November 15, 2015, Columbia (Missouri.)
My country bleeds, and in the small closed kingdom of my heart I bleed, and all I can write about today is a world of hurt.
My country bleeds, my family is well but all know of someone who is not, who was there, the daughter of a friend of my mother, in the restaurant where one of the attacks happened, she is safe but the friend next to her is dead, my country bleeds and we all bleed, the daughter of another friend in the Bataclan that night, and I bleed and I want to cry Why? but I know why, and there is hard part, scores of disenfranchised second-generation immigrant youth left in the ditch of French society for decades and ready for the brainwashing of groups like the Islamic State, an immense collective mess-up turned international tragedy, and I try but can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel, nor at the end of my own inconsequential intimate world of pain.
My country bleeds.
I bleed.
It is a reflection of the beauty of my life so far that I have no pictures to express that, but this one taken from a dance production.
I think of James Nachtwey’s picture of a child crying in a Romanian orphanage, the one that reminds me of the famous painting called The Cry by Edvard Munch.
Valerie, I have just discovered your blog,( thanks FB), and finally caught up with news of your life. I've missed the Mudshow Diaries, and I'm so happy to read you again. What you write moves me so much, I don't know if it is just the contents, definately the way you write it's so beautiful, but also the memory of our carefree youth, as well as the shared experience of being the same age, and having our children a bit late in life, all of that, I wanted to let you know I often think of you, I will even more now that I can read you. Geraldine
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