What It's Like on Sunday

Well, it's a Sunday and it's gorgeous. I woke up knowing that my editor has a rewrite of my story and I can't do anything more on it till it comes back to me. So I made coffee, read newspapers, thought about 9/11 and how wretched it was and remains and how sorry I am for the people lost and the people who lost people they loved and how I was so lucky that my family, my brother and nephew working there have not gotten sick yet, and how lucky it was my son Italo went to school on 23rd street rather than further downtown and how lucky it was that I was on my way to work when the sky filled with smoke from downtown, how that blue sky suddenly was black and thick and I didn't know what had happened but learned and it was awful. And how lousy I felt for my friend Kent at Cantor-Fitzgerald who had lost so many friends that day.
And somehow I wish we could come together without a tragedy like that, without the 10th anniversary of a tragedy like that to make us forget our differences--which are legitimate but pale in the face of true horror--and work together to make something good, something honest.
I woke up so alive and so happy to be alive. And I was a bit recalcitrant but still dove into doing the first of a new three-day song for some people who have asked for help--as if I could help them, but maybe the song will--and put some black boa oil on the stove for a couple of other people who need good medicine, then found some copaiba, another medicine to send to someone tomorrow, and then talked with Marco and Italo and Chepa and the babies and though none of it is perfect, all of it is good and I've still got strength while others don't and I was feeling so strong and willing to help today. And I hope I can help tomorrow and never ask what those seeking help believe in: It cannot matter. What matters is that they think, hope, a song will help and so I hope for the strength to sing it.
And maybe this is silly but it's how the day was spent and now it's time for watching football and making dinner and feeding animals and the lawn.
So life goes on but there are holes in it. There is sorrow and there is hope and there is a wish to do more. A thought of helping someone, somehow.
And there is joy. And laughter and ain't it great to be alive? Not at anyone's expense. I wish everyone was feeling this alive.