Gunfire.

What shall we do with our gunfire?

 

TRIGGER WARNING: reference to multiple shootings, both homicides and suicides and other traumatizing circumstances. Readers who want linear narrative that ties together in a clear point: this is Planet RantWoman. It is DATA. Hold ALL the mentioned circumstances in the Light. That is all.

 

Please bear with the following somewhat macabre meditations evoked partly by a Friend’s message that he knew  and is deeply grieving one of the people shot recently in a bizarre shooting in a residential neighborhood in NE Seattle.

 

RantWoman’s everyday gunfire issue: the accessible pedestrian signal nearest RantWoman’s abode has one cycle that sounds to RantWoman just like gunfire. RantWoman has people trying to convince her she should just think woodpecker, like endangered species is somehow incrementally less distressing that gunfire. RantWoman has plenty of other people who ask “Accessible Pedsestrian Signal? What’s that?”

 

RantWoman checked, the person murdered in the Friends remembrance above was one of the victims here. Last week in Seattle, a guy who claimed to be black out drunk just randomly shot the driver of a car, shot a bus driver, shot two other people. Two people died. The bus driver is lauded as a hero: he realized he had been shot but was still conscious enough to back his bus out of the fire zone and get his passengers to safety! Now RantWoman gets to think of the incident every time she sees the affected route number, one RantWoman sometimes rides. Because of the heroism though, RantWoman would NOT like to see the route renumbered to hide the shooting.

 

15 years ago? The anniversary of a Friend’s father’s death. No gunfire here but mention of a disability.

 

15 years? Has it really been FIFTEEN BLEEPING YEARS since RantWoman’s first detached retina, the start of RantWoman’s foray into official legal blindness and sudden confrontation with things like accessible pedestrian signals that sound like gunfire? It’s pollen season again to also remind RantWoman... RantWoman found out there was a problem on the way to an interpreting assignment. RantWoman was early and stopped at the Department of Licensing to renew her expiring driver’s license. Um no. Instead of flunking one half of the eye test like usual, RantWoman flunked BOTH halves of the eye test. The clerk said “we’re really sorry but we have to suspend your license.”

 

A year later when RantWoman’s asked about the timely letter from the DMV RantWoman said truthfully she does not care that much about driving. She has never like driving. She gets to be all ecologically virtuous and not drive. RantWoman’s drivers’ license now says Medical suspension. And RantWoman gets to enjoy saying once in a meeting about a proposed new traffic pattern “I don’t drive—anymore—but that sounds really confusing.” The traffic engineer said, um, yes we are concerned too.

 

15 years ago plus a couple months: RantWoman’s friend MMK shot himself aft er over a year of repeated hospitalizations and multiple suicide attempts. If it were up to RantWoman, MMK would never have been able to buy a gun.  MMK defected from the Soviet Army in the late 1980’s by paddiling a canoe across the Black Sea to Turkey. He taught Russian at a military language institute in CA until Meniere’s syndrome stole a lot of his hearing and moved to Seattle. RantWoman’s caller ID always said a different name and RantWoman considers it a measure of friendship to know her friend’s full name even though she is not listing it here.

 

 

Sometime in the late 1990’s there was a domestic violence shooting in one of the Friends churches in OR. RantWoman remembers a recorded minister in NWYM saying in a worship group who admitted she hoped she was only going to be needed on Sunday but the superintendent of NWYM called up and firmly eldered her: even if all that could be done was to pray with people, that needed to happen. RantWoman deeply admires this Friend and is holding mention of the circumstances carefully in the Light in communion with others who maybe also do not leap instantly to do as God asks.

 

25 years ago this week punk rocker Kurt Cobain shot himself. When RantWoman first moved to Seattle, she wanted to attend an annual fall festival but had NO spare money. RantWoman saw a help wanted ad seeking Event Staff for this festival. RantWoman called every day and harassed the office convincing people that her past as a symphony usher, rally peacekeeper, event security at a women’s music festival meant she could probably also handle the crowds at said festival. For RantWoman’s trouble among other events, RantWoman was event staff at Nirvana’s last arena show in Seattle in December 1993.

 

RantWoman’s story from that show: RantWoman and a male police officer both inadvertently got stoned in the atmosphere of the concert. This would imply that attempting to police anything about illicit substances was basically pointless. Over a shared bag of salted peanuts, RantWoman and the police officer both commented that Cobain seemed REALLY depressed. RantWoman is sorry he was ever anywhere near weapons. RantWoman was also touched a couple years ago: RantWoman visited the WA state historical museum and watched the young docents in the music exhibit as their jaws dropped when RantWoman recounted this funky fact. RantWoman is in no way prepared for having connections to the kind of ancient history that makes young museum docents’ jaws drop.

 

And yup, if anything else here seems controversial, bring it on. RantWoman is happy to talk about these experiences.