I am reblogging a post I wrote years ago because on this historic day my sentiments remain the same and I believe it’s worth a second read. While it is true America is currently governed by a petty and vindictive man, who grants pardons to murderers and sends condolences to acolytes while chasing dissenting voices into silence, who has given power to those who are altering what our forefathers held dear, they do not represent the core of Americans. Our America is peopled with those caring for the young and the elderly, who work tirelessly to make something out of nothing, who allow those around them to live their lives as they wish, and who not only bow their heads for those who are trodden upon but do what they can to aid them. 24 years ago we witnessed the strength of our America, not in those who held political power, but in the citizens who responded on 9/11 with their hearts and lives. We remember the brave and selfless today by living as they did, reaching down and lifting up.
Author Archives: Nine Cent Girl
We are doing everything
“We can never say, ‘I promise it’s not going to happen at your school,’” Dr. Gurwitch, a clinical psychologist who specializes in the impact of trauma and violence on children, said. “We can say, ‘We are doing everything we know how to do to keep you safe.’” (Mervosh, New York Times)
Everything? Really? Who are the ‘we’? Doing what exactly? Safe how?
What are you reading?
What are you reading? seems to be a go-to question among friends and colleagues and family, especially in the summer months when we allow for such rewarding but hard to find time for endeavors. During July and August school children sign up for reading programs, beach novels get traded sand and all between besties, and adults of all degrees become literary critics with ease pronouncing and denouncing across their social media platforms. I too enjoyed a few novels in between the relentless weekly New Yorker. Whatever you are feeling today, joy over Taylor & Travis, excitement about Alcaraz’s buzz and level of excellence, or despair over the latest school shooting, marking over 430 such massacres of children since Columbine, fright over the walk-out of science and medical experts from the C.D.C., terror over Putin’s control of the current US President, anger towards the cowardly GOP dismantling voting rights, citizen rights, or anything that would require a conversation, horror over the wars still raging in Ukraine and the Middle East, in any case you just might find a way out of going crazy by reading a novel. Yes, fiction to start. But history and memoir and art and poetry and on and on through the whole myriad of genres will all guide you through the darkest of days and longest of nights.
Nine Cent Girl 