Weightiness; gumbo, flatbreads,and fritters.

Today was another marathon involving cooking, pets, children and then a, "wow, it's 9p, what?!". It was also one in which the heaviness of what happened in Newtown last Friday sunk into my heart more deeply and painfully. Our children returned to school, ushered in by loving and reassuring teachers and administrators who knew how hard it was for many a parent to let them go and who, I know, felt their responsibilities as not only faculty but also protectors even more than they usually do. I listened to President Obama's speech (wonderful), read as much of the news as I could stand and finally had to shut things down when NPR reported on the first two children's funerals. I have a first grader: a 6½-year-old darling, ray of light with all the promise in the world, all the curiosity and kindness any parent could ask for, all the sincerity and openness and love to give that most every day inspires me to try a bit harder. To be a bit better. Or a bit more patient, or understanding. To consider something in a new or different way. I'd be lost if he were taken from me in a fit of a madman's frightening whimsy. I'd be angry in ways I cannot fathom, changed in ways I don't want to consider. My heart aches for the parents struggling with such a tumult of despair and loss and anger and why; not just those in Newtown but all over, in all the towns and cities that have been diminished by gun violence, torn apart in the ways bullets and senseless deaths inflict.

I feel that my orbit around my boys has contracted, that I need to see them and hold them, connect with them and love them even more than I usually do. This is so natural, I know, but it's disconcerting nonetheless because I know from what it comes. We, none of us, want to live life thinking constantly that loss could come at any time. Though that often leads to greater appreciation, it is also exhausting and largely unsustainable. Perhaps this is one reason that in the aftermath of any horrific event's aftermath, movements which have arisen to address what happened so often ebb. Most people can't keep alive the degree of sympathetic emotional intensity they feel immediately after something terrible occurs; our own lives call us back to the myriad things to which we must attend, our focus wavers, there are so many things to pay attention to, so many issue about which to feel concern.

Yet politically, this is exactly what must not happen if new legislation is to be written and passed. At junctures like these - Newtown as the extreme finale of too many violent sieges made possible by easy access to assault weapons and insanely large magazines and the concurrent lack of easy access to good mental health care (and shitty, ridiculous laws like FL's Stand Your Ground) - it should be impossible not to act. Political action should rise above politics, morality and decency should trump affiliation with party and lobbyists. It is unconscionable, or at least wildly telling, that not one pro-gun Senator was willing to go on Meet the Press this past Sunday; every one of them was invited. This is not how progress is made; it's how progress is quashed, how lost lives are disrespected. We simply must rise above because if now isn't a time when folks can come together, then I don't know what is. ~~~~ To keep myself busy (I can't believe I just wrote that; it's probably pretty clear that I'm not a lazy person), I made and froze most of an enormous batch of gumbo today; seriously, enormous, like 20 people could come to dinner, no sweat. And then decided that I was really keen on having zucchini fritters and my beloved coriander and cilantro flatbreads. These goodies plus some stuffed grape leaves made for a scrumptious Meatless Monday dinner.

Nutmeg gets cuter and cuter, and even T is pretty smitten!

Connecticut

There aren't many words which can even begin to adequately express the utter devastation and end of life-as-they-knew-it sensation that so many in Newtown must be stunned by right now. I was late to the news today; blissfully unaware as I played holiday Bingo as Shabbat mom in Oliver's class and then shocked when I returned home to a message from Jack's school regarding shielding and talking to your kids about the CT tragedy. What? Again? Kindergartners? I left Oliver with a trusted babysitter and hurried to pick Jack up. All the mothers were teary yet strong, willing themselves to remain steel magnolias in front of the children for whom they were waiting and whom they so desperately wanted to clutch tight in a maternal grip. When I saw Jack, unaware of the news and simply happy to see me, start to run into my arms, I just froze, my eyes locked on him and the distance between us. It couldn't be closed quickly enough, and I know the embrace I shared with him was longer than many, as were those shared by countless other parent-child reunions.

As I looked around at all the love and relief and perspective -"I'll take whining any day over....."- the wind was knocked out of me. What if one of those children lost were mine? What if the gifts under the Christmas tree right now, wrapped beautifully and glanced at each day with as much anticipation by the kids as by me, were now for naught? I don't think I could bear to let go of them nor look at them for a minute more.

I hugged my boys repeatedly today, tight, lengthy circles of love and gratitude and pleas of "not me, never me." I thought how little some of the stuff in daily life matters; how those things can seem so critical at times but at others, in a flash, the import each once had vanishes like an apparition.

After school, I told Jack about Oliver's and my visit with Nutmeg, aka cutest kitten, and he said he'd like to go see him too. Taking advantage of the opportunity to spend time alone with my J? Done. We spent a leisurely bonding session with the cat, Jack falling ever more endearing in love, trying ever so hard to please the tiny feline. And after Ol was in bed tonight, Jack, in a darling red thermal long-john mozied down the stairs with a strong suggestion that I read him one more story.

Instead, he served as liaison between pajama-clad, gougeres-making me, and warm-under-the-covers-upstairs T, making the case for bringing Nutmeg home. When T acquiesced not twenty minutes later, I knew we all just felt happy that we could be enjoying each other, grateful to have each other, eager to appreciate lazy times of spontaneous joy. No sooner had I tucked the gougeres in the oven did J and I scoot back out to adopt the cat. Two and a half hours past J's bedtime, I finally tucked him in, my little boy, the most precious and proud cat owner ever.

I will not take this in a political direction tonight except to say if not now, when?, but instead give my every thanks for my family's safety and to send every possible good vibe of making it through the layers of despair the CT families feel and which I know would have me incapacitated for quite some time. All of my thoughts are with them now.

Cats as the solution to Congressional discord?

Hear me out, folks, because I may very well win a Nobel for this... What if the way to achieve real bipartisanship (communication! compromise! actually listening to folks from the "other side"!) is to offer everything in opposition to getting  a cat? Some context...

This morning after dropping Jack off, Oliver and I headed to PetSmart to get a larger shell for Jerry because he (a hermit crab) seems dangerously close to spilling out of his old one. While there, we detoured by the cat adoption area and FELL.IN.LOVE.WITH a four month old kitten named Nutmeg. She was a dream. Playful, purring, licked our faces, fluffy but not too fluffy, orange but not too orange. If I didn't think T would move out, I'd have brought her home immediately. Oliver was equally smitten and suggested Nutmeg be his only birthday present (he turns 4 in March but I liked his negotiating tactic). My heart strings were strumming with a mournful plea of a song: who could leave this precious feline, already spayed AND from Last Chance Shelter :(, in this plexiglass cage? It took all I had to hand her back to Marquis. Oliver called T on the way to school and suggested he consider Nutmeg joining our family. At first, T was like, "hell's no, Ol!" but I could tell he wasn't 100% on that...

In the meantime, I posted a note on Facebook asking if I were nuts to consider adopting this adorable cat. People, I have rarely seen such complete and emotive agreement around a NO. Truly unbelievable the unanimity of responses, even though they were all differently reasoned. Wow.

As such, it seems to me that if you put forth a motion in Congress to A) deal with climate change, or B) adopt a cat, healing the earth would commence immediately. Raise taxes on the wealthy or adopt a cat? OMG, a tax increase just passed with 100% of the vote!

Just a thought, peeps.