the time and the place

I have a date tonight with a bottle of vodka; throw in some cranberry, call it a threesome. This was not my original plan. But given the emotional rollercoaster that has just lurched into the station, I see no real alternative. Today the Marine funeral that shared space with my school was compounded by two extremes. The morning began with Rachel's Challenge, a school assembly program inspired by the first person killed at Columbine, dying unnecessarily young being the theme of the week. The presentation lost me a bit when it started transforming her notebook sketches into signs or symbols--then again, the target audience eats that stuff up, and what do I know, perhaps she did have a vision--but the underlying message, in so many words: be nice to each other, show compassion and kindness, is something that cannot be too often repeated. Perhaps even, perhaps especially, to the war protesters who decided to show up today, as if a family's last goodbye is an appropriate space.

I cannot conceive of being more opposed to this war than I am. It is a waste, a sham, a horror shamefully conceived in a lie. I could describe in detail my frustrated convictions, but this is no more the time or the place than it was for those unconscious objectors today. Surely their goal was not truly to persuade anyone; even I could see opposing heels dig in to the mid-winter muck. The same kids who were struck silent the day before yesterday were offended, roused from both apathy and opposition. Think of those actually invited to the funeral. For despite the flags, the uniforms, the horse-drawn carriage, and the salutes, today was primarily about a person--a friend, a brother, a son. A boy. To claim to them, right then, that he didn't know what he was doing. . . I throw my hands up. The only word is despair.

When I teach civics, I feel most American when I go through the first ten amendments and notice how much more I value those freedoms than my students do. Can't say that I explicitly thought about it until I began teaching it, but I seem to take them quite personally. My rights to say and do and be me. I've had Mexican kids ask why the U.S. constitution doesn't mention the family as theirs does, and I wonder how they've not noticed this isn't a collectivist culture. I say what I want, and so do you. We each say whatever, regardless. I believe in that, too. But today what I wanted to say, perhaps shout into the wind, was shut up, put your cause down, go home.