times like these
There are so many words that could be said, so many words that need to be said. They’re boiling under the surface like a school of hungry piranhas. It’s a feeding frenzy out there and I need that water to simmer right down before I can even attempt to make any sense of what has happened today and what continues to happen, on a loop, on Facebook and Twitter and Instagram, the news, conversations at the local café, comments overheard on the street.
When I was 8 years old, I wrote a letter to my grandparents. I wrote without punctuation, breathless, with hardly any conjunctions, matter-of-factly sticking one sentence after another like mismatched legos.
Dear Grand-ma and Grand-pa,
HI. The 9 november 1983 I got my bulletin. I got As, Bs and one C in gym. That day my teacher hade to leave because she was going to have a baby. So we sang a song to her. But I do not remember it. In the bus me and all the girls in my classe cryd because we loved her so much. Her name was HÉLÈNE DROLET. Win we left from scool we gave her a kiss and she had a big tear in each eye. That was so sad. Well less go on to some thing ells.
I know there are many kids out there today with a big tear in each eye. And it’s to them that I want to write, it’s for them that I need more time. I wonder if that 8-year-old girl can teach me a thing or two? Will she give me the pearls, one at a time, and let me string them together until I can make sense of this madness?
wonderingsandwanderings.com 
Take your time, friend. Will be waiting for those pearls because like you, I am trying to process this. I know it’s gonna take time. I have been unable to talk to anyone but my husband because I am so distraught that I feel like all I will do is cry. I feel like I’ve been through some kind of a disaster, walking through this day in a daze, unsure of what to do. Once the big hand and the little hand get to their appropriate positions (and not a second later), I’ll be hitting the bottle 😉
Thank you for caring about us. And I know that “us” is you, too.
Yes. I haven’t written for months. I had to help my students through this…my very diverse, (many immigrants), population…who took this personally. How can you not? But I had to find my way to hope. So I wrote. I am not sure I feel the hope, so I used other people’s words to try and find a place to move forward. Know I will be waiting for you. I always am. xo