Perspective

OK, OK, so I said I was tired and here I am too many hours later. And get this:

I watch the last chapter of Ken Burns' Civil War tonight. For the umpteenth time. If it came on tomorrow, I'd watch it for the umpteenth time plus one. It's storytelling. I like it.

And as I listen to Lorena and Jacob's Ladder and so many other haunting melodies, I can't help but think how did they live through it. Not just the soldiers, but everyone, every American. How did they do it?

And just how did my grandparents live through two World Wars on either side of the 1930's?

We think we're stressed because a house won't sell or work's not right or a spouse is away or the kids' teacher won't return a call or the cable guy didn't show up.

How about there's no food in town because the siege is in its second month and the cannon balls keep dropping around the neighborhood so you go out back and shoot the mule and have him for dinner?

How about the spouse is on some European battlefield or Pacific island and there's no Internet or IM or cell phones or Fox News or CNN and maybe tomorrow will be the day the guy in the uniform knocks on the door and hands you a telegram?

How about there's no soccer game because the kids have to sell a few eggs or clean up the parlor-turned-guest room before the new lessee moves in?

It helped. It put things in perspective.

And then I opened one more email. And I got frustrated and stressed on this front and that front, typed and erased and typed and erased ranting emails which wisely I never sent, and stewed about ancient history, about stuff that doesn't matter, that's completely illogical.

So here I am typing.

And now ... calming down ... and thinking again ... about Shiloh ... The Wilderness ... Andersonville ... and thousands ... and thousands ... of worried ... loved ones ... in Boothbay Harbor ... Muscle Shoals ... Oelwein ... Opelousas ... Culpepper ... Clarksville ... Grand Rapids ... Grosse Tete.

I think I'll go to sleep now.