Thinking in Peaces

I am feeling what can only be described today as generous emptiness.  Walking around in my day, in my room, in my head, through the leaning walls of my soul, around the jagged pieces of my heart and feeling almost nothing.  Last night, as we held our heads in our hands, in the moments between fixing our eyes on a screenful of horrific tales from Uvalde, there were so many feelings.  Horror at the violent end for 19 children and 2 of their teachers at Robb Elementary School. Aching all over for every parent, sister, brother, grandparent, aunt, uncle who sat and waited, fearing or hearing the worst news imaginable.  Utter disbelief over our powerlessness to end such gun insanity in this crazy Land of the Free, Home of the Brave Little School Children.  Rage at the people offering insane responses during the early tragic hours of our collective grief. People like Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton . "Stay off TV..." we implored, shaking our fists and our heads. Do s...

 My husband is a Boy Scout to the bone. Prepared. Ready for the worst case scenario - whether filling a suitcase for a whirlwind vacation, packing up gear to go camping, stocking a portable tool box for mountainside deck-building, or getting through the average day during a global pandemic.  Here he was in the mid-2020s - pre-vaccination, pre-KN95 mask saturation, smack dab in the middle of WTF-ery.  You can't see it, but there's a HEPA filter over the end of the tube of that full face, underwater snorkel mask. #PreparedMan. And yes - he wore that standout virus resister everywhere that wasn't here inside our super-sanitized, hyper-bubble-only home.  It worked. He did all the family errand-running in his "scoober" (as our eloquent granddaughter called it). I did curbside pick-ups, Door Dash ordering, and backyard distance-seated happy hour planning. We stayed well. When volunteers were requested for a Texas antibody study, we signed up for 3 blood draws. Last draw...

Every compassionate human I know is fighting despair this week.  We are suddenly international peace thinkers on alert - we study maps of Eastern Europe on our laptops, retweet memes of Vladimir Putin, and search our closets for anything yellow. Anything blue . We read. We watch documentaries . We donate money . We propose to know what's going on, what needs to be done, what looks like a win, and what looks like an immeasurable loss.  The more I think I know about Ukraine v Russia, the more I know I don't know. Every time I dig in, I uncover something that requires 15 additional Googles to understand. Where, I wonder, was my attention in 2014 during Ukraine's Maidan Revolution ? Why, I ask my husband, can I not answer your question about the fairness of  pre-Maidan elections for Ukranians? What, it is impossible to fathom, kept me from learning about 1941 Babi Yar from a teacher or a parent? How, it seems prudent to imagine, does Vladimir Putin respond when he's cor...