Imagine walking along the sidewalks of downtown San Diego. What do you notice? If I asked you to close your eyes and tell me what you see, would you look at me with confusion? What about if I asked you to close your eyes and tell me what Downtown San Diego smells like? Would you be able to without having to be there? How about the different things you hear in downtown San Diego? Does it calm you or make your skin crawl?
Writing means being able to be far away from where you are and close your eyes and be able to use your imagination to describe what Downtown San Diego looks like, smells like, and sounds like, without being there in the exact moment.
Writing creates a storyline that encourages, motivates, touches, speaks, sounds, and smells like something you have never experienced without words.
When I write, I listen to my innermost thoughts and put pen to paper. I close my eyes to remember the emotions that scream out in pain and write nothing but tears on a page because when I close my eyes and imagine Downtown San Diego, I imagine how careless and soulless we have become as a population.
Walking through the streets of Downtown San Diego, I see many people scurry around to maintain a pace of professionalism. Hurried through life to manage their time and get back to their destination without missing a beat. Everything is rush, rush, and rush, but further below the sight. Which is right in front of us; we miss some of the most important moments that should be captured amongst our hearts.
"People. Human beings. Stretched out along the sidewalks in which we walk by every day. Covering our noses in disgust of the smell of human urine and feces that marinates as we walk by, pretending not to notice. Keeping our heads straight and our eyes forward because any eye contact would mean that we would have to acknowledge the simple fact that they exist. Treating them like statues without stopping to enjoy the heartfelt story they hold in their saddened eyes as they watch motionless as each other human being passes by without a glance."
Worried more about how it might look to someone else to stop, just for a second, to engage with another human being "outside" of society, when in actuality, it is smack dab in the middle of a society that others humans reside. On the streets we walk on every day, someone sleeps, without knowing where they will sleep next. These humans have names, but no one that walks by even knows who they are. These are people. These are people that once had lives. That now, have lost everything materialistic to them. And they sit. And they stare, and they drink to drown their sorrows. Not their own sorrows, but the sorrows they feel for those walking by. The sorrow they feel from knowing what it was once like to have something and that something was still not enough to live as a neighbor to you or me.
Downtown San Diego is not the first, nor the last place to treat human beings like they do not exist. It is everywhere and it is right in front of us.
How do we miss something that is right in front of us?
We miss it because we are not paying attention to what is not important to us.
We miss it because we hide our eyes in the skyline above the sidewalks, so we do not have to admit that we see.
For if we saw, it would mean we would have to do something. And God forbid, we actually do something.
Even if that something is lowering our eyes to make eye contact with a smile, that could mean more to someone that does notice.
Even if that something, is writing about what is seen and sharing the stories of those that could use a hand up and a little support.
Writing is not about gossiping about the smell of urine and feces from the humans that hopelessly lay amidst the sidewalks without hope.
Writing is about using your words to bring hope to those that have slowly lost their faith in the society that passes them by every single day.
Writing is a powerful tool that can be used to change the world around you. Creating an image allows someone to be somewhere without actually being there and feeling some way about it. It is about sharing an experience that changes someone else's life or your own.
Writing is such a powerful tool it can defend the honor that may have been crushed by society any time ago.
Downtown San Diego has a lot of sidewalks. Every day human beings avoid the inevitable and pretend they do not see what is right in front of them, but trust me, someone is watching, and someone will write about it. The stories that are unshared are the most painful to write, even from the sidewalks of downtown. It is hard to pass by blissfully when others are patiently waiting for their story to change.
Writing creates an opportunity to make room for those we normally would have missed. It creates a voice that speaks inside the minds of those that choose to continue to walk, yet instead, might decide to stop. The decision to stop may have been manifested from reading the words that another chose to write.
Yes, there is more to downtown San Diego than sidewalks, but when I close my eyes and imagine the last time I took the time to step outside of the society I live in, all I can see is the faces of those that go unnoticed and the pain the screams inside them.
All I can see is a reason to write about what most others miss and they don't miss it by accident, they miss it by choice.