Skip to main content

Paris

Yesterday morning I saw Laura. As I approached her to hug her for the events of Friday night, I realized she was in pain. As I remembered her FB post on Sunday about the loss of one of her school friends, I hugged her for her pain and said I was sorry. What else could I say. 
Friday night had already been frightenly close but seeing Laura made it all too real. 
I was impressed about the post I read from one of the survivors. As she lied down on the floor between the other corpses, her last thoughts as she waited to be next to have her 22 year old life ended were of love, rather than anger or rage of what was happenig to her. She focused on sending warm thoughts to those she loved in the hope they knew how much she cared for them. She went further to re-assure the families of those dying next to her that their last whispers were of love and not anger. It gave me hope in the future, 
I was moved by this, though at the same time I wonder if this lack of reciprocity would just make us alike them. We tried this before and we continue loosing. In fact, lives continue to be taken in different parts of the world. And even though Paris made it real for many of us - with both its proximity but also the normal day life events that got disrupted - it is plain bad in many more places. 
There is hope that those remaining believe in life and still make this world a good place to be. There is fear we may never win this long battle if we continue to fight on our terms. I would not advocate for more violence, and I fear for all the refugees that will pay a high price for these atracks, but I do wonder how it all stopped. 
Part of fighting back is to not be afraid. But one needs to wonder next time you are on a theatre hall and the eyes get moved searching for the fire exit...

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

We are not afraid.. are we not?

I see signs saying we are not afraid. Londoners are tough and endured the bombings of WWII. But those Londoners are hardly the same as the ones here today. Yes people in general are resilient, more than we think we can be when looking outside out. That is anywhere in the world, not just in London. And truth be said there is merit in not letting fear control our lives and terrorism win.  Well I just walked into the district line, 5 stations away from Parsons Green and I am afraid. I am not shaking, crying or running away. But I am afraid mostly because it is all so natural. Life must go on I said, as I decided I was not going to cancel my lunch and avoid the tube. But that is what makes it scary. Life goes on and in an effort to not be afraid we recklessly do not change our habits and rely on the stats that more people die on the road then on terrorist attacks. Reality is, the law of probability does not matter because terrorist events are binary.  So I think about my frie...

Flying Sunday

It's been a while, I know. But time is really a precious asset and I have not been leveraging on it well enough... But today I did and I am proud. I threw all the plans out of the window and took the irrefusable offer I was made "Do you want to go flying today?". How does no work as an answer there? Here is one of the c. 30 airplanes you could see there. First reaction from our pilot: "Why are all these planes here, don't people realize it is an amazing day for flying?". Well, I had not untill he told me so! But the best is still to come, as the only girl in the group I got to ride in the front, get first view in take-off, listen to the radio of the air control all the time (we get Boston airport frequency), check the map, speeds, everything... I guess throughout the way we were some quiet passengers, in the wonders of realizing you are on air, the curiosity of identifying different places and the struggle to take the best pictures as we pass the Harvard...

What happened?

Yes, something had to happen to keep me away from here for this long. I had been behaving so well blogging more and more and now what? Very simple, Francesco was born! In a day full of emotions, tears of joy and setbacks Francesco greeted me with his wide open eyes and his calm ways (at least for now). Everyone struggles to point Mum and Dad’s features in him but all I care about is himself. He has long been waited for in this world and I was proud to follow closely his first 4 days. Now, I have to limit myself to technology and hope Patricia likes to skype to make sure I see him growing, crying, moving and smiling. It will be a month until I see him again, precisely a month from the 12th of November and I will miss experiencing his first triumphs to win my sister’s heart. He has barely been here and I miss him already!