how are you today, my heart?

i am sorry, i didn't get your email until this morning.

more than anything i wish i were close to you, i have had you on my mind constantly these last few days.

if i just had you and jamie around me i would feel so much better.

i can't stop listening to npr, the voices are so comforting.

i had to help the co-worker learn a new system, so i missed the majority of what colin powell was just saying in his press conference.

and the co-worker keeps making the same noises that i have heard other people making, about carpet bombing and furious burning rage and not at all, it seems, a real thought to the people who live there that have nothing to do with this. the children and peace-loving muslims that will die as a result to this. many of the things i hear are from people i consider reasonably thougtful and collected; because of this their calls for blood using a rationale of eye for an eye, etc, really concerns me. if we are to use reasoning that obligates us to act in a way that heretofore we may have found immoral or reactionary, it seems as though those who have visited these terrible acts upon us have met at least some of their objectives.

this sickens me not in the sense of reproach, but in the sense of real nausea. the kind that something bigger than i can really comprehend is about to happen. a great laceration has been made in the psychic sense of security of our country, and as a result a great wound will be laid upon another country(ies), upon people who have little wealth, few resources and no power. i am of course speaking of the rank and file citizens of whichever country is decided is responsible, whether by harboring whomever did this or otherwise.

this is not to say i have any idea of another, better, course of action. i really don't know what is right to do, what is not only morally sound, but also what will help start to heal the real emotional damage that has been done.

sadly, i have great reservations as to whether the two mandate the same course of action. also, i am concerned that if one is not informed by the other, that there will be grave consequences. if not physical with more attacks on the US in one form or another, then psychic in that we will allow fear and anger, both very valid feelings and reactions, to shape our personal and national mental landscape to be such that we will become unrecognizable from that which we strive and idealize.

reports of attacks on brown skinned americans frighten me; last night on the radio i heard a man at a mosque with overwhelming sadness and fear in his voice exclaim that muslims are peace-loving people, saddened like everyother american over tuesday's events. i cannot imagine what it must be like to be a muslim-american today. i have been saying prayers (i know) that we as a people will conduct ourselves with wisdom and justice. that we may meet this great test with the composure that the ideals of this country demand, that we can prove ourselves to be worthy of the challenge of being an american in today's panorama of complex, and intricately woven political and social connections.

beyond this, i am plainly freaking out. that i have to be here in this cube today rather than at home smoking cigarettes and listening to the news i think is perhaps more than i can handle.

i could not have imagined a more horrific way to put the problems that generally occupy my mind into perspective.

nor could i have believed that in the face of all this, people still show themselves to be fine and brave.

it is for this reason that despite all the apprehension that spilled out of me above, i remain hopeful and determined in my conviction that when allowed to remain clear-thinking and calm once the fever pitch of emotion is settled, we will always aim at the good. in light of what other alternatives there are, i believe i have little choice.

i love you.

please give jamie a kiss on the cheek from me.

i hope to speak to you soon.

please know you have all the love in my heart,

jessica

ps--on a completely surreal note, the Co-Worker has declared it lionel richie day, and promptly started singing "stuck on you" and doing the worm.

had he started singing "ballerina girl", i might have had a change of heart concerning him; this dim warmth in my heart which vacillates between slight nausea and concerned bemusement may have changed into slight nausea and some semblance of vague affection.

but no. if he knew how close he was, he may have tried harder.