Day 10: June 30, 2021

29 minutes, 1,984 steps, 1.02 miles.

Dear @jstallz @intrinsicpaths -

Today’s walk was interrupted. I was off to a good start on campus when I was startled by what seemed like dozens of birds taking flight from the Ben Nighthorse Campbell building. On the other side of the building, a disheveled woman was sitting on the wet grass screaming, her face hot and swollen with emotion. I looked around, and the students, the employees… people were just carrying on as if she wasn’t there, walking by her, their conversations uninterrupted, their purpose undeterred. I couldn’t make out what she was shouting, but her voice was raw with distress and rage. Oh my God, the rage.

I decided not to approach her but instead, pulled out my phone to call for help - a woman in distress. After giving my name and location, campus police dispatchers asked me to stick around to talk to the officers they were sending. So I sat across the road and waited. She continued to scream and pounded the grass, shouting incoherently at the people walking by her, oblivious to her pain- or too scared to stop. I looked at their faces, some of them, and there was nothing there. Not concern, not fear, not nerves, not disgust. Just… nothing. As I watched the woman, I thought about how sometimes you have to just sit down in a public place and howl. Scream until your face is all mottled and your spit is spraying the air. And sadly, sometimes even then, it feels like nobody will see you, no one hears you, no one cares. #walking #walktherapy #selfcare #grief #thehumancondition

~Tinooseus!