I am shell shocked, in a daze. The unthinkable has happened and it screams out ignorance and hatred. My heart is aching; sadness washes over, seeps inside every pore.

This is not a simple loss.
I am grieving for us all.

I feel like I did the day the World Trade Center was attacked.
9/11; today, 11/9
Then, like now, there was no way to make sense of what happened, but I know we are experiencing something that we cannot process, yet.

My father died on 11/11, 17 years ago. He was a leftist, a cynic of “the system,” but he had a kind, loving heart. What would he have made of this atrocity? In times like this, he often said, “It has to get worse before it gets better.” And yet, today, those words hold little comfort.

Does everything that gets worse always get better?
Is that the natural cycle of things?
What is the new normal?

Yesterday the unthinkable happened. It feels like what it must be like to have received a terminal diagnosis.
We all know we will die but somehow we don’t really believe it, even though it happens to everyone, time and after time. We know death spares no one, but we keep it at arm’s length, perhaps as a way to keep living.

Death is a part of life.
But is ignorance? Is hatred?

Yesterday, this country voted for ignorance and hatred.

My daughter, now 30, worked on both of Obama’s campaigns, and Kerry’s before that. That first decade of her adulthood taught her history; it brought out her passion for justice. Her grandfather would have been proud.

She was hopeful yesterday, until she wasn’t.

I see her heart breaking as her world turns upside down, and I can’t reassure her. I have no way to understand this. My head is pounding, my ears ringing. I am terrified. A part of me shuts down, a dull ache in my heart, in the pit of my stomach. A sharp bullet wakes me up.

Today, through tears, my daughter said, “I guess I have taken the bubble I live in for granted. Maybe I need to be more grateful.”
To which I respond, “Bubbles exist to remind us that we are in this together, holding each other. They are protective but we also need to see outside our bubbles because the truth of how things lives in both places.”

I say these words – I want to believe them now, and protect her. So why do I feel so afraid, and alone, vulnerable and fragile? How can something so awful bully itself upon us as if this is the way it was meant to be?

Up is down and down is up.
We do our normal things so as to stay steady, but right now, nothing feels real, except grief.

What is it to be protective – to protect in a real way – which is to hold a space for someone to see, speak the truth and be heard? It is not bubble wrapping someone with trigger warnings but rather it is holding someone when they bump up against painful realities – personal or societal. If the words aren’t spoken, a true, deep layer of feelings can’t be experienced. If we spend all our time removing places where safe speech can exist, how will our children grow to know kindness, wise speech, empathy, compassion for their own and others experiences?

So when colleges ban books, words or ideas from the normal dialogue, they are making a serious assumption. That is, they are presuming to know what will offend, disturb a person when what triggers one person might not register to another.

Universities then become more paternalistic – that is, they determine what is damaging instead of letting words, books, speakers exist in a climate of openness where what is triggered can be discussed and understood in the context of the individual or the group.

All of life is about the context and circumstances that exist in a particular time, place, or person. Omissions limit discussion.

Protection is not being over-protected or coddled. Rather, people feel protected when they are held with respect, listened to, heard, and are allowed to experience their truth without judgment.

The digital age continues to be an ongoing topic for parents, schools and children. We hear a lot about what is problematic about “screens,” and we hear a lot about how parents feel they have no control over their children’s screen time.

Screens can be addicting
Screens as transitional objects
Screens as pacifiers
Screens as attachment devices

Screens as a way of bonding with friends in a world separate from adults.
Bring awareness to what is so compelling about screens and some part of it will likely be the longing to connect with someone, or something.

Multi-tasking makes us think we are accomplishing a lot when brain research shows we are accomplishing much less b/c we are so scattered.
What we remember when we write with our hands vs. when we use a computer.

Violent games don’t create violent teenagers but they do stimulate violent parts of ones self.
How does one differentiate between isolation that is a reflection of a disturbance vs. a kid needing privacy, liking alone time etc.