Monday, August 02, 2004

Juxtaposition

Summertime, and the livin' is easy.....



That's the way the song goes. It's August. It's the Dog Days of Summer, when the temperatures rise and the people slow down. It's family get-togethers and cookouts and ice cream. It's tomatoes fresh of the vine and too much zucchini and spending some quality time cooling off in a kiddy pool. It's fireflies and wood toads and crickets chirping at sunset.



That's the way it's supposed to be.



Yesterday was the perfectly scripted summer day. All the the ingredients were there: family, food, celebration, an overflowing garden, rabbits, chickens, a dog, a cat and a discovered toad. By the time the day was over, I had a little too much sun, a little too much food, and one extremely tired child who fell asleep on the way home.



That's the way it's supposed to be.



After TinyTuna was tucked in and kissed, and Fabio the bunny was fed, I turned on the TV and fired up the computer. The perfectly scripted summer day became one of heightened security alerts. It was terrorism. It was children playing, followed by unspeakable tragedy. All of that while I was gone. All of that in the blink of an eye.



As I sit in my office today and look outside, the weather is glorious. The sun is shining and it's another picture perfect summer day. But in the midst of this beauty, I know some are living with broken hearts and shattered lives. In the midst of this beauty, I know some are living with anger and resentment and a desire for retribution. In the midst of this beauty, fear and distrust sing their awful songs, while the refrain life as usual drones on in the background.



I'm not sure I know what life as usual is anymore. It used to be baseball, hotdogs and apple pie. Now it's security forces, bomb sniffing dogs and color-coded terror system.



I've decided life as usual is what you make of it. So today, I'm going to tend to some flowers as a promise of hope. I'm going to hug TinyTuna and make sure she knows that she is loved. I'm going to take her for a walk, and together we can admire beauty created by other people in places other than our own. I'm going to teach her that this life is as special as it is usual.



Because it could all change in the blink of an eye.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Amen, sister. [hugs]

~Grace