4.17.2007

because words sometimes say enough

After a week away, a week of suspended reality, it was difficult to come back to the harsh truth of a daily routine, of people depending on you, of your absolute grown-upness. And all day on Monday the only thing I could think of was that picture window in Brooklyn on that rainy last day, the late flight, the typical New Yorker in my southern town who couldn’t get a taxi at 3am, my father’s 70th birthday and my nieces, my nieces and nephew. Then I heard the news of college kids being shot, but it didn’t register. I had copies to make, a schedule to keep. And then I did listen and I watched as the whole world of news came to my backdoor. My first reaction was to shoe them away, to tell them that this was a Virginia ordeal, a tragedy we needed to take care of, to understand. And yet I wanted to know all the facts. I’m sure it’s how Columbine felt, like the world was looking at something only you knew about, a little pristine part of earth secluded from the real world. It’s like a prying eye you didn’t expect, an unwelcome guest in a time where you barely know up from down. Virginia Tech. will always be to me what is has been, a huge school in my hometown’s backyard, a rival college, a school with unfortunate school colors. Except now, I plan to wear orange on Friday because we are all Virginians. We are all human. We have all lost something.

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