Sad

I'm literally rendered speechless when I contemplate the mass devastation in the world these past few days. What can I say? What can anyone say? Hundreds (thousands?) killed in Iraq today, and hundreds (thousands?) dead from a natural disaster in our own country. I just feel like crying when I turn on the tv or radio, yet I want to hear what is happening, what is being done, what I can do.

I visited New Orleans for the first time a year ago May. It didn't take long to fall in love with the Big Easy and all of its grandeur and oddities. It was one of the best trips I've ever taken, and I look upon those days fondly. To think about it never being the same place again is heartbreaking to say the least. I think about all of the wonderful people that lived and worked and thrived there. Some, though homeless, are fortunate to be alive, but I think of all of the others that are suffering SO MUCH right now because help can't arrive in time. I think especially of the elderly and infirm, the animals, the babies, and the ones who never really had a chance...

I think of all of the beauty that that place represents for me - the landscape, the streetcars, the sounds, smells, the blanket of heat that somehow didn't seem so bad. I think about special times with friends and the way those relationships have evolved, also never to be the same again, yet remain still very profound influences on my life. It doesn't make me want to change anything, and it is impossible to go back to the way things used to be, but in a way I see this as kind of a metaphor for what is really important. Do we hold on to the way things used to be, ever pining for that same place, feeling, relationship? Do we analyze to see what went wrong? Why the levees broke? Who to blame? Or do we pick up from where we are left with what we have? Isn't it best to be grateful for the memories and to move on as stronger people? I don't know. (I also don't know what I am talking about, but oh well.)

I know I'm being horribly depressing, but things like this affect me to such a great extent I could think of nothing else to do but to write about it briefly here.

This takes me back to how I felt when the Tsunami last Christmas. I just felt so helpless and so wanting to be there, to do something...