I Haven't Been Writing

I am listening to Swing, Brother, Swing sung by Billie Holiday.

At first I wrote less because I was traveling. Then it was Phil's surgery. The hurricane is the main reason I haven't over the last week, but school starting is also getting in the way. There are a bunch of unfinished blogs written over the last couple of months. But I will still write and I hope that you will still read. The hurricane is changing things; it brings perspective.

I was holding off writing because I am not sure what I want to say or how to say it. The displacement of the people of New Orleans is beyond even something from my mother's wildest, hyperbolic, paranoid imagination. I have thoughts and passionate feelings about the gross inequities that are rising to front pages. I am not sure how to write about all of that.

It feels strange to whip out a witty little ditty about something Ramona said and something Sumner did when we're watching and living with so much tragedy and uncertainty around us. Yet Sumner and Ramona continue to say and do funny things that make me laugh. He isn't too interested in his new bike--he'd rather look at his Lego magazine for the fifth time. Ramona is "really srustrated" with me because I sometimes say to her when I am really frustrated "Come on, man" and she says, "I am not a man. One day Sumner will be a man and I will be a lady. I am not a man. I am really srustrated that you keep saying that".

So life goes on. Kids are kids. I know how to write about that kid stuff. And you know what: people are people. Despite this bizarre interruption of our lives by uncontrollable forces of nature, we still have to go through the routine of living--eating, kissing, sleeping, and going places.

Philip and his family are a lot more private than me. Of course, one must remember that you only need to be a little bit private to be more private than me. Sharing the complexities of shock and grief that they are feeling feels like an invasion, so I will leave that alone. They are staying in Boston for the time being and don't know where they will go when. They are watching soccer practices and giving baths and driving the minivan and making a lot of calls and emails. They are a lot of help to me. Their house is okay.

So I will write about the stuff I have been writing about. Tomorrow.