This morning I
watched CNN for two solid hours sitting on the floor of my living room wearing
my pajamas. The kids had gone off to
school so I was finally able to catch up on stories and images I would never
want them to see.
Two things
struck me:
1. How we have become "veterans" of
national tragedy via terrorism. This is
not about being jaded or desensitized, but rather the way a deep, rugged
strength solidifies inside us, the kind I imagine it would take to run 26.2
miles. The kind of strength it takes to bury someone you love.
2. That this was another piece of our collective
national history that my mother, now dead for five years, would not be part
of.
I'm not sure how
to bridge this dichotomy between the personal and the public; I'm not sure I
have to, but I do know this: as soon as
I heard the news about the Boston Marathon yesterday, I wanted to call my
mother for no other reason than to say, "Can you believe how awful this
is?! And that sweet little boy?"
and for my mother to then say, "What's wrong with people? What is wrong with people anyway?" and for
us to commiserate and be sad together on the phone and to feel her love for me,
like no other love, radiating through distance and time and for her to then ask
about the kids, and for me to tell her that Hudson is having three friends over
for his birthday this year and grilling gourmet sliders (she would laugh
affectionately at this) and how Lily just got some purple jeans and thinks
she's pretty cool wearing them, and on and on we'd go, ending back at a point
of sadness neither one of us could ever understand.
* * *
I keep waiting
for it to rain. I had planned to go running today, but now I want to run in
heavy rain. I'm not going to wear my glasses even though the whole world will
skew blurry without them. Clarity, today, is enigmatic, elusive.
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