Tuesday was the Uvalde school shooting. I was at TMMC when other crew members mentioned it. A shooting of some sort happens almost every day in the US, so other than mentioning that it was a school in Texas, not much was said.

Wednesday the NYT put a video montage of the victims on its home page. This was very hard to watch–in fact, I did not watch it for long before clicking away. I was online to find out the extent of the carnage, subconsciously protecting myself by learning just a little at a time. I listened to the news from another room, to get some idea without really hearing the whole thing. I had trouble sleeping that night.

Thursday while cooking dinner I heard descriptions of each victim on NPR. One was proud of her perfect report card. Another was very close to his grandfather. A third was looking forward to a summer of swimming camp. I found myself sobbing uncontrollably at the dinner table. All of these children are dead. Nineteen of them.

In America, as most know by now, policing and public safety are unrelated concepts. Policemen exist to protect themselves from the public. That they stood around for over an hour before breeching, despite there being almost as many police as victims in the building; that they handcuffed one parent and threatened to tase another, in both cases because those parents had the courage the police lacked, the courage to risk their own lives to help children; that their political handlers recommended we lock down schools–and churches, and grocery stores, and city streets, and private backyards, because those are all places where we can be shot; all these should have made me angry, but I simply can’t find anger.

The anger is covered by the grief and hopelessness, for the victims, for our country, and for our inability to change. Nothing will change. This will continue to happen, hundreds of times every year. Most of us don’t seem to care at all.

This event is impeding my life, and all I can do is not to think about it. I purposefully drive these thoughts out of my head with trivialities like chores and walks. I’m not proud of that, but I have to do it in order to function at all. It’s like eternity: If I reflect openly on the enormity of it, I will simply stop, because there is no reason to go on.