Yesterday started with a 7:30AM sad encounter with the scale at Weight Watchers.  Then I worked from 11-3  at "The Other Job", sang at the 4 o'clock Mass, sang at a 6 o'clock wedding, and ushered at a community theater which had an 8 o'clock curtain.  My age is showing, because I pretty much woke up dead this morning.  But the sand and grit and dust and general clutter of the house is getting to me, so before I go off to babysit my mother-in-law for a few hours I am using the vacuum as an excuse for not going for my walk.  There is a laundry thumping away downstairs, and I have actually managed to find the bed under Son Number Two's pile of "stuff" to the point where I can wash his winter sheets and put them away in favor of something lighter.  I am throwing open the windows, airing out the joint, and hoping to fill a trash bag in the next hour.
Facebook will have to wait.  I will not get a huge blessing or financial windfall because I won't be sharing the picture of the angel or of the cuddly kitten.  Don't care.  It will be such a delightful change of pace to walk on a floor that doesn't crunch!

I'm loving the new job (well, one of them) and the people with whom I work are committed and focused.  It's an adventure going into Boston every day for the first time in fourteen years, and it's quite nice to watch the savings account grow just a little once every two weeks.  The learning curve, however, has become a lesson in humility.  My aged brain, while amazing in its ability to remember many many new names, is showing some wear and tear when I try to figure out the accounting system.  Or to put it another way, the people in the Accounts Payable Department are wondering if I am on drugs.  There's this spreadsheet, you see, with too many columns and codes and numbers and stuff.  There was a one hour conference call with the director of AP who just couldn't take it any more and had to try to pound it into my head herself.  And then there was the royal mess I made of it, which had me feeling inadequate as I pondered it at three o'clock this morning.
If I were my own best friend (which I usually don't manage to be) I would tell myself that I've only been there six weeks, that I should cut myself some slack, that it will come.  In my more enlightened moments I realize that while people are trying to learn to walk with one leg, and others are wondering where their next meal will come from, my feelings of inadequacy are rather small potatoes.  Still, one worries:  "Is it because I'm getting old and my brain can't hold any more?"  There might be something in that.  Or it could be lack of sleep.  I'll get it.  I'll make myself get it.  But it bothers me that I make mistakes that others can see.  Wouldn't you think after six decades I would have figured out how ridiculous THAT is?

Things are calming down.  People are getting back into their routines, except, of course, for those whose routines will never be the same again.  Those stories are slowly emerging, and the media and Face Book are putting faces on the statistics.  Along with the tragic events of April 15 came a harvest of heroes who didn't know who they were yet.  I include in this group the people who lost limbs, yet consider themselves lucky to be alive and have managed to find "the bright side" in that.  I include those who had previously lost limbs to cancer or to wars, who have taken the time to visit and encourage the wounded and to bring them the message that the world has not ended for them, that there is a source of strength within them for the tapping that will astound them and everyone else.  These are the stories I want to hear. 

I don't know why a nineteen year old kid would do what this nineteen year old did.  I'm grateful that it wasn't my sons who brought such pain into so many lives.  I'd like to think that it was because of my superior parenting skills that the greatest violence my older son experienced last week was the "Beast of the East" rugby tournament in Rhode Island.  But the truth is we never know.  I have met some wonderful parents who have absolutely atrocious kids.  I have met some amazing kids who have absolutely atrocious parents.  And then most of us, kids and parents, fall somewhere in the middle.  Such a large part of our lives is comprised of who we meet, who we are influenced by, geography, historical accidents, you name it.  The real difference is the grace of God, and along with my prayers for the wounded, both physically and emotionally, I include a prayer of gratitude that this event was such an anomaly, and that we don't have to face this brand of madness every day.

This is the shot that Himself took with my camera an hour before the blast on Monday.   That is THE spot of the first explosion.  My blood chills when I look at it.  Yesterday when I emerged from the subway there were uniformed officers everywhere and helicopters hovered over my office building all afternoon.  The rumors flew.  They caught someone. No, they didn't.  There's been a fourth death.  No, there hasn't.  And all of it was making it to the airwaves of most radio and television stations.  Journalism as we once knew it is dead as the dodo.
Some wise soul had a few paragraphs about the situation on Facebook.  It's credited to Cam Siciliano of Springfield, and I don't know if he wrote it or just had the great taste to pass it on, but it speaks of how he doesn't want to know anything about the beast(s) who did this.  Not their name, their face, how they were raised, or what the hell they thought they were doing.  He only wants to hear that they have been given a life sentence for every life they took, and then he only wants to hear the brave stories of the heroes that have come out of this tragedy.  He wants to hear how the one-legged are coping and fighting and continuing to believe in the basic goodness of people.  It goes on, but that's the gist of it, and I agree with all my heart.
There have been some moments which brought me to tears.  One was the Yankees playing "Sweet Caroline" at their game on Tuesday night.  Class act.  I shall have to work on hating them a little less, although, as every Bostonian knows, it's fun and it's mutual, and we've proven how deep the hatred goes, first on September 11 and then this past Monday.  The second time I got misty was at the National Anthem at the Bruins game last night.  I have never seen anyone given the opportunity to sing that very challenging song at a televised event who would have the grace and the sensitivity to back away and let the crowd take over the singing.  The crowd did a wonderful job.  They owned the song.  And that, my friends, is what the National Anthem is for.  It's for times like these, which are coming much too close together for anyone's taste.  It's a song of strength and resilience and unity.  And it was wicked awesome.

Nothing ever turns out quite the way you expect it to.  For all my complaining about the Twenty First Century, it was a cell phone text message that restored my ability to breathe normally, and Facebook that allowed me to reassure my friends and family, who know that the Boston Marathon is my husband's "thing".  My husband is safe, but other people's loved ones are not.  There's an eight year old boy dead, and although I'm hoping it's a rumor, I heard that his younger sister lost a leg in the explosion.  There are all sorts of stories circulating, and as usual, some are fact and some are fiction.

There's a lot of flag waving and saber rattling, and of course the ridiculous Westboro Baptist Church has threatened to picket the funerals of the Boston Marathon Massacre victims, but really they bore me and who the hell cares?  There is a weariness in the air.  We've been through this too many times already.  We're getting used to chaos.

The closest I came to tears was when I heard that the Yankees were going to play "Sweet Caroline" at their game tonight, the signature song of the Boston Red Sox.  It won't help anyone, but it was such a sweet gesture that it moved me.  I was hoping they wouldn't get a chance to pay us back for having been equally nice to them after September 11.  But I guess the world is in such a state that at one point or another we're all going to have to learn to be compassionate and caring towards our "enemies" at least for a little while.  Then we'll forget and go back to the Yankees hating the Red Sox and the Red Sox hating the Yankees and I'll probably feel a little better then, because THAT at least is normal.  This quiet sadness is not.

It's Boston Marathon Day.  In this house that's like Christmas and Easter all rolled into one....at least for one of us.  I'm off to work, but Himself took a personal day to cheer on his friends and look wistfully from the sidelines.  And to party afterwards, of course.
Yesterday we both volunteered at the 5K race which is always the day before the Marathon, and that was fun.  He was the Team Captain and got a black and yellow hat.  We all got volunteer jackets, which is the reason that nine-tenths of the volunteers are out there anyway.  Me, I've been collecting unicorns for years, but I think with his involvement in the Boston Athletic Association, Himself has finally passed me in that pursuit.
He's having second thoughts about sitting this one out, and he is now starting to talk about doing a fall marathon somewhere.  I think it must be how Jewish children feel at Christmas.  It's OK, you're happy for your friends, but how do you get in on this?
Personally, I'm recalling the days of schlepping two small boys, complete with folding chairs and a backpack filled with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and juice boxes all the way out to mile 17 on the crammed subway cars, walking a quarter of a mile, getting sunburned, being bored for an hour or more and (in the years when we didn't MISS him ...yes, we did) getting to see an exhausted Daddy who stopped for a kiss and a picture and then ran off with the pack, and then repeating the whole craziness in reverse.  I got better at it, of course (He has done eight Boston Marathons..so far) and found the parking space closer to the course, and the boys got big enough to lug their own gear, but it was never a vacation day for me.
So I'll wear my yellow volunteer jack to the office today, and I'll do dinner detail at his parents' alone tonight and help Mom get into bed.  But the next time I'm in a play I'll be looking for roses on closing night.  Just saying.

Today is a day with sharp edges.  One year ago today my dear friend, writing buddy, and passionate warrior, Jim Flanagan celebrated his last birthday.  He stopped slaying dragons when his heart failed on Labor Day, but his smile (which I felt you really had to see to believe) burns like a pilot light in my spirit.
Always engaged in life, and always bursting with an opinion on everything, especially the government and the way he felt it ignored the poor, Jim was fascinating to be with.  He was a talented writer, and not just of irascible letters to the editor.  He had a published book, but it was his poetry that I loved the best.  April is poetry month, and it was fitting that his birthday fell when the world was re-awakening.  He would fly to Chicago to a poetry conference every year and for a week immerse himself in listening to others and to his own inner muse.
This man with a doctorate in English from Notre Dame taught high school English in a very tough neighborhood in New Jersey by choice.  Nothing pleased him more than to transform a young person's life by pulling the beauty out of their soul with pliers and holding it up for them and the world to see. These kids had no idea there was a hint of poetry in them until he taught them to dig for it and revel in it and use it as a tool to express their pain and to celebrate their strength.
More proud of his Irish heritage than anyone I have ever met, he would throw open his home the weekend before Saint Patrick's Day every year and start baking Irish soda bread at four in the morning.  The smell of corned beef and cabbage permeated the neighborhood, and the laughter and Guinness flowed like the waters of the River Liffey.  On the few occasions when we were able to get down there from Boston I would lead the singing and my son would play tunes on his violin, although for the day we called it a fiddle.  The party was legendary.  I quietly ignored Saint Patrick's Day this year, and Jim would not have approved, but my heart just wasn't in it.
So happy birthday, dear friend.  You've had some company from my circle join you in recent months.  I hope you are all well and happy and singing and blissful.  I still have work to do down here, apparently, but I carry you in my heart every day and know that when I've finished my chores I'll join the party up there, and it will put even your amazing celebrations to shame.

My days fly by.  I guess that's a good sign.  I guess it means I'm interested and focused.  Or it could be that old adage that life is like a roll of toilet paper...the closer you get to the end the faster it goes.  Dragon slaying has become a daily habit, and I usually get to cross one long-standing item off the "to do" list.  This week it's been financial aid forms for the kids' colleges.  Last week it was taxes.  I may actually take out the vacuum this weekend, but that might be aiming a little high.

For about an hour after Himself goes out the door I have the house to myself again.  The clock ticks louder than I remember, and the place feels empty.  How did I do this every day while the kids were in school?  How did I fill the void?  It certainly wasn't with house cleaning.  It's been so many years since I've needed to be this organized.  The more I have to do, the more "extras" I squeeze in here and there before collapsing in a lump.  Still in the back of my head is that little voice that says "Not enough, not enough" and in my stomach is that lurching, roller-coaster feeling that time is growing short.  Ultimately everyone's time here is short, and whether we live to be 20 or 99, there is never enough time to squeeze it all in.  Luckily, I know this is only the prelude.  But faith in a loving God aside, it's still time to take my shower and head out the door with my war-paint on and to spread a little kindness in the world.  It needs it, and it baffles me how many people are shocked to find it.