Life hasn't changed for the lizards. Not for
the Cuban Anoles or the iguanas or the geckos. They're still bright green, scampering around, strutting out their throats in red bubbles to attract the womenfolk. The neighborhood cats still chase the lizards, counting success when they trap a tail, still perplexed when the tail stays behind and the lizard escapes. The banana plants still bear fruit. The black garter snakes still dance an S-shaped curve down the path. The pool still glistens invitations on hot days, the lounge chairs still burn with their metal skeletons. The flag overlooking this scene is still flying, a little lower than normal, but still flying.
I am home in Miami on my off-term and all of the vegetation is the same as when I left it in June. Sitting by the pool in a bathing suit, laptop at the ready, trying to etch out a column two weeks after the terror, I am without words. Do I go the route of the lizards, continuing on as if nothing has happened? No. I can't. Do I focus repeatedly on the events, discuss my horror, the tragedies? No. I can't say anything that hasn't already been said repeatedly.
I was talking to a local newspaper columnist the other day. He's a humor writer and we were discussing whether or not he (or anyone, for that matter) should just go back to writing funny things. How writing about mundane things -- exploding toilets or entire columns about the weirdness of South Florida plant-life just don't seem, well, relevant anymore. But his readers have been writing him, asking for relief. Asking him to be funny, to take their minds off of these events. And he does, but, he says, "it's just not the same."
Can I sit here and whine about my inability to find a job, the fact that, at this point, my most promising job opportunity involves frozen fruit, some blenders, and names like "Strawberry Samba," "Mango Mania," and "Pumpkin Patch"? I could write an entire column about that. About how I have called every advertising agency in town in hopes of learning how to write copy, walked into several restaurants and offered my services only to be told "we really wish we could hire you. But we can't even keep our current employees full-time."
I baby-sat for Mrs. Lewis's girls last night. Mrs. Lewis was my advisor in 10th grade and is now the director of my high school. The girls are in 5th grade and 3rd grade, and I've known them for six years. I was speaking to Mrs. Lewis about the girls and the tragedies. I wanted to know how they were dealing with it. She said she thought they were fine and sort of understanding what was going on until they went on a long car-trip (an hour each way) and she started talking about it with them.
Her youngest girl, Lindsay, asked if she could wear a Muslim head-scarf to school so that when the "bad people" came again, "they wouldn't kill [her]."
Her sister, Sara, is in 5th grade and is the Captain of the Safety Patrol. She showed me her belt -- still bright orange as I remember mine being, but now made out of industrial-strength material and clasped with a heavy-duty black plastic clip-in device -- and her badge, a shiny modern interpretation of what I proudly wore, this time sponsored by AAA. She was very excited about the end-of-the-year trip to Washington, D.C. Now, she says, they might just go to Tallahassee, our state capital. She is disappointed and sad.
Sara has her own story to tell about the events. She says they are very careful these days to only raise the flags to half-mast but that this one boy knocked into the person taking the flag down and the flag fell on the ground. They had to buy a new flag and burn the old one. Sara said she didn't like the flag-burning ceremony. That "it had just touched the ground for a second! If it was a cookie, I would have still eaten it!" She said it seemed so wasteful, especially because there are people who want that flag. I was impressed with her ability to recognize the freedom behind the flag and that people everywhere yearned for the freedom our flag represents, until she said, more practically, "the stores are out of flags! Everyone wants one and we burned it!"
The lizards don't care. They meander along, stop, stretch out their heads and stay perfectly still to absorb the sun's heat. They are unaffected. I envy them that. I lived 20 years without an event that would forever and immediately alter our world's way of being, my way of interacting with others and my beliefs in humanity and the capabilities of humankind. I lived 20 years absolutely sure that America was the safest place in the world. Sara and Lindsay lived nine and 11 years before this happened. For my cousin Christopher, born 14 months ago, this new world is the only one he'll know. Good will come out of this. It has to. And hopefully Sara and Lindsay and Christopher's new world will be filled with hope and promise and an unshakable belief not in the evils of humanity, but in the kindness.
