Sunday, January 09, 2005
Well, hello there! And how are you?
Sorry I haven't blogged in ages. With all the kids at home I have no real time to myself, to gather my deep, fascinating thoughts and put them down for you to imbibe and enjoy and ponder...
Actually, I have been wondering how to blog after the terrible thing that has happened in south asia. I notice that none of the blogs I read regularly have broached the subject, and who can blame us? What does one say about such a mind-boggling disaster?
I do want to say this: I don't know how to get my mind around it. When something terrible happens I need to imagine it for myself, after seeing and hearing and reading what I can about those who experienced it. But I haven't really seen images that show me what it was like when that wall of water came down upon the coasts, how people were swept up, wounded by debris, sucked back into the ocean to be lost forever to those left on land. To use a cliche'd phrase that I like, it "beggars the imagination". I can't imagine it, and when I try I feel only confusion and dread-filled surprise that this was even possible.
There's a short article by Jonathan Schell in The Nation. He said this: "As in nuclear war, the many tales of individual survival both brought the experience to life and yet at the same time seemed to falsify it. For at its heart were the tens of thousands who had perished and could tell nothing."
That sums it up. I feel empty of imagination, unable to climb on top of it and look at it and measure it with my mind. I guess that's appropriate; some things are too large to imagine, and cannot be contained in something as limited and limiting as mind or imagination.
What I do think about is this: Those bodies floating near the shore and scattered about on land were people, people who made love, were held on their mothers ' hips, gossiped and looked at the stars. The numbers of the dead were among the numbers of the living just moments before.
Sorry I haven't blogged in ages. With all the kids at home I have no real time to myself, to gather my deep, fascinating thoughts and put them down for you to imbibe and enjoy and ponder...
Actually, I have been wondering how to blog after the terrible thing that has happened in south asia. I notice that none of the blogs I read regularly have broached the subject, and who can blame us? What does one say about such a mind-boggling disaster?
I do want to say this: I don't know how to get my mind around it. When something terrible happens I need to imagine it for myself, after seeing and hearing and reading what I can about those who experienced it. But I haven't really seen images that show me what it was like when that wall of water came down upon the coasts, how people were swept up, wounded by debris, sucked back into the ocean to be lost forever to those left on land. To use a cliche'd phrase that I like, it "beggars the imagination". I can't imagine it, and when I try I feel only confusion and dread-filled surprise that this was even possible.
There's a short article by Jonathan Schell in The Nation. He said this: "As in nuclear war, the many tales of individual survival both brought the experience to life and yet at the same time seemed to falsify it. For at its heart were the tens of thousands who had perished and could tell nothing."
That sums it up. I feel empty of imagination, unable to climb on top of it and look at it and measure it with my mind. I guess that's appropriate; some things are too large to imagine, and cannot be contained in something as limited and limiting as mind or imagination.
What I do think about is this: Those bodies floating near the shore and scattered about on land were people, people who made love, were held on their mothers ' hips, gossiped and looked at the stars. The numbers of the dead were among the numbers of the living just moments before.
# posted by becca : 1:30 PM
