Escaping Reality

Becoming a mother changes one's outlook on life. There were times during the Iraq War that I saw pictures of children and felt immediately dizzy with grief at what was happening around them. And disgust at my relief that my daughter was not there.

In the days following 9/11, two co-workers of mine got into a disagreement. One, a middle-aged African-American woman, and the other, a Syrian refugee/immigrant married to a Palestinian woman with family still there. They disagreed on which was worse, the violence of our American cities that disproportionately affect the black community or living with the daily threat of religious extremists blowing up buses in Israel. I just sat back and listened to two persecuted people who have lived lives I cannot imagine.

I think they were both right. I dislike my reluctance to come down on either side because I can see both points. Nobody should live in fear of losing their life, wherever they live.

This morning's Washington Post had the second scene of a photo I saw yesterday. A Turkish police officer is shown approaching the surf. Where a little boy lies face down, arms at his side in the shallow waves. How often have I seen my daughter like this, fast asleep? But he is not going to wake when the officer touches him.

The photo they printed is less disturbing and I disagree with their editorial decision. Yes, there are people who read the paper over their morning coffee and they don't want their children to see something like that.They'll probably still get pushback over the "gentler" photo of the officer carrying the tiny child. The refugees living that life don't have a choice over hiding their reality.

Apart from Piers Morgan, who wrote a scathing column this morning, hardly anybody in my Twitter feed was talking about this crisis. Instead, the majority of my feed, even politicos that usually talk about Trump, are talking about Deflate-Gate and Tom Brady. For a while, the Post had Brady on the left and a picture of refugees being manhandled. That story is the third most read as of 1:40 PM today. The refugees? Didn't make the top five cut.

Listen, I like football. And football does bring Americans together in many ways. But talking about Tom Brady's footballs for hours on end and not just on ESPN makes me sad.

War zone next door

I went to turn onto Riggs around 2 PM today. I couldn't because the National Guard was there with guns and armored vehicles.

On another street, the Baltimore Police had cordoned off vehicle and, it seemed, pedestrian traffic.

At the basketball court I went to for the food bank, the MD police helicopter was hovering above the area for a couple hours.

It seemed like war preparation. People were just walking home from school and sitting on their stoops. A friend commented on a post of mine about the baseless arrests in Baltimore that it seemed more like a Middle East dictatorship.

Nevertheless, the spirit and hard work of this community were in clear evidence today. They do not deserve this war zone. In the greatest country on earth, we should be making sure these conditions don't exist. We treat our animals better than this, why don't we treat people better?

Twinges

As I laid awake earlier this morning, I debated whether to go down to the Mall in Columbia. I had viewed the site on Saturday as it was closed to the public while they evacuated hundreds of shoppers & workers from the mall. On this eerie, gray day, the buses they brought to shuttle people were unnervingly bright & cheery. Not what one associates with a seemingly random shooting at a busy mall.

On Saturday when the mall was closed, seemingly random things occurred to me. I need to deposit some checks at the bank there. I really need gloves because this damn polar vortex is returning. My husband had planned to work at his Columbia office both days this weekend and when he went into work on Sunday, I was a little nervous. He said he didn't notice much although when I went to drop something off at his car, the mall security questioned me. There were police cars in front of his building as it was the pick-up spot for items left in the common area. We'd usually pop into Uno for lunch or vulture for bar spots at Cheesecake Factory. I usually drive on the mall loop to come home (it also gives me a chance to get my annoyance fix by honking at drivers who stop at the sign that says "Incoming traffic has right-of-way").  The mall is part of my front yard so to speak as I've noted before.

Today, however, the mall reopened. There were ceremonies to commemorate the victims of this senseless, still unexplained tragedy. I went down there to check it out, but I didn't get out of my car. I deposited my check and returned home. I had a twinge of fear and of schadenfreude & I shouldn't/couldn't be there.

But for me, once I say something (or blog, I guess), it helps me to move on. Now that this catharsis is done, I'm going to visit my friends who work at the mall and support Columbia & Howard County.