Lenticular

I have been Thinking a lot about the school shooting situation, scrolling through the debates on my news feed.

Is it mental health? Antiquated gun laws? Modern weaponry? Video games? Absent parents? Overburdened school administrations? Astrological phenomena?

Yes.

As a perpetual overthinker, I have to remind myself that sometimes it is possible to solve a problem without knowing the answer, without naming the culprit, leaving the why unanswered.

I graduated from high school the year of the Columbine Massacre. My mother and I were having lunch only a few miles away as all emergency vehicles in the state drove past us. We said a prayer for whatever terrible accident may have happened, and went home.

When we got there, I turned on the TV to chill out for an hour before going to a play rehearsal at school.

But the same thing was on every channel.

It was a defining moment, as the bleeding boy fell from the second story window (he was my Spanish teacher's nephew, in fact).

What in the everloving FUCK is going on?

A Moment.

My brother stopped wearing black that day.

(I stopped sleeping).

I can remember the trauma, the terror, the tectonic shift in the infrastructure of my psyche as I thing I hadn't been prepared for secretly took my mental health down six notches.

I'm glad we're thinking about it. I'm glad you're thinking about it. I don't have the answers, because God did not issue me a rule book with my Yoga Teacher Training certificate, and I wasn't able to divine answers through months at the ashram.

Thinking about it is good. Praying about it is good. Talking about it is good.

Fighting about it is not.

We are all in agreement about this: Children Should Not be Shot at School Ever.

So let us start there. And pray, if that's what you've got. Say something, if you have something to share. Act if you're able to act. Manage the carnage by voting, marching, surrendering and destroying your weapons. These are not my ideas, Martin Luther King Junior and Jesus said these things.

Using your magic for good, rather than for evil.

Or distraction.

Let's find a solution, and let our children and theirs figure out why it worked.