Love

The new news about Jill Carroll is chilling. Of course I want more than anything in the world to see that video but I’m glad they aren’t showing the whole thing, for her parent’s sake especially. Well, before FOX gets a hold of it anyway. It’s good to see that she is alive or was alive when the video was taken but it’s also horrifying on a really base level. The still image reminds me of “The Blair Witch Project.” She has been with them for almost three weeks now. What is her reality? What is her day to day? I complain about my day job. I complain about my life? For shame La Ketch, for shame....

Valentine’s Day is coming up and it means nothing of course but perhaps this post will be a bit of a valentine because I’m feeling quite in love with all of my people right now and I only want you to know that I love you. This is what happens when tragedy strikes. We finally appreciate what we have. There’s a line in “The Hours” that distills it so perfectly. When Virginia Wolfe’s husband asks her why the poet in Mrs. Dalloway has to die and she replies, “He must die so that the others will value life more.”

I just got off the phone with a friend of mine who I have been close to for years but she doesn’t say, “I Love You” very easily. Once I have decided that I love someone, I say it like, “How are you?” It falls out of my mouth like the easiest thing. I probably tell my husband 20 times a day that I love him. It must have something to do with losing my dad so suddenly, knowing deep down that someone can indeed disappear in an instant. I mean, they probably won’t but they could. I understand why someone wouldn’t want to say it as often or as easily as I do. It loses meaning and it loses power when you use it nonchalantly. It doesn’t bother me that my friend doesn’t tell me that she loves me because I know that she does. I know because she shows me that she loves me by the way she speaks to me and the things she does for me, the quality of time that she spends with me and the amount of time she chisels out of her very busy life for me. It doesn’t bother me that she doesn’t say it and I even find great joy, sneaking it into the end of our phone conversations and the depths of our hugs good bye. I try to do it at a point in time and at level that is just loud enough for her to hear me but also just soft enough for her to be able pretend not to have heard me. Sometimes I can’t quite find that place and so, I say it in my mind.

In pouring over all of the articles that are under the “Jill Carroll Update” section of the Christian Science Monitor, looking for something new, some clue, I have been reading some of the articles that she has written. She is a very good writer I think and I’m not just saying that because she is a prisoner of war. She writes with a sense of humanity that is not sensational or syrupy and not antiseptic either. She seems to me to be a very real person. These articles that she has written about the Iraqi people and what they are dealing with in their day to day have really made things three dimensional for me. In reading her words, I can picture things there in a way that I couldn’t before. I can see, although not fully, that this is a real place and that these things are really happening.

I was talking to a friend about how upsetting it is, this kidnapping and not hearing anything for so long. It seemed to me, that not hearing anything was a bad sign. My friend told me that she was very upset as well but remains optimistic and even if the worst happens, at least we can see what a difference her life has made. She has raised the consciousness a notch. I agree. There is an outpouring for her from many sides. So that’s something. If she does die it will not be in vain. If she lives though, this outpouring will have the same effect. I don’t think that she has to die. I think actually, more than anything, that in order for us to value life more, she needs to live.

This post isn’t funny and it isn’t ironic. It’s a bit much and yes, I am listening to some old Ani Difranco right now and yes, I’ve had some wine but I feel like I need to say something here, to the world, no to you. I feel like I need to tell you that I love you. Jill Carroll could be released tomorrow and I could get hit by a bus and I would feel horribly if you didn’t hear me say it right now. If you didn’t know. If you’re reading this right now and you don’t know me or we’ve never really met before, well then I’m sorry, I don’t love you. I never did and maybe one day I will but right now it’s not happening. If you do know me though and you have an inkling or a suspicion that I might love you, if I’ve ever told you or if I’ve ever forgotten to tell you or if I’ve tried to tell you and you’ve stopped me, well then hear this now...

I love you.

I love you.

I love you.

I do.