The day I picked up a rock to defend myself

Never in my life have I experienced a physical threat. I did not know what that feels like to have aggression directed at me. I have never been confronted physically by another person. Nor do I live in fear.

I consider myself lucky.

I also feel on many levels this sort of violence doesn’t come into my life since it’s not something that really enters my consciousness. I know it’s out there, but I believe wholeheartedly that that which you give your attention to becomes your reality.

I tend to take the high road on most occasions. I don’t like confrontation, nor do I like aggressive behavior. So choosing to live a peaceful life is my conscious choice.

Overall, I consider myself a gentle person.

Two weeks ago, I had to let all that go and pick up a rock to defend myself.

This was big for me.

During the afternoon, I was walking down our street, just returning from the bakery. A  man was walking towards me. He was Peruvian, somewhere in his early 30s. He was looking at me, and as he walked passed me, his hand reached out and grabbed my crotch!

“What the fuck just happened?” I thought.

I flung my body around to face this man who had already passed and said the deepest, most powerful voice I could muster, “ASSHOLE!”

He stopped, looked at me and laughed in my attempts to be powerful.

I felt humiliated, small and powerless.

I kept on walking, breathing through my teeth.

I could feel his energy, his thoughts. He had anger and aggression towards me, a gringa with blond hair, walking down his local streets. He had so much anger towards what I represented to him in that moment and there was a heavy story playing in his head and I could feel it. I felt like a non-human in his presence and his Latino machismo was so big, there wasn’t room for me, the person on that road.

I walked further, still about 5 minutes from my house.

It started to rain, so I ducked into the little tienda just a few feet in front of me. As I stood in the doorway, I noticed the man had turned around and had been following me, and I hadn’t even noticed. I was caught in my thoughts, not aware of what was happening around me. The man walked past the tienda, slowed at the entrance where I was standing, looked in and smiled at me.

His look was menacing, and I felt my blood pressure rise. For the first time in my life, I experienced rage ignite within my body, I understood the expression “my  blood was started to boil”.

In that moment, I realized I was not afraid of this man.

I was angry.

I was angry that he was fucking with me, and approached me with the attidue that he had power over me.

I stood in the door of tienda and gave him enough time to for him to pass. Then put my scarf over my hair in attempt to stay dry from the rain and set out.

He was standing there waiting for me. I look at him, gave him a scowl, made my eyes smaller and meaner pressed with anger and bent down and picked up a rock.

I showed him that there was a rock in my hand and took all the physical power in my body, and channeled it all through my hand, into this palm sized rock. My arm was rigid and I was holding his glare.

He laughed at me, turned and walked down the road, the same direction I walking, but in infront of me about 50 paces.

Halfway between the tienda and my house, he stopped on the side of the road. I could either pass him, letting him walk behind me or I could too stop.

I stopped, held the rock in my hand and faced him with my face scrunched up but holding dynamic power in my body that was able to snap in any moment.

Again he laughed.

Just beyond him, but before my door, was the gate to a hotel. There were people standing out front of the entrance to the hotel. I walked passed my predator, gave him a look of death, and stopped where the other people were in front of the hotel. I stood with them, while watching this man pass me. I figured he should think I was staying there and not know where I was going, nor know where I lived.

He laughed at me, while he passed. I could read his energy, a game of cat and mouse with him, he believing he had the upper hand.

He reached the end of the road, just passed the entrance to my house. He stood there, at the end of the road, while I remained at the entrance to the hotel, just a hundred feet behind him. He turned around, spread his legs a grabbed his own crotch and made an obscene gesture at me. Then he broke into laughter once again and exited down the steps and was out of sight.

I waited another moment to make sure he wasn’t popping his head back around the road. Maybe he was waiting for me beyond the stairs, maybe he wasn’t. I crossed the road, put my key into the door, and turned around once more. He was no where to be seen, so I dropped the rock.

Safe inside my house, I felt angry. I felt angry that another human being was so aggressive to me for absolutely no reason. I felt angry that it was necessary to embody such rage. I felt angry that this was the interaction I just encountered.

Then I felt empowered that I found my own strength.

But I equally  felt pissed off that this man had flung his aggression upon me.

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I’ve seen this man two or three times since. I walked passed him with Miro as he was tending his newspaper stand on the street. Yes, I know where he works, and he didn’t see me that time. The second time, I was with a group of friends in the market. It had just started to rain so we were standing at the entrance waiting for it to stop. Then he walked through the entrance and was standing face to face with me. My heart raced, but I stood with my feet solidly on the ground. I think he realized that I was standing with a large group of people, and many men.

He looked frightened. He looked small. He even looked remorseful. He scampered by me, very quickly and got lost in the crowded market.

Guess what? I felt sorry for him. I can’t even imagine what was going through his head to make him act so aggressively towards me. But the dance we dance with one another is just that, a dance. He didn’t hurt me and in my heart, in my soul, I don’t believe this man is a bad person.