Fear on this gorgeous day
Today’s a gorgeous day. Perfect late summer kind of day. Bright and warm, but with a crisp breeze at just the right moment. My daughter’s home this last week (as in, not overscheduled as she has been all summer) and I’ve decided to put work on hold as we fête the waning days of vacation together. Seriously: if it’s not fun, it ain’t on the menu. (Every once in a while, I am THAT mother.)
So to give me the space to get the last bits of work handled before I go off-line for the balance of the week, I booked a playdate with her bestie here to keep her occupied and happy.
Twenty minutes into the playdate, I received a call.
The call display on my handset showed that it was from my home number. The very phone that was ringing. Curious, I picked it up. There was a pause, then I heard an über creepy voice leering: “let’s play a game”. And didn't wait to find out what the game was. I hung up. Ran downstairs to make sure the girls were okay (they were), and promptly got on the phone with my phone service provider. Surely if this was a common prank, they would know about it, right? 40 minutes of my life later, getting bounced around, I was informed that this “shouldn’t have happened” but it “will be resolved” (code for: beat it Psycho Lady, and get another cat).
When things go wrong, I unplug ‘em. (I’m kind of a Luddite like that). I took the landline off the hook. If nothing else, we’d not be bothered with such creepiness for the balance of the day. Though, of course, I was.
How can there be such a gripping fear in my chest on such a gorgeous day? Scary shit is supposed to happen during storms. In the dark. Not when the ice cream truck is happily playing its love song to the children of the street.
In the midst of this, I came across Naomi Dunford’s post about receiving death threats. DEATH THREATS. Are you KIDDING me?????
The end of MY story is this:
As a courtesy, I called the mother of the girl who was here to tell her she’d not be able to reach me via landline. And I told her why. Genuinely distraught, she called me back saying it was her 10-year-old son who made the call. Apologies all around. I still don’t know how he did it, but I can guess why.
Relief in my chest. No one is out to scare me or my family. Or worse.
But they are out to scare Naomi. And worse. And other women bloggers. On this day. On this very gorgeous day, there is hatred in the hearts of those who wish to silence people trying to make a living on-line. This is wrong*. So very wrong.
Please read her post, and share it.
And as often as you may have read the following words over this past week, please reread them:
My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we’ll change the world.
-Jack Layton
* Also wrong, I hope it goes without saying, is the millions upon millions in this world who suffer at the hands of oppressors, bullies, terrorists, and haters. It makes my heart drown in sadness and helplessness. And resolved to be even kinder...it's what I can do.
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