February 8th, Central Police station, 766 Vallejo Street, San Francisco. From 3:00 - 5:00 pm.

Photographs by Chris Tuite.

On a big, blue-sky day in San Francisco, I headed out of my apartment and walked towards Central Police station to initiate an art action. I’d regularly taken this path for over twenty-five years, and it was familiar ground.  These walks had been heartening, if not inspirational, and I felt at home in San Francisco’s steep geography. The beauty of the city was an ever-present undercurrent as I climbed up the hills.  In all the years I’ve lived here, I’d seen extraordinary oceanic vistas from Vallejo and Taylor, ate Dim Sum from hole-in-the-wall establishments, and read books while sitting on the old wooden stools at City Lights.  Mounting the precipitous inclines of Chinatown and North Beach had helped me find joy and gratitude.  These walks held deep remembrances.

As I got closer to the police station, however, I felt an inner grappling.  I was suddenly jittery with a fast, up-high-in-the throat breath.  Little hot waves of shame, and reluctance rose up from the pit of my belly.  The fear of being exposed pressed against my need to confront. My resolve to begin telling wavered as I thought about spilling my story out onto the ground.  

I saw the broad, pale sidewalk.  It was plenty wide enough for me to lay down my cape, leaving me with no excuse for not initiating my performance. I unfurled my mantel onto the cement, pulled out my knee pads, and began my action. From 3:00 to 5:00 pm is when police change shifts, thus a high number of cops would enter and exit the building and I remembered how my own father did this as a Baltimore police officer.  With the pads on, I could still feel the biting concrete under my knee caps.  I took in a big gulp of air.  Little dramas began to leech from my mind about possible confrontations with the police and my shoulders crept toward my ears.  

Now came the commitment to my meditation.  Meditation is a practice of being completely present.  I didn’t want to be in a state of waiting. To wait is to hang on, anticipate, or put off. Waiting means you’re not really there, you’re not there-there.  After years of training, I knew the deal, but the beginnings are always difficult; those first minutes, or even that first hour.  I took in my surroundings, and felt my body.  It seemed so simple. It was not easy.

I noticed pedestrians walking past me, and some acknowledged the immense shape of my cloak by nodding towards me.  Some wished me well, and said, “God bless.”   A woman asked to take photos, while others lingered with unease and questioning stares.  A few walked by as if I were a lamppost.  Once in a while, strangers came to the front, and we looked at each other in silence…for a long while. 

About thirty minutes into my performance, a young woman arrived with a happy air about her, almost skipping along. I imagined she was off to a party. Ten minutes later, she was facing me, tears welling up in her eyes. I felt helpless; unable to speak.  Within seconds, she ran off and a surge of solemnity came over me. 

A short white cop headed out of the station, and he was forced to step over my cloak. From under his breath I heard, “What an inconvenience.”

 “I hope so.”  I thought. 

More cops came and went, many of them without the slightest interest in what I was doing, which didn’t surprise me.  Following George Floyd’s murder, there had been protests all over the country condemning the violent, often deadly force of police.

Near 4:00, a tall Black police officer stood next to me. Straight-backed, he didn’t lean at all.  He towered.   “Does your father work here?” he nodded towards Central Police station. 

Flatly, I said, “No.” 

He seemed curious and yet distant, maybe even fearful.   He asked me where I was from.  He mentioned that his father was from Baltimore as well, and for a moment, I thought there was a connection.  However, after speaking with him for a little while, I realized he hadn’t read the cape at all; just got bits of words.  My body stiffened.  To be clear, the sentences were not entirely easy to read because of the folds in the cloak, but it’s not that difficult to get that the letter revealed a history of domestic violence. I lost my words to his lack of effort, to his lack of realization.  Would he not see the truth?  

So many unknowns were beginning to ooze, and deep conflicts were arising from within this action already.  More people passed by.  An older couple wore expressions of deep concern, and an Asian man stood a long time behind me. How was I going to negotiate this new territory of others’ conversations, their silences, stares, or fears of a shadowy history. There was no telling what might happen as I stayed in relative silence, kneeling.

Friends visited intermittently, and bore witness to my initiation. Some felt a deep sadness in reading the letter and were moved to tears.  Others moved out the corners of my cape so that it was more legible.  They all made eye contact with me and asked me if I needed water.  I felt protected.  I felt seen.

I continued to kneel and I’d change from the left knee to the right one and back again. My jittery feelings would rise and then subside.  Time could seem painfully slow.  Yet, there were moments where I was at complete ease and felt an assuring capacity in my stillness.  I thought of Yoko Ono, and Marina Abramovic´ because they were bravely steadfast.  They had the capacity to be between objectivity and subjectivity in their actions as women artists.  I had learned from them. 

About 4:45, I heard the fast clicking of a camera behind me, to the right, and then, to the left.  A white man with a baseball cap was suddenly in front of me taking shots. It felt aggressive and striking; I became very uneasy.  After a little time, he stepped back.  Eventually, we held a brief conversation, and he revealed to me he’d been photographing the Black Lives Matter movement for some time.  I didn’t know it yet, but my initial apprehension with him would turn into a good friendship, and Chris would end up photographing nearly fifteen of my performances around the country.

In the late afternoon, clouds arrived overhead, and created a grey shimmering light. The wind off the ocean picked up momentum.  It was that time of day when the fog makes the air damp with cold, sharp points against the skin.  5:00 had arrived.  I slowly undid the buttons of my cape. I slid off the knee-pads, put everything in my bag, and began to walk.  Walking is a meditation, too, a way to direct experience; full, and embodied; everything there/here.  It felt truly wonderful and I was heartened by the up-and-down hilly landscape of San Francisco once more.