For some years, we woke up in the morning to our donkey Simon’s “call to life,” his great and joyous bray when he saw me. Now we wake up to a different sound, to Chloe’s gusty whinny and brat, like Simon, she hears us stirring in the farmhouse and calls out to us. We are used to this now, the best alarm clock in the world. This morning, we were especially grateful for it.
I must not become numb to it, I must find a way through this new kind of ritual.
I wake up at 3 a.m., every morning, I check the weather for the farm, there is this news, from Louisiana, from Minnesota, the always awful news from Washington, this morning the news from Dallas.
I am sorry to say it has becoming familiar to me, I worry that it must not deaden me, turn me cold or angry or numb.
I do not know what to say.
I do not know how to feel.
I do not know what to do.
My stomach feels as if it sinking into my legs. I am awash in sorrow. I retreat into silence.
I turn off the cellphone, I do not need to tell Maria yet, she will find out soon enough.
Yet I don’t want to hide, I need to know.
I know some things by now.
There will be the official statements.
Then the official arguments.
The e-mails and text messages stops, as if shut off by a secret hand.
Then the statements of the one side and the other, the spinners, no longer able to unify in empathy or compassion, even for a few minutes.
Then the horrifying images, captured but never quite understood.
They never explain, they just disturb .
Unthinkable things now commonplace.
I hope it’s not this kind of person, or that.
The awful suffering of innocent people.
The rage and fury and blame.
The hurt, the hurt, the hurt.
The official statements, familiar and hollow. There seem no longer to be any words that can reach through to me and touch my heart.
I know not to keep watching, I know it will be many hours before there is something truly new.
There is no time to absorb or think, only to cry and wonder and sink.
I know not to watch video after video, hour after hour, day after day. I know it will not help, I will learn nothing, know nothing, find peace.
I will not be hungry all day. Can I take my photos and write my blog posts? It seems trivializing sometimes, will anybody watch or listen?
Can Fate make me smile today? Will Red sit by my feet? Will Maria wrap her arms around me, and hold me in her loving cocoon?
I must not become numb to the world, or jaded. I hold Maria, she holds me, she says a beautiful prayer for peace and healing.
Love heals, always. I am grateful I am not numb to it, it matters, even in the midst of great sorrow.
We will walk in the woods, visit the animals, sink slowly back into the ordinary world, retreating into our quiet lives.
I dread the arguments beginning, the rationalizations, the justifications, sometimes I think I just can’t bear any more of them.
Then, I will do my job, pick up my camera, write my posts. Writing is not my work, it is my life. As long as I write I am alive, the world makes some sense.
My heart is so heavy, I feel it will topple me over sometimes.
Later today, Maria will be in her studio. The dogs will be at the gate, waiting to work. The animals lined up outside their pasture, ready to eat. We will hold each other, talk to each other, sit with each other. We will move our way through the awful fog.
Do we have to know so much? See so much? Have human beings ever been subjected to so much? Can we survive it undamaged? Without turning numb and cold to it?
The world will move on, as the world does.
The animals will see us, sniff us, know something of this. Sense what we feel, the sadness and tension in us.
I think of all the new victims today, and their pain and suffering. I will think of them, pray for them. I hope my work can do some good.
My heart is full of hope. I refuse to surrender hope. I commit myself to it. People are good. Sadness and tragedy is always a gift in its own way, it forces us to think and feel and reach out.
I am inspired by the love of people, by the love of animals. It is everything. I will think of my new granddaughter, kicking in my daughter’s belly. Does she hear this? Can she feel this? Does anyone think of what the children see and feel?
I hope I am not learning this habit of shock and grief too well. My morning ritual is becoming too familiar. I hope I will never become numb. Or forget that the world is full of light and color and beauty. I hope we will come together, even as we seem to be tearing each other apart.
Light follows darkness. I hope the sun is streaming soon into the deep woods. I sometimes think the trees of the souls of people, seeding and shading the earth when they die. Perhaps they will whisper to me today. We must change.
I will bring my monochrome camera.
