(no subject)
01.08.06
04:30 found me in a way I least expected; awake, but not in my own bed. Instead I was on the bottom bunk of the kids' bunk bed, on top of the blankets on the rock hard pillow on the thin mattress buttressed by wooden slats. The kids are of course asleep in my bed. Symmetry, it's all about symmetry.
I'm back from Olympia.
In the hazy seconds of consciousness sputtering trying to mesh its version of reality with the absolute reality of my head hitting the bottom of the upper bunk, I was at a loss to explain why I wasn't on a couch, a memory foam, a floor or wedged between two kids on a queen sized mattress. The kids appeared out of context. their breathing was free of sniffle and wheeze. Nor did I hear the gentle nocturnal rasp of ex-wife sleep breathing. No matter, my body decided it was time to wake up.
So, here I am at the terminal, sans glasses, unable to discern a comma from a period but quite able to read that the Pentagon says that five Marines were killed in Iraq. Sea Bass was a Marine and I'm having a hard time thinking of five guys like Sea Bass getting sent home in flag-draped caskets, his baby's mama sobbing, his ex-Marine father proud and angry. I think his mother would be silent, resigned to the fact her boy is no longer. Yes, I know, five nameless-faceless Iraqis have probably died for each Sea Bass in a casket but I'm human and like so many other people, I can put more of a face on the broken young bodies. I know their stupid proud toughness, running around Semper Fi'ing each other, dreaming of the strip malls and big box stores of their far away homes. How much longer will this go on? How much more humanity will be shattered and blasted before it stops? How much more of our natural resources be squandered, how much more of the people's money will be spent?
How much longer can the guilty hide in secret bunkers or behind their Praetorian shield?
I don't want to know.
I had quite a bit of time to think while I was in Olympia. Some of it I wrote down in a letter that I am writing to somebody that I don't know. Some of it will stay with me. The rest? I don't know if or when I will write it down. I'm quite certain that I won't write anymore now because I am about to go outside and watch the sun rise for the first time in weeks.
04:30 found me in a way I least expected; awake, but not in my own bed. Instead I was on the bottom bunk of the kids' bunk bed, on top of the blankets on the rock hard pillow on the thin mattress buttressed by wooden slats. The kids are of course asleep in my bed. Symmetry, it's all about symmetry.
I'm back from Olympia.
In the hazy seconds of consciousness sputtering trying to mesh its version of reality with the absolute reality of my head hitting the bottom of the upper bunk, I was at a loss to explain why I wasn't on a couch, a memory foam, a floor or wedged between two kids on a queen sized mattress. The kids appeared out of context. their breathing was free of sniffle and wheeze. Nor did I hear the gentle nocturnal rasp of ex-wife sleep breathing. No matter, my body decided it was time to wake up.
So, here I am at the terminal, sans glasses, unable to discern a comma from a period but quite able to read that the Pentagon says that five Marines were killed in Iraq. Sea Bass was a Marine and I'm having a hard time thinking of five guys like Sea Bass getting sent home in flag-draped caskets, his baby's mama sobbing, his ex-Marine father proud and angry. I think his mother would be silent, resigned to the fact her boy is no longer. Yes, I know, five nameless-faceless Iraqis have probably died for each Sea Bass in a casket but I'm human and like so many other people, I can put more of a face on the broken young bodies. I know their stupid proud toughness, running around Semper Fi'ing each other, dreaming of the strip malls and big box stores of their far away homes. How much longer will this go on? How much more humanity will be shattered and blasted before it stops? How much more of our natural resources be squandered, how much more of the people's money will be spent?
How much longer can the guilty hide in secret bunkers or behind their Praetorian shield?
I don't want to know.
I had quite a bit of time to think while I was in Olympia. Some of it I wrote down in a letter that I am writing to somebody that I don't know. Some of it will stay with me. The rest? I don't know if or when I will write it down. I'm quite certain that I won't write anymore now because I am about to go outside and watch the sun rise for the first time in weeks.