Temperature held low, right for November, with rain falling steady throughout the night. I woke up\u00a0early, five AM, lay there in bed and listened\u00a0to the rain. My legs ached, so I got up to stretch them, stepped outside to look around. Big puddles all over the place, lights on inside the church across the street.<\/p>\n
Opened\u00a0my computer to the news. Earlier death tolls now appearing a conservative estimate. Le Parisien: ‘Cette Fois, C\u2019est La Guerre.\u2019\u00a0This Time, It\u2019s War<\/em>.<\/p>\n Food all over\u00a0the kitchen: leftovers from the night before, when friends gathered for an early Thanksgiving. Nine or ten of us coming together for a big potluck. Food was set\u00a0on the table, buffet style, and we\u00a0spread\u00a0across the living room on couches and fold-out chairs, ferrying back and forth from our seats to the table. The whole evening\u00a0abustle, so no opportune moment for a prayer or for silence. Plenty of time, though, over red wine, to swap opinions–each with\u00a0the tinny ring, the thinness, of murder\u00a0explained. What to make of it? What led to this?\u00a0\u201cFrance’s anti-assimilationist culture!\u201d Another: \u201cLike a pressure cooker of ethnic tensions, boom.\u201d Another: \u201cAs if this many aren\u2019t killed every day<\/em> in the Middle East\u2026\u201d Another: \u201cIt\u2019s the new normal, this sort of attack.\u201d<\/p>\n Morning coming on fast now. Rain slowing down even as the sun rises.\u00a0What’s\u00a0the science\u00a0behind\u00a0that? The symbolism?<\/p>\n My uncle writes from Paris: \u201cPresident Hollande has called for three days of mourning. No need to call for that, except for the formality of it, really; it\u2019s already happening.\u201d<\/p>\n If we’d somehow known,\u00a0perhaps we\u2019d\u2019ve planned our gathering for another night. But to gather\u2014to share company, food, laughter, to celebrate life and love, to give thanks for friends\u2014was perhaps the best thing we could have done in any case.<\/p>\n Sun up, rain stopped but still dripping from the gutters. How to respond to tragedy when\u00a0discourse seems so thin? One possibility: tears, rage for the lives lost, yes, but renewed and deepened love for the lives left.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Temperature held low, right for November, with rain falling steady throughout the night. I woke up\u00a0early, five AM, lay there in bed and listened\u00a0to the rain. My legs ached, so I got up to stretch them, stepped outside to look … Continue reading