Dawn breaks sometime in the future.
For now, I lie awake, insistent thrum of traffic washing up against my window, one unseen bird calling out, anticipating the day.
“Do worms hear?” I wonder as this bird (whose call I do not recognize, somewhere between cardinal and crow) breaks the pre-dawn calm with a repeated cheep … cheep … cheep. Does the early bird go hungry if it doesn’t remain quiet?
“Thinking back on her own life, she couldn’t say exactly at which crossroads she’d chosen the wrong path, the path that had made her the woman she was now, the woman she saw in the mirror before her.”
–Maurizio de Giovanni
Darkness for the Bastards of Pizzofalcone
This is not the kind of sentence I expect to read in a crime novel. But there it was, near the end, near the point at which all is to be revealed, the “Whodunnit?” question answered.
It jarred me, made me look inside myself, revisit themes that already were on my mind after finishing The Book of Joy—these themes: owning your decisions (and indecision); acknowledging responsibility for your own life and actions; making your life and world the best you can make them, no matter what comes at you that is beyond your control. Continue reading
I’m back from Chicago’s March for Our Lives rally and utterly overwhelmed by the promise of our future. This was a rally by kids, for kids, featuring kids, and they were amazing. They were eloquent, inspiring, empowered and empowering. They stood on a stage in front of tens of thousands of people, and they spoke with grace, with dignity, with power. They spoke in prose, in poetry, in song. They spoke in many voices, at different volumes, some a bit hard to hear over the background noise of the crowd. All spoke with urgency and grace; none was cowed. Continue reading
Last night I lit up the internet.
That’s me, above, with some 500 of my closest friends—er, near acquaintances—at Chicago’s Lyric Opera, and of course on the internet, singing Queen.
“One shouldn’t pretend that people don’t get overwhelmed by the sense of impotence, but do what you can where you can.”
–Archbishop Desmond Tutu
That’s what I read today shortly after opening up The Book of Joy. After yesterday, when I was at risk of feeling overwhelmed by a sense of helpless and hopelessness after the massacre of children in Parkland, Florida, I could not have asked for a better reminder.
Also this:
“Start where you are, and realize that you are not meant on your own to resolve all of these massive problems. Do what you can. It seems so obvious. And you will be surprised, actually, at how it can get to be catching.”
I’m angry today. I’m angry this weekend, and I’ve been angry most of this week. It’s a natural response in the wake of yet another mass shooting that has left yet more students dead and injured in yet another of our schools.
I am tired of senseless killing and tired of seeing children die. I am tired of blood flowing in the corridors and classrooms of our nation’s schools. I am tired of fearing for our nation’s children and tired of fearing for everyone else’s safety in this society—for as we all know schools are not the only targets, only perhaps the most heart-wrenching.
But I’m not cultivating anger. I’m hoping it can serve as a motivating force, but I know it can debilitate as well. I’ve struggled to write today, and I think it’s because my anger connects to feelings of hopelessness, powerlessness and despair. Those will get me nowhere. They will get us nowhere. Continue reading
