the panic, twice
It's been, what, a week or so now and it seems distant again- unless I check the news. Twice in the span of a few weeks, looking down to see the words ACTIVE SHOOTER alive on my phone. Once was the first thing I saw in the morning, and I stumbled out of the room mumbling about it in a hushed, incomprehensible tone, doom-scrolled for ten minutes before the picture became clear, and then promptly fell back asleep. "What were you saying about his school?" he texted later. "OMG" he replied. Hoax. It had been a hoax phone call. But the kids had been locked down and dismissed and they parents remained actively rattled. The panic came back to me in strange ways throughout the day. Needing to pause to catch my breath at odd times. Muscles tightened for no reason. All that, and I was steps removed and an entire country away. Imagine. The second I was attempting to make my first carrot tartare, carrots cooked and ready to be diced chives and capers- (the way I'd...