. I knew I would be helping later because this kind of thing had happened last year, and the apartment office had collected food and clothes, etc., for the victims.

What I thought more about was the remarkable fact that when tragedy strikes, the whole world doesn’t stop because of it. Those who are close to the tragedy deal with it, while the complex wider world of goes about its life, most of it (such as all the people at the concert) not even aware that something terrible has happened in one small corner. I don’t think this is bad really. It’s important for people to help each other, but if everyone dropped everything all at once to help only one small group, that would really be a disaster. So yes, life goes on because it pretty much has no choice. And various pockets of it pause to restore order and health whenever its needed, and then those parts continue on their way, and other parts are given the job when problems arise somewhere else. I’m on the edge of this one, so it’s my turn to help out a bit.