Tickets

My aunt had told me about this woman who wrote a lot of articles criticizing the community she lived in. She was an older woman, in her 60s, with a dog and a husband…and no children of any kind. She was a sweet woman if you met her, but when she saw issues in her community, she spoke to them and criticized leadership when they did nothing. Which made her very unwelcome.

Eventually this lead to someone reporting that her dog had bitten one of them…which was kind of hilarious…because her dog had no teeth due to a jaw infection, and hadn’t had teeth for at least 6 years prior to the date of the alleged incident. It ate only wet or liquid food to compensate for this. Also, the dog was with the owners when the alleged incident occurred…on a drive 2 hours away. Photographic evidence from friends social media accounts could prove it.

Ironically there was no police recording of the call made reporting the incident. Which definitely means someone called the cop’s private phone. However, a few days later the woman was put into a police car and interrogated about the incident on her own property and told she would have to go to court since a dog bite is considered a crime. She lawyered up, but not without putting her house on the market first.

After hearing this story I became afraid. Clearly messing with the police was always a hard bargain. I hadn’t had good experiences with cops in the past. Our community, when I was a teen, had some pretty bad cops who were known for terrible harassment, roughing up local teens even if they were good kids, and in some cases they started doing it to adults to the point our community started a website about how bad the cops were getting so they could swap stories and promote awareness.

When I contemplated the situation I found myself in, I became more anxious.

My situation is quite trivial to some. At least for now it is. A couple ladies I know and myself are trying to start a business downtown, and have been remodeling and painting the building for the past few weeks. It’s been a good time, until we go out to our cars…and I’ve received a parking ticket while my peers…who typically park right next to me…have not.

All my tickets claim that I have been parked for over the 2 hour parking limit. Which is true, and I’m more than happy to own up to it. I pay my tickets as I ought to, but what confounds me is that my peers, who have parked in the same 2 hour parking, have not received any tickets and in most cases have been parked there much longer than I have, and as I mentioned before, usually park right next to me.

I had contemplated putting in a complaint against the officer, because it has been the same officer issuing all my tickets. But, since hearing my aunt’s story about the woman in her community, I became slightly afraid. I know my tickets seem like such a small offense. I do have the right to file a complaint, especially since I know people who are also going over the time limit of parking who are not getting tickets. I’m feeling targeted. My cohorts feel I am as well. However, if I am already a target, how much worse will it get for myself and my peers if I make this choice?

The police have proven to escalate small offenses, if the videos swarming YouTube and social media lately have proven anything. The BLM Movement and the story my aunt told me along with my own experience have been enough proof to me that they can’t all be trusted. It doesn’t take much for a cop to antagonize a situation into a worse one, and while my situation is a bit different than that of an African American woman, I still fear.

I don’t fear for my life like African American’s do in this situation, which is totally my privilege showing, but I do fear for my finances, and I fear harassment. I’ve lived that before as a teen, and even now I often get mistaken as a teenager. What’s to say the cop won’t profile me as some stuck up “entitled” Millennial and keep throwing tickets at me? Or worse. What if they start following me? What if they start targeting me for false crimes? What if other cops start doing it too? I’m such a small woman and easily thrown into the back of a car….and I won’t even start with the percentage of sexual misconduct cases by police or former police officers (I have read too many articles and studies on it: https://www.bwjp.org/assets/documents/pdfs/webinars/dhhs-police-sexual-misconduct-a-national-scale-study.pdf ).

I hate feeling this anxiety, but if the cops I’ve dealt with in the past (though few) have shown me anything…it’s that they can’t be trusted to really help. Sometimes they are the criminal.

I’m just trying to open a business with some ladies to help build a better and stronger community. I just want to know where I can park when I’m working 8 or more hours a day and to have to pay a ‘daily fee’ of 20 bucks! I just want to know that I can trust my local police force to do the right thing. I want to know that I am not being targeted. I want to know that I am safe in my own community.

On top of all this? There is nowhere to go to get any kind of parking permit. All the private parking lots are for apartments or the larger businesses and they require you to live or work there in order to get a permit. So those of us who own smaller businesses either have to luck out and not get caught, or move our cars every two hours and hope to find another spot when we move. Which makes me feel even more helpless in my desire to be compliant.

I filed a complaint on Tuesday evening all the same. I had received yet another ticket and my peer was parked right next to me for at least 2 hours longer than I was, and didn’t receive a ticket. I was pissed. I filed the complaint against the officer online and I hope that gets the situation resolved. If it gets worse, my husband and I are switching cars. Which will suck because my SUV is the only vehicle we have large enough to relocate furniture to and from storage.

We will see what happens.

Lone Creative

I am a lone artist in a large family. Which often means being the one who interprets the muse. So more often than not I am the family member who is asked to use my “gift of the pen” on behalf of the family…for whatever reason that may be.

I’ve written everything from Eulogies, to homework, to poetry, to resignation letters for much of my family. I have given over my creativity as someone else’s work time and time again.

I have been writer, photographer, brand builder, and gifted all these things without recognition to the rest of the world. I alone have made much for my own family without much in return.

What is difficult about being the artist is that so few are able to serve you back. I have my own creativity. I come up with my own solutions. My own plans and carefully crafted means of living. So few can serve me in return for my service. Much less take part in my creative process.

That is the loneliest part.

I like merging with other creatives. It is not often that the muse I interpret goes through more than one interpreter. But when she does? Oh the beauty that can come from it!

I love photo shoots, but so often I am behind the camera and not in front of it (unless it’s for instagram). So often I am the one who is using the pen instead of the subject the pen is writing about. So often I listen to the muse, instead of being the muse.

I hadn’t married an artist, as I always thought I would. My husband has no interest in my kind of arts. He lets them be mine, which is kind of him, but it would be more fun if he would join me in my process.

Or if anyone did for that matter.

I did not intend to be an island. I didn’t intend to be a lone creative. I never wanted to be. I always wanted to live in community with my fellow creatives. To do photo shoots for fun. To go take a class together. To be part of a maker’s studio.

But alas…I am utterly and miserably alone in my endeavors. Other than my business partners who share very different creative pursuits, I am quite on my own in my interests.

Stitches

So crafting is dangerous.

I had a broken porcelain bowl that I wanted to turn into something beautiful. I was handling it carelessly and it fell and I caught it…on the broken edge between my ring and pinky finger.

The laceration is from the base of my ring finger and goes just to the inside of this cloven fold you see in the image. Five stitches later and I’m fairly good to go.

What concerns me right now is the lack of pain from the laceration. When I went to the hospital it didn’t hurt. Then they did a very small numb job on it, now that’s worn off and it still doesn’t hurt. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not.

4th of July

I didn’t quite know how to feel about 4th of July this year. I didn’t know how to celebrate with so much going on. Protests for Black Lives Matter, Pandemic, and an overall lack of feeling patriotism for my nation was making it hard to think about.

Still, this year we decided to have a party anyway. Was it wise of us? Probably not super wise, but all of our friends had been socially distancing for the past several months with the exception of the essentials, and most of them had been tested for work just-in-case and had come back negative. We told everyone that wearing a mask was up to their comfort level, and that as hosts with the heat, we would not be. We put out hand sanitizer for everyone, set everything up potluck style, and said bring tents to sleep in the yard since sleeping arrangements would be limited to our guest room and a queen size inflatable mattress.

It was an awesome time.

Between the strawberry margarita slush, beer, and TONS of food, we were set. Everyone who felt safe enough to come showed up. Our yard was filled with tents and the sound of children playing with sparklers and enjoying the neighborhood fireworks from the yard. The fire was going and the marshmallows toasted well. The humidity was offset by cold beverages and the night sky filled with light from the fireworks, the full moon, and the hope we had for a brighter future.

My greatest pleasure was the beauty of diversity I had in my friends. So many colors, pasts, and histories were represented there. So many beautiful and messy people. Had I not taken time to ponder my struggles for celebrating, I would have not noticed the diversity of my friends. A cacophony of multicultural peoples filled my home and back yard, and I finally understood what I was celebrating on the 4th. It wasn’t the dark history, but the freedom we have to grow past it, to be multicultural, non-judgmental, and choose the brighter future. It was the freedom to overcome all the trials and struggles. It was the freedom to have and be multi-ethnic and still be Americans.

After everyone left the next day, I went to bed content in a time well had, and exhausted from having little human contact for several months, to having all my friends in my home at once. I slept for 15 hours.