Funny how the flip of a switch can change your perspective…my perspective. I’m not just talking about turning on a light so that the boogieman in the closet becomes a towel hanging on the door, I’m talking about my morning lounging in bed thinking about what I was going to write (I don’t quite recall now, but it was exciting to me at the time) only to turn on the tv before I left for work and to see it all fade away in the shadow of four blasts in London.
And all of a sudden my mind could only think of bigger things. Things that deal with world politics. Things that deal with suffering I have not known yet.
All of a sudden it all came back to explosions and the dazed faces of those involved. It became the G8 conference – unaffected save the departure of Blair. All of a sudden it is terror warnings here at home and, I imagine, flashbacks to 2001.
And once again the world is abuzz with fear and concern. Once again we pull ourselves a little tighter together to protect against the cold reality that we are not immune to the worlds problems. Tragedy seems to focus our attention on how linked we all are in a way that Live 8 just couldn’t.
Fear, the great adhesive…
What it all means I won’t even pretend to know. Only that I am sad for London…for London’s adults and children that will carve out a new space to house a new dose of apprehension every time they board a train or bus, walk down the street, hear a loud sound. They are in the ranks of an ever growing and recycled list: Israel/Palestine, Congo, Iraq, DC/New York…