what I don't know

I sometimes go for long periods when I forget that I live on a planet, that there are stars in the sky, that the moon is more than either a metaphorical symbol or a physical white dot in the sky. I am not a physicist or an astronomist, so my understanding of what it means to live on a planet is limited.

I am much more adept at living in a city. An American city.

I understand streets and home and family and work. I understand gardening, or at least have an intuitive feel for it. With each explanation of the theory of relativity, I come closer to understanding that time is a concept, a practical shorthand, good for this reality, this world in which I inhabit, but that there are bigger things, forces, understandings about what Douglas Adams humorously called life, the universe and everything, of which I don't really comprehend. Bending space. Gravity. The speed of light. Orbits and suns.

Planet stuff should interest me more, but it does not. And even acquiring knowledge about this planet, or other planets, what would I do with it?

I forget about Iraq.

In the days before the invasion, we all thought about Iraq. We talked about it. It was on television. Embedded reporters gave us pictures from the dust mists of the desert.

Now I wake up to NPR and they say that two American soldiers died there yesterday, but because our day and Iraq's day are not in sync, I don't know if I may have heard this information yesterday, or last night before I went to bed. I hear the words "two soldiers died" and I feel sadness, but I do not know these soldiers, and possibly go through the day without thinking about them again.

Then I see a news story about wives and parents grieving. These folk are interviewed on the Today show, and I see them via satelite link sitting on their living room couch, perhaps holding each others hands, and either Katy or Matt ask them about their lost child, or spouse, or parent, and we see a picture of when the dead person was alive, grinning.

Sometimes the survivor's language betrays the rapidity of time between death and morning television interview. We see their slowness at comprehending that the dead person, this loved one, is gone forever. As they talk, they use the present tense to describe the person who is now dead. They say, Joe likes to bowl and he is always .... And I, watching the television silently, edit their language in my head, and think, poor thing, they meant 'liked to bowl"....

I don't know any American soldiers. Or Iraqis. Or Palestinians. Or Israelis. The categories of people who are dying regularly on the news. I think it odd that I hear about deaths and war and I live as if there are no wars.

I heard on the radio today that perhaps 100,000 people will gather in London to protest President Bush's visit. A few days ago, I read or heard that this was the first official state visit to Britain for a sitting American president. Today they are saying that it is the first state visit since Woodrow Wilson in 1919.

War. Occupation. Protest.

I continue to read and think about this. There are sides drawn, in America, where people are very confident about what should be done or undone.

This I believe: it would be heartless to not celebrate the end of Sadam Hussein's reign of terror.

This president doesn't give me a lot of confidence that he has any idea what to do next.