Walking for the Mentally Ill

Yesterday we took part in a fundraising walk for NAMI, the National Association for the Mentally Ill. We parked by the simple stucco houses that line Golden Gate Park. A bright day welcomed the brokenhearted warriors of the cause to Lindley Field. These are friends and family of the mentally ill, whose life lessons could not be more real, more devastating, and more compelling. Their clients could not be more vulnerable.

Golden Gate Park is larger than Central Park with gigantic trees, like sequoias and eucalyptus, and many of the bright flowers I had just seen in Sardinia. We descended to the soft green grasses where local NAMI groups gathered, tented tables signing them in. People wore t-shirts painted with brains full of jelly beans, or with brains shooting lightening, or bearing photographs of someone they had lost to the tragic diseases. People carried handmade quilts or banners proclaiming faith in god. Among them were mentally ill people, a half-dressed woman in a wheelchair being carefully tended, or solemn young black and Indian men sitting stolidly on the grass. or the ravaged faces of people who live in their own nightmares and can only be partially present. Dogs cavorted, women with long gray hair wore bright headbands, people munched and brought each other cups of coffee, groups drifted together and a bagpipe band warmed up. Then flocks of white doves were released and beat a hasty spiral high above, where unfortunately a pair of hawks soon appeared. We worried about the flock of doves but it only soared higher. A judge spoke of the cruelty of sentencing that unfairly targets many mentally ill people, and their lives of continual punishment. Hundreds of group leaders paraded on the stage with rousing group names like the NAMI Raindancers. It was quite the bittersweet celebration of life.

We took off through a floral arch, followed by ambulances, just in case. The money had already been raised, the only thing left to do was walk through beautiful Golden Gate Park, past the bison pen where my sisters had met from their separate worlds 30 years earlier, into the sinus-tingling chill which turned to penetrating sun. Signs along the path reminded us: "No Stigma" "One in 4 adults experience a mental disorder every year" and names of sponsors. The hawks danced in the sky above us, no doubt attracted by the tiny dogs scrambling along. But luckily for them, and for any potentially unstable walkers, the dogs remained intact.

At the finish line a girl band blasted 60's songs and the old hippies among us rocked out along with some of their wards. The proceeds will help so many more get off the streets.

But the next day, walking down to Market Street, I wonder if the physician can heal herself. People lie on the sidewalk, scraping at it. A wizened old woman in a wheelchair, peaked cap and tattered woolens mutters to herself. A round old woman howls like a cat in heat. Countless men limp by with their beers, babbling to themselves. A thick young man stands with arms upraised, like a statue of Sisyphus. Then I pass the chess boards, among clouds of marijuana smoke, and see that some people are seriously focusing. But so many others under the bright California sun seem so alone.