Profound

I could easily dissolve into wrenching sobs reading "someone to hold on to." The writer, Mara Eve Robbins, won the Real Simple Life Lessons essay contest with this beautifully written, honest, authentic, and painfully personal vignette. It's a glimpse into a life that I have an irrationally large fear of, as I've mentioned in the past. Something about the job of reporting news, where we often tell stories of horrible and senseless tragedies, has implanted a paranoia in me about losing the people I love. I don't allow myself to get wholly consumed in the morbid possibilities, but deep in the corners of where my biggest fears live, this one looms large. 

9/11

10 years ago today, I was a cub reporter in my first real job at Central Florida News 13. It was my day off and I was easing into the morning, watching the Today show in my apartment in Orlando. I remember Matt Lauer and Katie Couric started talking about a plane that had just flown into one of the towers at the World Trade Center. It was confusing for everyone at first, and then they started narrating over live pictures of the towers.

Then the second plane hit. I had no concept of what a terrorist attack looked like; it didn't cross my mind that anyone would do this on purpose until Matt said it could be an act of terror. Then my phone rang. It was work, calling me in.

I rushed around to get ready; I called my future husband in San Francisco to tell him to turn on the TV. He was on his way into his second day of medical school, and he had no idea what was happening on the East Coast. I don't think I even spoke with my parents until a few hours later because I was so focused on getting to my station and getting my assignment. And I had no concept of what that day would come to mean. I was just a 23 year old rookie journalist on my way to work to find out what I was going to cover because this was big, it was breaking, and it was all hands on deck.

I ended up at Disney World, a symbol of Americana, where international tourists and parkgoers were all getting bits of news from their families on cell phones. It was before the age of smartphones and instant Internet connections and streaming video. We interviewed people who were supposed to be having a good time, but were instead confused, concerned, and distracted. And at that point, there was so much uncertainty about what other cities, what other landmarks could be targets. Why not the Happiest Place on Earth?

It was a long day, but I was glued to the coverage for hours, for days afterward. Watching the reports from Ground Zero, seeing the family members holding signs with their loved ones' faces and names behind reporters delivering their live shots. Journalists crying on the air. It was so much to take in. I was, in a way, sheltered from the enormity of it because of my limited life experience. I was not married, not a mother, and so young in my career that I was focused on the technical stuff--the details, the facts, the reporting.

But 10 years later, reading the stories and watching the anniversary coverage, I know how much I've grown, how much the world has changed, and how I will never forget bearing witness to a period in American history that I hope, will be the worst of my lifetime and many generations to come. 

Pinecones

I saw a snippet of Diane Sawyer's interview with Jaycee Dugard that will air this weekend in a 2 hour Primetime. NBC Bay Area's Lori Preuitt did a nice write up here.

I could have burst into tears watching it in the newsroom. I could cry right now thinking about what she said about pinecones and how they're so special to her because they're the last thing she touched before the Garridos stole 18 years of her life. I have a lump in my throat thinking about how her mom said she was so worried about being late for work that she didn't kiss her girls goodbye the morning Jaycee was kidnapped.

Having a child changes how you look at the world and your life and the value of life. I used to cover a lot of child drownings in Phoenix. And toddlers being killed when they wandered behind their parents' SUV or truck as backed out of the driveway. And babies that died after being forgotten by harried new moms in the backseat of a hot car.

I now understand completely why those stories were assigned to me, and the other young, childless reporters. Once you become a parent, you see your own child in every gruesome situation and it's emotionally wrenching.

I am so amazed at Jaycee Dugard's resolve to move forward in her life and take ownership of who she is and to not let the monstrous circumstances of her life dictate who she is. She has taken an unflinching look at all the horrible things that happened and she has had the clarity and support to understand she did nothing wrong and has nothing to be ashamed of.

I don't know what steel cloth she was cut from but I am in awe. I think Jaycee is a testament to the enduring human spirit. How she is able to be who she is, in spite of everything she has survived, is simply incredible.

Japan: Earthquake & Tsunami

I am supposed to be writing a story about consumer gag orders that will air on KNTV next Wednesday and I'm up late because I emcee'd the International Museum of Women gala tonight where the crowd was so gracious. But now I'm totally off track and distracted and saddened because Asian Grandma just popped into our room wearing her Bluetooth headphones, wordlessly waving at me to get in her room to see the TV.

It was tuned to my friend Kiet Do's live shot at the USGS in Menlo Park where he was doing a live interview with a seismologist. That turned into 15 minutes of me flipping through the local news stations, listening to everyone's coverage and dipping into the English coverage on NHK, the news network in Japan. 

The devastation in Japan, the fireballs following the earthquake, the flooded prefectures, the airport underwater, the violent waves tossing boats into the freeways, all of those images are swirling through my mind. And the untold number of people who are now gone. Tsunami warnings have gone out to the U.S. for Hawaii, to Russia, Guam, Taiwan, the Philippines, and Indonesia.

And I wasn't going to make a big deal of this, maybe surprise you with a few posts here and there should I be so lucky to establish a connection, but we're traveling to that part of the world, a family vacation to celebrate our time together, visit relatives, and to take advantage of our tour guides (Asian Grandma and Grandpa) before they get too old to traipse around Vietnam; it is a trip I have barely prepared for because the week has been so busy but I was looking forward to seeing just how many people would stop in their tracks to stare at my giant lily-colored husband and how many great photos and videos we could take of Emmy in the most foreign place we could take a 2 year old other than maybe Siberia or Africa. 

But now I'm so sad for the thousands of people whose lives have been indelibly marked by this enormous disaster. It is a reminder of just how precious and sacred every moment truly is, and how to treasure your time with those you love because in an 8.9 magnitude instant, it can all change. 

You Are So Dumb. For Real.

In case it's not apparent by now, I'm still not over Antoine Dodson (yes, I "Like" him), his iTunes song, and the cottage industry of T-shirts and merchandise that came from his local TV news interview.

Remember when I told you I was driving The Good Doctor bonkers because

a) I decided to adopt the word douche two years after everyone else stopped using it and

b) I used douche and doucher FOR EVERYTHING, as in "You need to douche." And "douche" could be a person, place, or thing, verb or noun and it was his job to figure out what I meant based on my tone and/or body language. Or I'd replace common verbs with douche, e.g., "Let's douche the dogs," when it was time for their evening walk.

I've outgrown that. Please, hold your applause.

Douche has been replaced with, "You are so dumb. For real." And, to a lesser degree, "Run and tell that, run and tell that, home, home, homeboy." All I need is an autotune mic to complete my life.

This time around, though, The Good Doctor is also addicted to my catch phrase. So we can BOTH be so dumb, for real. When your weirdness morphs into your spouse's weirdness: matrimonial bliss, yo!!!

But I fear that, despite the 16 million views of his autotuned song, there are still some people who I may encounter, oh, at work maybe, who won't understand when I sing to them, "You are so dumb. For real." And they might take offense. So I'm trying, as my friend Yetta would say, real, real hard to hold it inside. Especially when it would be really really inappropriate to sing, "You are so dumb. For real." Unfortunately that results in an explosion of singing when I am at home.

What will be truly unforgivable though, is if Emmy's first sentence is "You are so dumb, for real."