How I Slept

Eric Garner. Michael Brown. Freddie Gray. Philando Castile. Alton Sterling. Breonna Taylor. Ahmaud Arbery. Christian Cooper. George Floyd.

This keeps happening.

This has been happening all my life.

I was 11 years old during the Watts riots of 1965. We lived 12 miles away.

I was 15 and a student at Rubidoux High School on September 24, 1969, the day of the race riot on campus there.

Last night I had the news on for hours and hours, just like I used to in the good old days. That’s not like me anymore. My psyche can’t take the overload of sadness, so I limit myself in the evening—usually—to 30 minutes of national news.

But last night was extraordinary. So I kept it on, watching, sometimes with the volume up, sometimes with it muted as I talked to friends and my son for hours and hours, watching, and at times, crying.

I wanted to turn it off.

I couldn’t turn it off.

I finally turned it off and laid on the floor with my good, good dog, stroking his head, massaging his back, telling him why I loved him so very, very much. Then I crawled into bed, cocooning myself between the pillows and clutching Charlie, the plush pup my cousin gave me.

My friends tease me at times about my evening routine, how I go to bed so early, no TV or movies or internet or phone. Just me and a book for an hour in another world before I turn off the light, and I am asleep in less than 60 seconds.

Not last night.

Last night I kept watching, even with the house dark and everything turned off. I closed my eyes, but I saw the violence and destruction that I had just been watching on the news… and the violence and destruction of 2015… and 2014… and 1992… and 1969… and 1965.

Lying there in the dark, it was reminiscent of 9/11/2001, when my kids—my caring, adult children—finally convinced me to turn off the television and go to bed, and they came in my room and sat around me and talked to me until I finally fell asleep.

Last night I had my dog. And I had Charlie. And a headful of memories I wish I didn’t have.