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The ordinary and the unfathomable, all at once
I was at a friend’s house Wednesday night. A group of women in my town gather monthly, usually around a firepit in one of our backyards, for wine and snacks and real talk. The notifications on my phone were turned off, so I only saw the news just before I fell into bed, around midnight. I couldn’t bear to read more than the headline.
Another mass shooting; this one closer to home: Lewiston, Maine.
I woke up to texts from my college girlfriends checking on our friend who lives in Portland. She and her family were in their home, locked down.
I texted another friend, also in Maine, visiting her mom.
This is our routine now.
In the light of day, we learn more details: at least 18 dead, 13 injured. Gunman still at large. Schools locked down. College campuses in a state of paralysis. How many times have we done this?
But this morning, I did what I always do.
I packed snacks and scrambled eggs. I made my youngest her oatmeal, with a splash of milk — no sugar. I braided one twin’s hair; pulled the other twin’s hair into a high ponytail.
I drove the kids to school, took the dog to the park. I ferried to school the backpack my youngest daughter forgot on our kitchen table. When I pressed the buzzer on the front door of my kids’ elementary school, I imagined a gunman shooting through the glass. He’d have a clear view of the cafeteria from there. I said good morning to the school secretary. I remembered that I’d forgotten to brush my youngest’s hair.
I don’t worry much about my kids, or my family, or things that are outside of my control. I’m not in the habit of imagining mass death, but I also can’t pretend it's not happening. Not when tragedy is so ordinary.
I am not an anxious person by nature. I don’t worry much about my kids, or my family, or things that are outside of my control. I’m not in the habit of imagining mass death, but I also can’t pretend it's not happening. Not when tragedy is so ordinary. How am I supposed to explain this to my kids?
When horrors like this unfold, I am an active bystander. I sit 150 miles from Lewiston, Maine, but as an editor, I have to pay attention. Confirm the death counts, the weapon used, the names and titles of speakers at the press conference. Where was the shooter’s car found? How many mass shootings have there been this year? Is Lewiston really the biggest mass shooting in New England, by victims, since Sandy Hook 10 years ago? I didn’t work in journalism back then, but I remember where I was when it happened. I worked at a nonprofit that partners with schools. We huddled around a computer screen to watch the press conference in Newtown, then my boss sent me and my colleagues home to hug our families.
So many things in this world — today, tomorrow — are beyond explanation.
Yesterday, I listened to an interview with an 85-year-old grandmother who was snatched from her home by Hamas. “I went through hell,” she said.
I learned this morning from the BBC that sewage will soon flow through the streets of Gaza because of the lack of fuel. There is no power to operate the sanitation system.
Hurricane Otis killed 27 people in Acapulco this week. Scientists say the 88-degree surface waters of the eastern Pacific made it one of the most quickly intensifying tropical cyclones ever observed.
And after three weeks, the U.S. House of Representatives elected a new speaker. He played a role in Trump’s January 6 scheme to stop the 2020 election results from being certified. Now he sits third in line to the White House.
What do I tell my kids?
A friend who’s a therapist reminded me that children are resilient. The world they know is different from the world we adults know, and this is objectively true. I grew up with a different base-level understanding of safety. By fourth grade, I hadn’t lived through a global pandemic or heard tales of mass shootings at recess.
At least today’s kids have some training under their belts. They’ve never known a world without lockdown drills and N-95 masks. It doesn’t mean they are without empathy — that they are incapable of feeling the sad of it all — but it does mean their little brains are being wired differently, to be resilient in scenarios we consider horrific. This is their normal.
I know at some macro level we are supposed to make meaning out of all this. Make sense of the facts, find the bright spots, celebrate the lives of the innocent victims, support the grieving, figure out what we can learn and carry forward. It’s how we find ways to keep moving. But I’m not sure there is any sense left to be made.
The adults in charge know what must be done, and they refuse to do it. Instead we relive this national, and for some, deeply personal trauma, over and over — in Lewiston, in Pittsburgh, in Buffalo, in Parkland, in Uvalde, in Orlando. We are unable, or unwilling, to prevent avoidable deaths.
So, in unfathomable times, we go small. We do our tiny things. We drink water and brush hair and carve pumpkins. Fold piles of laundry and decide what’s for dinner. We write, and work. Try to be grateful for the mundane things we get to do, because we are lucky to be alive to do them.
