“I love America more than any other country in the world and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.”
- James Baldwin
If you’re signed up for my newsletters then you know that the last two months have not been easy. I’m still finding myself at a bit of a loss for the right words, and I’m struggling today especially with how to love something that has disappointed me in ways I once thought unfathomable.
Nineteen.
Nineteen children,
gone.
Nineteen families’ lives,
coming
unraveled.
When I saw the news about the shooting in Uvalde last night I immediately felt sick, and restless. Alone in the house I went upstairs to my boys’ bedroom. I stared at their empty bunk beds, my youngest’s stuffed bunny on his pillow, my oldest’s library books stacked beside. Dirty clothes that didn't quite make it into the hamper, a favorite toy truck left out in the middle of the floor, a handful of legos scattered around. I thought about how grateful I was that they would be home soon, playing in their room and getting ready for bed. And I thought about nineteen families going home to similar bedrooms at that very moment.
Only theirs will stay empty. There will be no one to snuggle the bunny, the clothes will stay in the floor. The truck and the legos won’t get played with, no laughter while getting ready for bed. Library books will still need to be returned, and I wonder if any will be kept.
I melted into the floor and sobbed.
Lately it’s the smallest moments that tend to carry me through my day. When the big things feel too big and overwhelming, the small moments are there to catch me, to ground me, to remind me that I’m here.
“You might be afraid of the dark, but the dark is not afraid of you. That’s why the dark is always close by.
The dark peeks around the corner and waits behind the door, and you can see the dark up in the sky almost every night, gazing down at you as you gaze up at the stars…”
Without a creaky roof, the rain would fall on your bed, and without a smooth, cold window, you could never see outside, and without a set of stairs, you could never go into the basement, where the dark spends its time.
Without a closet, you would have nowhere to put your shoes, and without a shower curtain, you would splash water all over the bathroom, and without the dark, everything would be light, and you would never know if you needed a lightbulb.
- Lemony Snicket, from The Dark
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