As it happens every night, beloveds, while we turned
in the night
sleeping uneasily the world went on without us.
We live in our own time zone and there are only a small
million of
us in this time zone and the world as a result has a
tendency to
begin and end without us.
While we turned sleeping uneasily at least ten were
injured in a
bomb blast in Bombay and four killed in Palestine.
While we turned sleeping uneasily a warehouse of
food aid was
destroyed, stocks on upbeat sales soared, Australia
threatened first
strikes, there was heavy gunfire in the city of Man,
the Belarus
ambassador to Japan went missing, a cruise ship
caught fire, on yet
another cruise ship many got sick, and the pope
made a statement
against xenophobia.
While we turned sleeping uneasily perhaps J Lo
gave Ben a
prenuptial demand for sex four times a week.
While we turned sleeping uneasily Liam Gallagher
brawled and
irate fans complained that "Popstars: The Rivals"
was fixed.
While we turned sleeping uneasily the Supreme Court
agreed to
hear the case of whether university admissions
may favor racial minorities.
While we turned sleeping uneasily poachers caught
sturgeon in the
reed-filled Caspian, which shelters boar and wolves,
and some of
the residents on the space shuttle planned a return
flight to the US.
Beloveds, our world is small and isolated.
We live our lives in six hundred square feet about
a quarter mile
from the shore on land that is seven hundred square
miles and five
thousand miles from the nearest land mass.
Despite our isolation, there is no escape from the
news of how
many days are left in the Iraq inspections.
The news poll for today was should we invade Iraq
now or should
we wait until the inspections are complete and we
tried to laugh
together at this question but our laughter was
uneasy and we just
decided to turn off the television that arrives
to us from those
other time zones.
Beloveds, we do not know how to live our lives with
any agency
outside of our bed.
It makes me angry that how we live in our bed—full
of connected
loving and full of isolated sleep and dreaming
also—has no
relevance to the rest of the world.
How can the power of our combination of intimacy
and isolation
have so little power outside the space of our bed?
Beloveds, the shuttle is set to return home and
out the window of
the shuttle one can see the earth.
"How massive the earth is; how minute the atmosphere,"
one of
the astronauts notes.
Beloveds, what do we do but keep breathing as best
we can this
minute atmosphere?
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Robin Reagler 