To wrangle and continue.

As was all of the world, I was devastated on December 14.  Unstoppable crying for 5 days.  A day and a half of school missed.  The following things did not make it much easier, but it helped.

When I finally returned to school and taught students, I realized that every child I see is really "one of those babies."  Only they are here.  And alive.  It is my job to cherish them for all that is sacred and magical in them- just as I am grieving the loss to the world of all that was sacred and magical in those innocent victims.  I hope that for the rest of my life I am able to pause with that perspective always.

I spent last week reading the book Columbine by Dave Cullen.  We are all still striving to understand Newtown.  We won't be able to.  Columbine is a work that Dave Cullen took 10 years to write as he (appropriately enough) "culled" all of the information from other books that were written, police interviews, the journals of the perpetrators,  etc., etc.  All that was available.

 What I got from that is that we can not find reason in insanity. I realize that I do not need to know who or why this most recent shooter was.  He is scarily similar to those who have gone before him and until we find a better way to identify and treat sociopaths (and I use that term clinically- those without the capacity to feel empathy), there will be tragedies both large and small.

I have opinions on mental health but they are not informed.  I have opinions on guns but they are not informed. Although the headline Studies show that countries that have more guns have more shootings sort of cuts through any confusion for me.

I find it ironic that those who so heartily support second amendment rights permitting gun ownership ignore and dispute the fact that our country's creation was based on the separation of church and state.

It has been hard to watch the earth continue to spin.  But it is all anyone can do.