Cake

Metal star hanging from our front doorknob

Sometimes, well many times really, I just can’t stand to read about or listen to what’s going on in the world. Not because I don’t care. But because I care so much and feel so damn helpless. And it just keeps going on and on.

CNN is my homepage. Mainly because I’m too lazy to change it, but also because it gives me a quick catch-up on the day’s events without all the graphics and such of some news sites. The photo that just loaded on my screen showed hundreds of people in Haiti amassed at a gate, waiting for water — grown men and women sobbing from fear and hunger. I heard a journalist on the radio today report that these same people have no food, water, or even pots to cook the meals in.

Like the situation in Darfur, or the endless beheadings of innocent contractors in Iraq, when I read about these stories, I just can’t process what these people are going through. Scott’s sister Jane has traveled to Haiti and seen the country. The people have cut down most of the island’s trees to sell for money, leaving the land desolate. That’s why the mudslides killed so many. It’s an endless cycle.

The faces of the Haitians haunt me. The blindfolded man from yesterday’s headlines haunts me. There’s so much hurt and devastation that goes on in this world. Yet I’m sitting here, comfortable in a home that, although it might not withstand a tornado, it’s certainly not in danger of succumbing to a mudslide. My life is cake really. I’m not on the streets. I’m not hungry. I’m relatively healthy, and my friends and family are too.

I have a friend who doesn’t watch the news. It makes her cry and and even brings on depression. Sometimes I understand how she feels.