Combing through facebook is such a strange lens to behold the world, a tapestry woven from our minutiae, our grandiosity, our hopes, fears, laughter, ignorance, triumphs and failures. A sea of varying opposites occupying the same space. A show announcement, a photograph of my friend’s children growing so noticeably since I’ve last seen them, 100+ dead in senseless violence, a racist rant from an unexpected source, whispers of a Guns n Roses reunion. Everything always happening at once. The infinity of these strands braided together in a rich fabric and the fabric is covered in blood. I tuned out today, taking in ocean, the turquoise waters turning cerulean, the subtle change in season and the soft brevity of silence. My mother is going to Paris next week and texted me, asking if she should still go. I had no idea what she was talking about, but I opened my screen and I fell down the rabbit hole of links. I read the words that should elicit more than calm numbness. Headlines that should shake hearts like seizures elicit no measurable reaction, just another invisible weeping, mourning for exactly what we are, not what we lost, humanity no longer a term of endearment, no longer a mark of advancement. I didn’t no how to respond. You can’t hide from tragedy, it lurks in all corners, it’s homeless yet resides everywhere, volatile, rabid and unpredictable. A world in an eternal war with itself, internally and externally, and if fear governs our decisions, where is there left to hide from it? You’re not safe in a movie theatre, at a concert, in a school, walking down the street. My answer to her isn’t the aforementioned paranoia. There’s enough of that rampant through all this. I told her to keep her eyes open and continue to be the opposite of all we see as negative. In a world out of balance with violence and hate tipping the scale, that she keeps creating art and kindness and help add weight to the side of virtue. There’s two poles to human potential and for every bit of ugliness exhaled by the darkness, it’s our job to react with a breath of light. With Love