Thurs, Mar. 20
... Everyone knows but they won't tell
I feel like I should be writing something "deep" and "profound" right now. I feel like I should have some sort of reaction to the war, something to say about it, some commentary on my thoughts or others' thoughts. I don't, though. I don't know if it's that it hasn't sunk in yet, or if it just hasn't really affected me yet, or if my brain's just feeling the effects of too little oxygen, due to my stuffed up nose, but my most prevalent thought about it at this point is that last night, when Bush was giving his address,
Laura and I counted 15 of 47 channels showing it.
And, as we were flipping channels back and forth, with "War declared on Iraq!" attacking every sense, we flipped past one channel that was showing some movie or another, and just as we turned to it, there was a newspaper boy with a huge extra edition, and the headline read, "U.S. Declares War on Germany!! Hitler Must Be Stopped!"
How things change in 60 years. Instead of extra editions of newspapers being sold on the street corners, and people gathering outside their homes to find out the information, everyone's sequestered inside, in front of the TV, which has live updates, sattelite feeds, and the same information reiterated over and over again. I wonder how our grandparents--the people who remember WWII--are thinking about this.
It seems so much less romantic. Not in the sense of going to war, and that being romantic, but the culture 60 years ago was more conducive to romance. Rainy paris streets, spies meeting in hotel lobbies, pencil skirts, red lips, coiffed hair, BBC radio reports, blaring newspaper headlines, smuggling Jews out of Germany, Poland, France, via an intricate network of citizens determined to make it okay, somehow. That period of history has always fascinated me. Not the politics of it, but the people. I've always loved the stories of ordinary people caught in the middle of something so much bigger than they were, doing everything they could to make the world right.
I'm not callous, unfeeling, and uncaring, but I just don't know how I'm supposed to react to this. I feel horrible for the innocent people that will be caught in the middle, I'm praying for Bush, because whether or not you agree with him, you have to admit, he's in a very tough place. I'm praying for the rest of the world leaders. I'm wondering... a lot of things.
But life goes on right now. It really does. This is something on the enws, and it's hard to believe it's real, because it's not affecting me right now. I have a meeting with Cindy this morning to register for next year's classes, and then I'm running a scene with Aubrey. I have troupe this afternoon, I have to find a summer job, and Joseph opens in two weeks. Those are the most pressing things in my life right now. As insensitive as that may sound, it's true. Right now, those are the things that take up most of my mental energy. They're what my focus is on.
One year ago today: In a world where a yellow icon on a computer screen has the audacity to pass itself off as "real" emotion, I crave more than that. I long for a smile that I can touch and feel. A smile that I can experience.
infinite || abyss
posted at 9:44 a.m.
