sorrow
I went for a hike on Sunday. I needed to get away, to take to the woods. I don’t know whether it’s a writer thing, or an introvert thing, or what, but like Robert Frost, I sometimes find myself with the need to take to the woods and bask in the silence of trees.
I’ve stopped watching the news, with all the noise and the opinions and the speculation. I did, though, read about the victims. I always do, when something so terrible happens. Because I want to think of them as people, not as symptoms of some larger, societal problem or as tools to promote an agenda. Sometimes I think every time someone reframes the story, the people get lost.
I wanted to acknowledge them as individuals, as human beings with hopes and dreams. A woman whose boyfriend was about to propose. A little boy who wanted to be a paleontologist. A little girl who loved horses. Teachers who put themselves between a gunman and their students. Children who still believed in Santa. Brothers, sisters, daughters, sons. (more…)