I last posted on Valentine's Day. Ten days ago--that's a pretty long hiatus for me. All sorts of things happened in those ten days. My truck broke down in an active lane of a Florida state highway with two horses in the trailer I was pulling. My eventing family rushed to my aid--if there's any better response to my first frantic phone call than, "I'll be there in ten," I don't know what it is. Friends got the horses to safety, a total stranger pulled my rig to the shoulder, and we carried on. Then my horse hurt herself--but we have access to pretty good vets down there, and so I learned pretty quickly that it was a mild injury that should resolve soon. At home a dear friend was horribly ill, but he got better, and my daughter was sick, and she got better too. The sexual harassment thing still upsets me a lot, but at least we're talking about it.
On Valentine's Day I wrote and posted my previous blog entry about sexual harassment. It was hard for me to write. I felt edgy all afternoon, because of the post, but then everyone at the barn went off to karaoke night and for awhile life was excellent. Wednesdays are always karaoke night at the Ocala Palms Golf Club restaurant, which is a fancy-sounding name for a short mediocre golf course run through a community of identical retirement villaminiums. The restaurant usually serves cheap wine and burgers. In honor of Valentine's Day they offered a choice of chicken marsala or steak. Every table got a long-stemmed rose. Since there were 12 at our table, and only one couple, we passed the rose from person to person, solemnly. I don't know who ended up with it. We sang. (This is the only place in the world that I'll sing karaoke.) We line-danced. Plenty of couples slow-danced.
Then Poppy, the old man who runs the karaoke machine, called for a moment of silence. He had to call several times, as the crowd was loud and rowdy and the people in the back weren't paying attention. "Five seconds," Poppy insisted. "We're going to have five seconds of silence." He told us there had been another school shooting that day.
He told us 17 people had died.
You're a mother and you imagine hearing that your children's school is on lockdown. You imagine rushing to the school, waiting outside with parents you've known since nursery school, waiting, praying your children walk out. Seeing injured children carried out, whisked into ambulances. You probably know them. Little league, soccer teams, school plays. You've seen these children grow.
Nothing will lessen the tragedy of that day. But I've been watching in awe as those students, the survivors from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, rose up and spoke out. Seventeen-year-old Camerone Kasky, a junior, asked Florida senator Marco Rubio on live tv if he would refuse to continue accepting money from the NRA. (Rubio ducked the question.) Now there's a movement, NeverAgain, and a march on Washington on March 24th.
My hometown is planning a similar march on the same day. I wish I could be there. I'll be in Israel learning about Judaism, for a future novel. March 24th is Shabbat, the one Shabbat during my trip. I'll spend it in Jerusalem. It will be easy to remember what's happening in the United States on that day.
This is a complicated issue in so many ways. A friend of mine, who hunts, commented on one of the pro-gun-control Facebook pages I shared, "If only it were this easy." It's not easy. I know that. But, as with sexual harassment, I'm profoundly glad that things are starting to change.
On Valentine's Day I wrote and posted my previous blog entry about sexual harassment. It was hard for me to write. I felt edgy all afternoon, because of the post, but then everyone at the barn went off to karaoke night and for awhile life was excellent. Wednesdays are always karaoke night at the Ocala Palms Golf Club restaurant, which is a fancy-sounding name for a short mediocre golf course run through a community of identical retirement villaminiums. The restaurant usually serves cheap wine and burgers. In honor of Valentine's Day they offered a choice of chicken marsala or steak. Every table got a long-stemmed rose. Since there were 12 at our table, and only one couple, we passed the rose from person to person, solemnly. I don't know who ended up with it. We sang. (This is the only place in the world that I'll sing karaoke.) We line-danced. Plenty of couples slow-danced.
Then Poppy, the old man who runs the karaoke machine, called for a moment of silence. He had to call several times, as the crowd was loud and rowdy and the people in the back weren't paying attention. "Five seconds," Poppy insisted. "We're going to have five seconds of silence." He told us there had been another school shooting that day.
He told us 17 people had died.
You're a mother and you imagine hearing that your children's school is on lockdown. You imagine rushing to the school, waiting outside with parents you've known since nursery school, waiting, praying your children walk out. Seeing injured children carried out, whisked into ambulances. You probably know them. Little league, soccer teams, school plays. You've seen these children grow.
Nothing will lessen the tragedy of that day. But I've been watching in awe as those students, the survivors from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, rose up and spoke out. Seventeen-year-old Camerone Kasky, a junior, asked Florida senator Marco Rubio on live tv if he would refuse to continue accepting money from the NRA. (Rubio ducked the question.) Now there's a movement, NeverAgain, and a march on Washington on March 24th.
My hometown is planning a similar march on the same day. I wish I could be there. I'll be in Israel learning about Judaism, for a future novel. March 24th is Shabbat, the one Shabbat during my trip. I'll spend it in Jerusalem. It will be easy to remember what's happening in the United States on that day.
This is a complicated issue in so many ways. A friend of mine, who hunts, commented on one of the pro-gun-control Facebook pages I shared, "If only it were this easy." It's not easy. I know that. But, as with sexual harassment, I'm profoundly glad that things are starting to change.
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