Scarred and Scared

Ever since Pandora landed on this number late yesterday afternoon, I've been thinking about the toll that the past can take on people, particularly a traumatic past. Although neither I nor any of my loved ones have committed a crime like the one Rod is singing about, I know there are many out there who are both scarred and scared, as I myself once was:

Started out like any one of you
Good intentions and a degree
But one hot night under the neon lights
Killed a boy just seventeen

Now I sit here rainin' on my Maker
Reprieve is all I'm praying for
Lord I fear the hangman's steps approachin'
Will the priest knock gently on my door

And I know I've let my daddy down
and I broke my mother's heart
I'd give anything turn back time again
Just give me one more start

I don't need no trial humiliation
Just tell me that I'm heaven bound
I don't want no two faced consolation
What use is that to me six feet underground

I'm going down to the engine shed
Put a gun up to my head
Blow myself into the promised land
We call it scarred and scared
And if you ever see my son again
Don't let on just how I fared
Tell him, tell him I went down big and strong
I was never, never, never scarred or scared

All the girls that once did gather 'round me
have moved along to someone else
Sitting here desperation is my close friend
What I'd give to kiss one of them now
Oo yeah I'll take you there
I'll take ya there

It's like something gets taken away, some important piece of vitality, some inherent understanding of ourselves and others as precious creatures, and getting that back is a ton of really hard work. Some of us never get that opportunity; others of us choose not to take the opportunity when it is given.

I've been thinking a lot about how to try to increase the possibility that more people will recover from the traumatic events of their past. If we can't find a way to heal, and help others heal, I'm afraid the alternative is isolation. For some, this means choosing to be alone; for others, it means being in a relationship but keeping a wall up; and for a select few, frighteningly, it means devastating acts of violence along the lines of the Boston marathon bombing.

I've experienced a lot of healing through yoga, and I hope to extend my reach as a teacher by beginning to work with couples and teenagers at a newly hatched studio in town.

Here's to scarred and scared as a description of many of us at a given point in our lives, not as a permanent state of being...