Early Mornings

 We have nowhere else to go. 
-Golda Meir

Since the start of 'Swords of Iron ' (sorry, I'm going to digress here for a moment even though I've barely started, but what a stupid name for this war. It's way too formal and civilized—as if this were an Olympic competition in fencing. We need a better name – I'm open to suggestions, because the names I've thought of are so far from PC I'd be cancelled from whatever people are cancelled from so fast I wouldn't be able to finish my sentence, and I've only just begun it), I've become even more of a news and Facebook junkie than I was before, and that's pretty bad. 

So many of my friends, acquaintances, relatives (and even frenemies) are reporting how they are having difficulty keeping things together. "I saw one picture too many and I lost it", said one. "I'm afraid of taking a shower", said another. "What happens if the alarm goes off and my baby gets frightened." A third is too anxious to leave the house while also going stir crazy at home. Everyone is consumed with concern and worry for our captured, our soldiers, our wounded and overcome with anguish for our dead. Everyone has lost someone or knows someone who has lost someone. Anger, confusion, grief, exhaustion, shock are all taking a toll. And it's not even been a week. 

I wrote in my last post that I've taken to waking up early in the morning, before sunrise. I use the time to pray and meditate and drink a quiet cup of coffee before I properly start my day. 

These days, however, I don't know what I should be praying for first; the unmitigated and complete destruction of our enemies; the quick and safe return of our soldiers; a complete and quick recovery to all our many many many wounded; comfort and healing to the heartbreaking amount of families of those murdered; continued unity to our People; safety and prosperity in our Land; and that I have the strength and the health to get up another morning and stand up and do the things that need to be done – the laundry, making soup, sweeping the floor of endless crumbs, bathing wriggling toddlers, calming screaming bored children, and allowing endless episodes of Paw Patrol and AutoBots to echo throughout the house. 

And it's here, morning after morning, that I break; I lose it—my eyes fill before I can blink them back and I am sobbing. This is no wiping away an escaping tear, no gentle weeping. This is full-blown, teeth gnashing, shoulder shaking, ugly crying. 

Frustration, worry, anger, fear, and, most of all, overwhelming, inconsolable grief run down my cheeks. 

Eventually, I shudder to an end. 

I think "Better out than in, as my friend Shrek once told me." 
I think also of the best advice I have ever received, and which I pass on now to all those who are breaking down:

Cry it out, wipe your face, straighten your crown, and carry on. 

We have nowhere else to go.