New York and Sri Lanka

It is Sunday morning, and Mom, Dad, Jack, Ol, and I are on our way to the 9/11 museum and memorial. I lived in NY on 9/11 but have not visited the site since I moved two years later.

We are still in Brooklyn, it’s a beautiful morning, we are all happy and have had such a fun weekend. I sit with the horrific news from Sri Lanka, and suddenly it really sinks in. I have friends living there, a mother and son the boys and I know from school. She is Sri Lankan and they took a leave of absence to move to the country for two years to be with extended family, to travel, to let the boy, now a fifth grader, study in and experience a new place and school.

I message the mom: Just checking in. Are you and your family ok?

What are the odds, I think, and I turn my attention back to my family and the museum.

The incredibly thoughtful designers and curators of the tribute to 9/11 couldn’t have done a finer job. It is a weighty, moving place of course, my eyes prick with tears many times, but I never feel destroyed or frantic to leave. To an individual, the staff and volunteers are thoroughly trained, passionate, and kind. Please, if you feel overwhelmed, there are tissue kiosks and seats all around. Please don’t hesitate to let us know if we can help.

The boys take it all in, brave and respectful. And we talk about terrorism and hate but also the antidotes of love and tolerance. We talk about the lives that were horrifically taken and also the beautiful way New York came together afterwards. We talk about community and tending the ones we are part of. We talk about condemning hate and hateful actions but also about the importance of not judging groups by the behavior of the extremists within them.

After, I note that I’ve not heard back from my friend. This is odd. But it’s Easter, and I put the niggling aside to laugh with my boys and parents, to pack us up, to say goodbye.

We board the bus home and three hours in I hear the news: the boy has been killed in Colombo. The mother and grandmother are in the hospital but will be ok. They had been at breakfast together.

I gasp, and without thinking turn to the boys and tell them the horrific news. What?!

We cannot make sense of this. Jack had played chess with this boy and borrowed his hiking pants. He was a radiant, kind child of such intelligence. He was to return to DC in just weeks.

Our community is wrecked for the loss this mother has sustained. For the loss we feel, too.

Yesterday, as I drove Jack home from school, he, in uncharacteristic emotionality, said, “Mom, I don’t understand this evil. The world is shit right now.” He looked so distraught and baffled. I couldn’t disagree, but I am 43 and he is 12, and I desperately wish the world was a better place to grow up in because death and a deep awareness of the world’s ugliness and many failures is a lot to hold when you’re not even a teenager.

Please be the good. Be generous and kind and tolerant. Please offer to lend a hand, to give a hug. Please value fact and truth and honesty and character. Please fight fanaticism in every way you can, including the very real white conservative extremism, so often religiously-rooted, that harms us here in the States. Please honor this dear boy and all the others whose lives end entirely too soon. Please keep his mother in your heart and your thoughts. She needs a deep bench of love and support right now and for a long time to come. Many do.

Notre Dame, 43, dear friends, spring, corruption, and NYC

What a hell of a week this has been. Good god, people. In short, Notre Dame burned, I turned 43, we had an exceptionally dear old friend and his partner (an exceptionally dear new friend) stay with us for two days, spring sprung and I gave part of our garden a happy do-over, the Mueller report was released to the public albeit more than lightly redacted and two days AFTER yam received it, Barr has confirmed for himself that he’s part of the trump crew upon which history will not look kindly, and tomorrow I’m taking the boys to New York for the weekend as my parents, post-retirement, decided to fulfill a lifelong dream of living in NYC by renting an apartment in Brooklyn for two months (April and May). We’re taking advantage of this unseasonal proximity to enjoy a quick visit!

I can’t tell you how my heart hurt on Monday as the news from Paris grew increasingly grim. When the Notre Dame spire, engulfed in flames, fell into the cathedral, my eyes filled and I gasped with sadness. We were just there. The kids, especially Ol, were and remain as sad, and yet we are all grateful that the structure’s shell and most of its many historical and artistic treasures were saved. Today I heard a report that another 15 - 30 minutes of burning would likely have brought the entire Cathedral down. Can you imagine? 845 years hinged on the dedication and training and refusal to quit demonstrated by the Paris fire department. I bow to them.

Hard to believe we were just there and now so much is gone.

That afternoon, our friends arrived, and they lifted my spirits enormously. Tom and Colin went to college together, they lived together afterwards, and I met Colin several years into that- was it seventeen years ago? He and I became fast friends, and although we’ve never lived in the same city/country since, we’ve kept in close touch. He was in our wedding, we see each other when and where we can, and it was with joy that I received his note about staying with us while he and Emad passed through on their US road trip. It was if Emad and I had never not known each other, and I think the three of us talked for 8 hours straight.

Tuesday was my birthday, number 43. It was such an incredibly happy day. I took a long walk with one of my favorite people and most treasured friends, worked in my yard, felt an outpouring of love from family and friends, and went to a great dinner with Tom.

Wednesday found me sadly saying goodbye to Colin and Emad (isn’t that the best, though? when you enjoy people’s company so much that parting is somewhat mournful), going bananas in the yard but finishing it enough to have one of my favorite neighbors over for wine in the new chairs, and calling it a day when I realized I’d way overworked myself in all respects.

Today, Barr gave an absurdly partisan, duplicitous press conference about the Mueller report and then released the 448-page report, some pages of which are almost totally redacted. Additionally, I got a crown, ran 98 errands, read hundreds of tweets by legal experts parsing the report, and feel like so much of the world is broken as fuck and full of destruction and evil and decline.

And yet, Notre Dame was saved, and I have such good friends, and such a loving family, and my perennials are thriving, and tomorrow I’ll get to hug my mom and dad and on Saturday see Burn This on Broadway, and I think I’m looking and doing really well for 43, and I’ll take it. I won’t stop fighting, but there is also a lot of good, and I’m thankful.

How did I forget this Paris idea?

For those of you who, like Tom and me, enjoy cooking and kitchen accoutrements, consider visits to these kitchen/restaurant supply stores: E. Dehillerin (purportedly where Julia Child shopped) and A. Simon. Both are in Les Halles but are complete opposites in terms of feel.

E. Dehillerin feels marvelously ancient, while A. Simon feels shiny and new.  

Always while shopping abroad, carry your passport or a picture of it (including your identification information inside) and many shops will complete VAT rebate forms for you, allowing you to recoup at the airport all taxes you’ve paid while in country!