I've Been to Paradise, But I've Never Been to Albuquerque

Well, yesterday was an amazing day in so many ways. The weather was something out of a Peter JAckson dream sequence. We had the biggest bluest sky from Oklahoma City all the way to Albuquerque. If you painted it, no one would have believed it was real. It was so amazing to look out the window and watch the landscape change from Oklahoma to Texas to New Mexico. I would remind the boys to look up from their portable dvd player and look at it. Johnhenry would humor me and say "cool, a mesa." It was all lost on Atticus. He is only 3. I realized i am not taking enough still pictures. i have the video camera with me and am taking tons of video, which isn't the safest since i am driving and johnhenry is supposed to be my DP and now refuses so i have been taping while driving. so today i will take more stills.

before i get too far off track, the Oklahoma City Memorial. We started our day there yesterday morning. i have to say, i am so glad i went and took my children to it, but i had such a conflicted, emotional reaction. we just went to the memorial outside. we did not venture inside the museum because of Atticus's behavior and time. you pull up on the street and park at a meter out side the plaza just like the building is still there. and then you walk around the side and you see the chain link fence filled with flowers and teddy bears and pictures and runner's bibs and notes etc...... and then the big iron gates with the message and the doorway and i have to say, i got all choked up. At the top of the post is a picture of the entrance. I find it interesting? ironic? that it says "May all who leave here know the impact of violence." don't get me wrong. i think it is a great thing to say and i do hope all who see it are affected and moved and see first what a useless, senseless, mess violence is. but was this monument put together by the federal government? the city of Oklahoma City? the families of those who were so needlessly killed? i don't know what i am exactly trying to say here. this is where i have so much going on in my head and i can't staighten it all out. all i know is, i was standing in front of this field of chairs, on a near perfect, blue sky day, wind blowing, with my 2 youngest sons, and johnhenry asks :what are the little chairs for?" and it tell him those represent the children who died and then i tell him what happened that day and i am genuinely moved and so is he because we are there. But then i start thinking about the bombs that have gone off in iraq and how many little chairs they would have to put up that country for people to stand in front of and remember and it all just didn't seem fair to me. does this make sense. why isn't someone submitting plans for a memorial to remember all the innocents killed in Bagdhad? And we want be to remember the horror of violence so we create this beautiful landmark to honor these innocents and then look we have done as a country since. i guess in short, i just had a problem rectifying the two and an even harder time explaining it to my son. We haven't started to discuss what happened to the ex-American soldier responsible for the bombing yet. i don't even know where to begin. that is part of my whole blame vs. responsibility and excuse vs. reasons thinking i am doing right now. i think America could do some of that. Don't we exist as a nation because we created extreme acts of violence to prove a point and stand for what we believed in? don't we train men and women to do very violent things in the name of freedom? sorry, i will step down now.