cold warmth

Today’s report from my urban outpost: The cards are predicting sudden, cataclysmic change for just about everyone. I am blending medicinal herbs for tea. It’s warm for January but I still appreciate my thermal layers. Last night I read a novel by a Bosnian writer. I bought it because the author, having lived through a genocide herself, spoke intelligently against the ones happening now. The novel reminded me of growing up in the suburbs, the way we all acted like we hated each other. She caught the atmosphere exactly, the way so many things must not be spoken, the cold control that was our substitute for love. Except for us the bad things had happened to our parents, not us, so the adults just kept telling us we didn’t know how good we had it. They were right, we had it so much better than they did, and therefore we annoyed them endlessly, demanding from them more warmth than they could let themselves feel.