I gave up watching the Today Show when Katie Couric defected to the evening news. And since I try to never watch the news, it would appear Katie and I have broken up. Which is a shame because I have a very high threshold for perky and she and Matt Lauer interacted nicely. Now everyone on that show talks over each other like they’re reporting the Hindenburg and it’s a mess.
The other morning I turned on the TV for a weather report (nine straight days of rain, like a crossbow to the sinus) and my attention was grabbed by Matt telling me to stick around for the world’s first full face transplant, coming up after these words from our sponsor. At least, I’m pretty sure he said they’d be right back. It was hard to hear with his three amigos jumping in like jibbering monkeys on his last words. I’m not saying I hold a grudge, Katie, but you know what I’m saying.
These are the heroes. The doctors who operate for 21 hours with meticulous care, and the patient, a beautiful young woman whose life was ripped apart by a shotgun blast to the face five years ago. Fresh from surgery, none of us would want the face she was so thrilled to receive. In time, and after more procedures, it will look closer to normal. But watching that morning, my heart ached to think of what was taken from her and the open joy she expressed in the future from behind a face she couldn’t make smile. Her resolve to carve good fortune from such a poorly dealt hand speaks to how indomitable the human spirit can be.
One brave woman’s courage struck me as an apt metaphor for our current times. Perhaps our new President, and the wave of fresh air we’re willing him to bring, can change the climate of self-centeredness and unaccountability our culture has absorbed these past years. The circus that began with the “Me” decade stayed in town way longer than welcome, and I’m as eager as anyone to usher it to the door. In my own response to President Obama’s call to action, I’m reaching out to volunteer at a local community center or cancer support house. With schoolwork taking up only half my day and jobs scarce, I need to connect somewhere with meaning. No sense having a new game in town if you don’t intend to play.
Before I do that, though, I have to stay tuned through these words from our sponsor because coming up next is Bristol Palin, newly split from her baby-daddy, promoting her role as abstinence spokeswoman in the crusade against teen pregnancy. I kid you not. Katie, as the mother of two daughters you could have really run with that. Wish you were here.
Daughter’s Featured Fotos hint at What Lies Outside
subway philosophy
butterfly room at the museum of natural history
the great outDOORS
this is what happens when. . .