Reflections on a rainy day
I've opened this window every day this week, but I really haven't had much to say, so I end up closing it, sighing, and think, "maybe tomorrow." Not that there's nothing going on in my life, but it's just not all that blogworthy.
"Yay, I got a new vacuum to replace the monstrosity I inherited from my grandmother in 1997!"
"Yay, Pumpkin Lattes are back at Starbucks!"
"Boo, my uterus sucks!"
"Woe, I haz fic ideas that I'm still not writing."
See? Lots of stuff going on politically, but I don't really like to talk political specifics here. Not because my views are radically opposed to the majority of my flist (they're not) but because it would end up being a never-ending rant over the raging stupidity, utter ignorance and vapid lies on the right, lots of headdesking at people on the left who want X done yesterday without bothering to consider that government just doesn't work that way and never has, and griping at the media for failure to report on very little that's actually substantial. Opinions /= "news", except when it does because that's what it's become.
So yeah. There's that.
And there's the fact that today is September 11. It's been eight years, and there's still a gaping hole in the ground in downtown Manhattan. It's like a wound that doesn't heal, and perhaps it shouldn't. It's symbolic in its way of the hole that was left in many of our lives that day, but it's still a big bloody hole in the ground that also symbolizes a kind of stagnation. My fellow New Yorkers and I will always carry a permanent scar from that day, but even a forest devastated by fire eventually sprouts new growth, new life.
I think about how an entire city and its surrounding suburbs, and even more -- an entire nation -- came together, and remember the grief and shock, the horror and incredulity, but also the kindness and sympathy, and yes, empathy. The way people, who only days before would pass each other by without so much acknowledging the others' existence, suddenly looked each other in the eye, didn't go out of their way to avoid each other, nodded to each other, perhaps sighed, or offered a kind smile, and were unafraid to wear their soul-deep sorrow. We didn't barricade our doors, we opened them wide in our shared grief.
And this wasn't only in New York, or Washington or a small town in Pennsylvania - this happened everywhere. There were some ugly incidents, too, but they were mostly overshadowed by an overwhelming unity of a People. Yet now I look at the state of our Union, and it depresses me at how polarized we've become, how much sheer hatred is spewed, the fear-mongering, the lies, and the 'war on empathy'.
Perhaps more people need to look at that hole in the ground, because when I look around, it appears that we've forgotten something fundamental. The ugliness of that hole has become a reflection of the ugliness in ourselves, and that's a damn shame.
"Yay, I got a new vacuum to replace the monstrosity I inherited from my grandmother in 1997!"
"Yay, Pumpkin Lattes are back at Starbucks!"
"Boo, my uterus sucks!"
"Woe, I haz fic ideas that I'm still not writing."
See? Lots of stuff going on politically, but I don't really like to talk political specifics here. Not because my views are radically opposed to the majority of my flist (they're not) but because it would end up being a never-ending rant over the raging stupidity, utter ignorance and vapid lies on the right, lots of headdesking at people on the left who want X done yesterday without bothering to consider that government just doesn't work that way and never has, and griping at the media for failure to report on very little that's actually substantial. Opinions /= "news", except when it does because that's what it's become.
So yeah. There's that.
And there's the fact that today is September 11. It's been eight years, and there's still a gaping hole in the ground in downtown Manhattan. It's like a wound that doesn't heal, and perhaps it shouldn't. It's symbolic in its way of the hole that was left in many of our lives that day, but it's still a big bloody hole in the ground that also symbolizes a kind of stagnation. My fellow New Yorkers and I will always carry a permanent scar from that day, but even a forest devastated by fire eventually sprouts new growth, new life.
I think about how an entire city and its surrounding suburbs, and even more -- an entire nation -- came together, and remember the grief and shock, the horror and incredulity, but also the kindness and sympathy, and yes, empathy. The way people, who only days before would pass each other by without so much acknowledging the others' existence, suddenly looked each other in the eye, didn't go out of their way to avoid each other, nodded to each other, perhaps sighed, or offered a kind smile, and were unafraid to wear their soul-deep sorrow. We didn't barricade our doors, we opened them wide in our shared grief.
And this wasn't only in New York, or Washington or a small town in Pennsylvania - this happened everywhere. There were some ugly incidents, too, but they were mostly overshadowed by an overwhelming unity of a People. Yet now I look at the state of our Union, and it depresses me at how polarized we've become, how much sheer hatred is spewed, the fear-mongering, the lies, and the 'war on empathy'.
Perhaps more people need to look at that hole in the ground, because when I look around, it appears that we've forgotten something fundamental. The ugliness of that hole has become a reflection of the ugliness in ourselves, and that's a damn shame.