No words

This is as much as I can say about Newtown: there are so many children killed in gun violence in this country, many more as innocent bystanders than as actual targets. Turning schools into contested territory with gun toting teachers and security guards won't stop a determined man with semi-automatic. That's been proven over and over. We have to ask ourselves whether we want to be in a civil war, with an ever escalating arms race between ourselves and the people we fear. We've had arms races before, all we end up doing is arming more people who want to kill us in new ways. The alternative is to rethink the way we treat people, from Adam Lanza and Cho Seung-Hui to William Spengler. They all have different ranges of behavior, symptoms, problems. And none of them were born intent on killing. Somewhere between then, and when they pulled the trigger, was an opportunity--maybe many--and we still don't know what that was, or what to do with it.

Someday, the parents of those children may be able to celebrate the holidays again, but it will always hurt. They'll dread the turn of the seasons that their children miss. The stages of life that other children experience will always come with a silent reminder that their lost children will never know any of it. All the beautiful plans in mother and daddy's heads when those kids were born are torments now. As much as we want to support the families of Newtown, in the long run, nothing helps. Nothing will bring those children back. If anything worked, I'd have found it by now. The only thing, the right thing to do is work together, as a civilization, to solve the riddle of the killer instinct. We are only human, but we are human. We have come to terms again and again with the problems of our kind as we've evolved. Every choice we make as a culture brings us closer or further from answers that will give meaning to the tragedy of Newtown, and Detroit, and Newark, and South Central, and everywhere that children are dying for no reason whatsoever except that we haven't earned the right to do better. We're all complicit in this. And we're all paying in our hearts for this. And we'll keep paying and paying until we figure it out.

Pain

Jesse and I had back pain in common. The book he was given by his chiropractor (Treat Your Own Back) is the same one I'm using now. He got his from a badly performed bone marrow biopsy, we think. Mine is from a group of herniated disks pressing on various nerves. I know it was frustrating for him to be in pain so often at such a young age, he'd always been athletic and it took a toll on him. It doesn't make me feel any better to remind myself, of course. It makes me miss him even more, on top of this. I don't know what his life would be like now, for good or bad. He was very much the pilot of his own ship. It's just easier to imagine him somehow still going forward, somewhere, than to think otherwise. I don't care for any religion, because none of them would have granted his atheist ass an afterlife (he didn't believe in one himself). But whatever the reality is, I need to think it's not the end of my time with him. Maybe the only time is in my heart and head, but that's not enough.

Dear Jesse, I can hear the helicopters circling outside. Either it's another gangland takedown or the balloons are attacking tourists again. Happy Thanksgiving, Mom.

How I work

Over the years I realized that waiting till deadlines wasn't helping me. I didn't do a good job, I forgot things, thought of better ideas and wording after the piece had been turned in. By grad school I got myself to change. As soon as I knew what the semester's assignments would be, I'd write an outline, some paragraphs, sketch out my ideas. As I came up with new ideas I'd add to that framework. If I learned something in class that added to my theme, I'd research further and work it in. Sometimes I'd realize I'd taken a wrong turn, but I'd learn so much that it was worth it. Because I'd already gotten the general frame of the paper in my head, I was sensitive to new information and ideas about my subject, and I had plenty of time to follow those leads.

By the time the paper was due, it was truly my own, as finished as I could make it. I never had those pre-deadline headaches, butterflies, and insomnia.  I never had to miss a social event or send my kids off because of a paper. I had plenty of time to study for exams, and the months of picking up new information on the particular subject matter made my exams better, too. It wasn't a matter of working harder, or necessarily longer, just better. I had to give up the adrenaline rush, but higher grades and compliments from professors were better. So was the relief of knowing I'd done my best.

Now I find I work better this way in life as well. I gather up resources for what I want to write. Once I get something on paper, I let it percolate, and let my attention draw itself toward my subject matter. How can I say it so my audience will engage? Empathy helps, but I don't mean walking around as yourself in someone else's shoes. I mean walking around as that person, as best I can, in their worldview. You have to acknowledge stereotypes in order to avoid them. You can't bring a fresh message to a cardboard cutout.  Once you get into an audience's point of view, brainstorm. Put things on paper. Don't edit. If you think of a better way to say something, write it down fresh, rather than mark up your earlier version. This way you capture your trail of thinking. Then let it sit. You need to walk away from all that driven writing. Change rooms, change tasks, change your frame of mind before you go back to it. Your ability to pick out fresh ideas, smart wording, engaging sentences will be much better if you haven't been staring at the lines sitting in front of you all day and night. Fresh eyes are almost like someone else's eyes. Everything you do between that first draft and your first read will inform how you work on the ideas you laid out. Think of it as teamwork with yourself.

He'd be 28.

Probably a lawyer by now. Wife and kids? If so, I'd be a grandmother. He'd be in New York, still, most likely. Settled down, starting to look back at his life and think about everything that happened over the last 3 decades, all the changes he had to go through. I can imagine him at that age, and what his world might be like, but I can't begin to guess how he might have surprised us all with the choices he might have made. I can wish he had the kind of life that made him happy, that made him grow into the person he wanted to be. I wish I could be there. I wish he were.