Weep No More, Sad Fountains

I haven't written a post in a while and its not that I am not inspired. I am. I have had a lot of life changes over the past few months that including moving, health issues (mine and of loved ones), job changes and the usual drama of having two school age kids that are starting at a new school. So many subjects, so little time. During the holidays I would hate to write about something sad but something profoundly sad has indeed happened recently and I feel that I have to write about it above all other things. It haunts me.
Tuesday morning there was quiet crying at my kids' school from staff, parents and other people that were in and out of the office. On my way out of school I saw a priest and asked him what happened. He told me a mother of a middle schooler had passed away. I was immediately struck with sorrow over this woman's passing. Maybe it was because I have a 5th grader and I cannot imagine what something like that would do to her. I tried all day to find out what happened and even trolled Facebook and the internet with her name. At first I didn't have the right spelling but once I did, I asked a mutual friend what he had heard. He said nothing but yesterday he sent me a message with the most devastating of news.
Because this is still fresh news and not publicized, I will refer to her just as Alice. I googled Alice and found she had been a top real estate broker. Immediately images of her popped up. Her bobbed blond hair and blue eyes stared back at me. Her glistening smile and movie star quality just leapt from the screen. Then I had to think if I even met her. We are new at the school and I wasn't sure. Maybe I saw her around. The pictures show this unforgettable quality. I looked her up on Facebook and it showed her with older children and a little girl about my daughter's age. Pictures of her daughter winning a scholastic competition, trips to Disney and her real estate listings. The web had news of her success in the local real estate journal and business journal. Wow, this woman was really something and what a great life! Alice had everything to live for, at least to me but not to her.
Alice committed suicide. Our mutual Facebook friend sent me the message yesterday morning. I had just come out of store and saw it come up on my phone. He described what he knew and it was gut wrenching. I felt like Thor had just thrust his mighty hammer into my chest and I wept. I don't know why I was and still am so shaken by this. But maybe I do. I just couldn't stop crying. I drove to my mom's house and sent her an email with the message I received. I couldn't talk about it. She tried to talk to me about but I said, "I just can't." Its too much.
I have been looking everyday for news or an obituary. Something. But there's nothing. Still remains is her smiling, confident face looking back at me. I looked up the bridge she jumped from and there is forum about jumpers. Morbid as it is, I looked. On Monday morning there are descriptions of what people saw. The car, the woman with blond hair, her husband arriving on scene in disbelief. And her name. These jumps don't make the news because it is such a common bridge to jump from. It makes it all the more terrible, awful and devastating.
"Why Alice? Why did you do it? You had 3 children from middle school to college." I wish I could ask her. I wish I could ask anyone I ever knew that decided to check out on their own. I am mad at them. Mad that they left me. Mad that they didn't tell me. And, no, there were no signs from anyone I knew that ever did it. I didn't know Alice but I sat in the car thinking...
I think of this middle school girl whose mother committed suicide a month from Christmas. My daughter is in 5th grade. Terrible, awful, devastating. Now, I wish I knew Alice better. I wish I could help the family. I wish I was there for her. The guilt from a suicide never leaves those left behind. Family, friends, co-workers, acquaintances. I think it's because we really don't know. And we will never know what happened to Alice. Beautiful, blond, blue eyes, lovely family...I like to imagine that when someone commits suicide that it's because they have a mental condition and are off their meds. Sure, that HAS to be it. I think, Alice must have had a mental condition like bi-polar or depression that was well controlled and that is why she was so successful. Something happened and a switch flipped and she couldn't help herself. Maybe she got news of a terminal illness...
Why else would someone do it?
I don't know because just Alice knows. I can't know. I am just sad and want to hug my children all night...
Be at peace Alice. Sleep in heavenly peace...

Which One Am I?

“There are only three ages for women in Hollywood - Babe, District Attorney, and Driving Miss Daisy.” Goldie Hawn, First Wives Club

I love that quote and 20 years ago when I first heard it, at age 29, I thought it was pretty funny. Now, I find it disconcerting. At 49, I find I’m teetering on the edge of DA and Miss Daisy. In my, case it’s probably more like Side-kick, Crazy Aunt and Demented Mom/Grandmom. This makes things difficult as a writer when I want every heroine to be played by me – when the movie is made. I always imagined Demi Moore would play me in the movie of my life or Courtney Cox, depending on the budget. Yikes. They aren’t looking too good either.

It’s been said that age is just a state of mind. Well, my state is ever expanding. Today, at the local department store, I grabbed some capris to try on. I held them up and thought, “Wow, these will definitely fit, they’re huge enough.” Sob. I put them on and them quickly returned them and decided not to try on anymore. Crap. When did this happen? Then I think back to where I am in the grand scheme of “Hollywood.” Crap. I used to write my heroines to be in their late 30s, thinking I could pull that off. Most people think I am younger than 49 but in the past several years…I feel the mirror has two faces. There is my own self-image and what there really is. Getting fatter aside…I am looking older. I know I am. I have been Skyping with my kids and I can see myself on the screen and I think, “Do I really look like that?” The creeping lines under my jaw line and the neck of ages. Maybe make up can fix it. After all, Essie Davis on Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries is the same age I am and she’s playing someone in her early 30s. I’m thinking make-up can do the same for me.

As a writer this makes me re-think things. Perhaps, because I was making the heroine as myself, I’ve been limiting her. I don’t mean exactly like me, personality wise, but like me in look and stature. This is a hard pill to swallow. I can, of course, swallow it and embrace the edge of 50 but in my mind it is still a precipice to which I am backing away from at great haste. I guess I’m just not ready for what is coming with age - the body changes, the skin changes, the gray hairs that I make the stylist cut out (this is why my hair is so short) and so on. I don’t think I’m ready to be Martha Kent or Aunt May. I’m thinking more like a villain. That could be next in my writing. Hmmmm…villain. I can see that and how I would look in the movie.

 I would love to be one of the Avengers, Tributes or Jedi but maybe I should be happy to be Cruella DeVille.   

Ghosts of Hometowns Past

 I am half inclined to think we are all ghosts…it is not only what we have inherited from our fathers and mothers that exists again in us, but all sorts of old dead ideas and all kinds of old dead beliefs and things of that kind. They are not actually alive in us; but there they are dormant all the same, and we can never be rid of them. Whenever I take up a newspaper and read it, I fancy I see ghosts creeping between the lines. There must be ghosts all over the world. They must be as countless as the grains of the sands, it seems to me. And we are so miserably afraid of the light, all of us. - Henrik Ibsen
I have this weird thing. I don't have any desire to visit anyplace or home I ever lived in. Once I leave a place, I totally leave it body and soul without any intent on returning. I know that does sound weird that I don't feel any sentimentality about my old stomping grounds but I don't.
My husband is happy to visit the streets he grew up on in Jersey City. We drive down into the city and the entire way he talks to our kids about what he remembers seeing on the drive into the city when he was a kid. He shows them the park where he road his bike, buildings that housed schools he attended and the empty lot that held the house he had lived in as a child. My kids can recite these locations as well. He will also point out a street where he knew almost everyone that lived there and wonders if the families are still around. His sentimentality is admirable. He parents are gone and he is estranged from his siblings and I assume these trips down memory lane help him remember them and their lives together. My Father was the same way. On one of his many visits to Philadelphia, he took pictures of himself in front of the all homes he lived in as a child including the house he was born in (yes, he was born at home). My Father wasn't very sentimental but this was something he enjoyed doing, perhaps for the same reason my husband does. I find no desire for such solace however a recent trip to the past made me realize why I don't visit my past hometowns. Its too painful.
I recently went to St. Petersburg, Florida to visit my Mother. It was the first time I have been back in about 10 years or so and I was surprised by the ghosts. I found every corner I turned there were ghosts. As I pulled up to my Mom's house I saw the neighbor had her porch, lit up with twinkly lights, and in my minds eye I saw myself and my husband with her and her husband. Her husband died last year but I could see us there plain as day - laughing and drinking. Spooky. My Mother's house used to be owned by my husband and its where we spent time when first dating and were engaged. Walking through the door I had that feeling I had never left. It was the same feeling I felt as I rode in from the airport and I found it uneasy. I can't explain why I felt this way. I have wonderful memories of St. Petersburg. Its where I met my husband, had my children, our first home and many friends. But the memories seem to be a cloud in which I have to clear through. This cloud of the past had me so distracted that I hit a curb in my Mom's car and got a flat tire. Luckily, the place we always got our tires from was still in business. Much had changed in the area but there was so much that stayed the same that it was like I time traveled.
I still saw the ghosts. They were at Biff Burger (which held our weekly Bike Night), the ride down 30th Avenue, driving past the Sunset Grill or Siam Garden (where I had my baby shower for my son). It seemed so real. As I zipped over the Howard Franklin (Frankenstein) Bridge with the windows open and the bright sun blaring through the window, I was reminded of when I first moved to Tampa and was single. I decided to drive my Mom around Tampa one day. Past my old apartment, old job, the Air Force base, Davis Island, Downtown and lunch at Kojak's BBQ. There were ghosts. It still strikes me as I think about it. How clearly I saw things as they were. I could see myself with my friend, Mike, walking out of our old job and chatting. I saw myself getting mail at the mail boxes at my old apartments (now condos) and I could see through to the glimmering courtyard pool. I used to sit by it, sunning myself, and wait for my laundry to get done. And I am sad.
This is where we come to real reason I don't go home again. I really can't. I would call it self preservation more than anything else. I am terribly sentimental and it makes me sad to see the places I used to live and the life I used to have. Not that my current life is not great but I long for some places of the past and the ghosts.
I wonder what it must be like to live in the same town for one's entire life or generations of the same family in the same town, street, house...how does that feel? I always thought I wouldn't like that but as I get older the thought of putting roots seems to make sense but then again my children aren't being raised that way. They have moved 6 times in 11 years and that makes for itchy feet for moving on. Still, I wonder what that must be like. What it must be like to have family close by with holidays and Sunday dinners. I know they exist and I wonder if I would even like it. And would there still be ghosts?
I drove through St. Pete and Tampa and talked to my husband on the phone and told him what I was driving by and  fun times we had. Funny how sharing these memories with him made the visit more bearable. By the time I left, I longed to return.
I realize I have to make peace with the ghosts and the memories of these past hometowns but that doesn't mean I will visit them again in person but certainly in memories.

Dear Jack

“I walked out this morning and I wrote down this song
I just can't remember who to send it to…” – James Taylor

Dear Jack,

I know it seems strange I am writing you a letter but there is just too much to say staring at your ashes. It struck me the other day, like an anvil across the temple, that I will be 49 in February and for the first time you will not be older than me. I never really thought much about it as the 2 ½ years have moved through the cosmos since your death but now as I get older…you do not.

I still see things that make me want to call you. An obscure science fiction reference, a bar or just a childhood memory brings you into full view and you are not there. In some ways I am still mad at you for leaving me. I always knew Dad wouldn’t be here forever but I thought you and I would see it through until our natural ends. A couple old farts laughing at our own in jokes. Using our own “twin speak” to communicate, as we always had. With you and Dad gone…who else knew me as well? The three of us and banging around South Jersey or up to Philly to see family…we had our own way. Remember when Dad’s Volkswagen square back was our shuttle craft? Of course you do! And you always sat in the front seat or as my kids call it, “shotgun.” I think about us playing Star Trek or Planet of the Apes on the beach. Especially in the winter with the stark barren landscape it made for wonderful alien planets. I got out our Christmas stuff yesterday and found your stocking. The one Mom made you. She made us both stockings but I can’t find mine. Yours floated to the surface and smacked me in the face. Your memory is inescapable. Isn’t that what we all want? I know Dad’s biggest fear was that no one would remember him. What was yours?

I thought you might get married and have kids. Don’t laugh! It was possible. Anything would have been possible for you if you wanted to do it. Of this I am sure. I am also mad because you didn’t have kids. I feel cheated out of a niece or nephew that would have had your eyes or smile or humor. I have wonderful surrogate ones that I love like my own but you still cheated me out of your kids. Now I sound angry and if you were reading this you would start to get pissed. Sorry. But it’s how I feel. You thought I squandered my degree from Temple by working as a waitress or mall rat or any number of jobs. I think you squandered the life you had left. And I’m mad about it. Get over it.

I play the ukulele now. I started on that Martin that was abandoned in the garage in Margate. Yeah, yeah, I’m sure it was yours once. I know you would get a kick out of it. Me playing and posting videos on YouTube. I wonder what nick-name you would give me. I could think of one but I know you would be much cleverer about it. I think about how we could be playing and singing together and, I’m sure, laughing about it. I have been working on “Wish You Were Here.” That was our song that we would sing together every time you brought out your guitar. It takes on new meaning to me now. Oh, how I wish you were here. I make these crazy memes and post them on Facebook. I think about how some of them no one gets but me and maybe you. It’s hard to lose someone like that. Someone that gets you.

I met Elena. She was pretty cool. She wasn’t what I imagined, not your usual type but I liked her. I think about how you could have brought her around to a family function or I could have met you both for a drink and that we would have gotten along great. I think the family would have loved her. I think we could have been friends. She had a kind open face and I wept when she handed me your ashes. I asked if she had a minute and she just sat there as I sobbed over missing you so much. I told her a few stories of our family and how even though you didn’t want me to have the ashes…I would have talked you into it or you would have yielded.

You would love little bill’s YouTube adventures. He is so funny! He makes up songs, scenes and wanted a laptop to video edit. I wish you were here to ask about it. Trinity wanted a laptop to play games. I wish you were here to ask about it.

I miss you and I always will and no matter what happened towards the end that made you hate me…I wish you didn’t. I wish you would not have had me banned from the hospital. I would have come if I was in better health and just busted in there. I would have forgiven you and you would not have to forgive me for anything. The forgiving is mine to do. I don’t forgive you for leaving me and how you exited…too young. I looked at a picture from Grandma and Grandpa’s 50^th anniversary at camp. You, me, Roger, Mom, Grandma and Grandpa. Me and Mom are the only ones left. Sobering, I know. Same with my wedding pictures. Me and Bill with his Dad and his three Aunts, Mom, Dad and Roger. Me, Bill and Mom remain. Such is the life of getting older I suppose. But I feel awfully young to have so much loss.

I know you hate when people feel sorry for themselves and I don’t really. At least I don’t try to dwell on it…it’s just the way it is sometimes. The kids want to have some kind of service for you in Vernon Center. They feel you need to be with Grandpa, Grandma and Roger and I agree. We need closure. I hardly heard from anyone when you died except for the Kirk side of the family. Complete silence from other camps but I don’t care. Everyone thought I was mad at you and I was and I suppose I said some mean things about you too. For that, I am sorry. I was hurt and so were you by all that happened and in the end only you and I know exactly what went down when Dad moved to Virginia. Maybe now that I have your ashes and we can plan something…the healing can begin. For me, Mom, Elena, the kids, family, friends…and all those you left behind.

You don’t have to worry about no one remembering you. I always will. I will think of you when I go see Star Wars next month. I will think of you when I see James Bond next week. I will reminisce about us riding our bikes up to Margate Twin to see Planet of the Apes or the Pink Panther movies and wonder if we would still get the biggest size of popcorn they had…and share it.

Love your sis,

Sally

xoxo

Say Goodbye

I suppose saying that I don't like goodbyes is kind of odd. Is there anyone that does? Maybe to say I don't like them is not really it. I don't do goodbyes. When my daughter was 18 months old and someone would say, "Goodbye," she would respond, "No bye byes!" and run away. I imagine she thought that if she didn't say "goodbye" the person would stay. I wish that were true.
I am probably the worst at saying goodbye. I will go to a party at someone's house and sneak out before it is over. I won't even say goodbye to the host. Rude? Probably. Goodbyes take so long at things like parties and family events. It can turn into a half and hour of hugging and kissing. I just want to leave. I remember the last time I saw my Grandmother she said goodbye to me like she was going to see me the next day. I think she understood that there is no reason to make a big deal out of things like that. For me, maybe its just selfish. I want to sneak out and not a big fuss made and certainly don't want anyone to keep me from leaving.
I can't put my finger on why I am like this. The "no bye bye" attitude I have. I have been like this as long as I can remember. Perhaps it's because I discovered early on that people do leave and things don't remain the same. And some people and things don't come back. My Grandmother said something very profound once, "Nothing is permanent." Seems like a small statement but holds huge truth to me. She lived to be 98 years old and had buried her parents, a child, her husband and a grandchild. Of course there were many more that preceded her but she never dwelled on it. Not once.
Even though I don't like goodbyes I always seem to be the one who is leaving. I counted up that before age 40 I worked about 20 jobs, been to 7 schools and called 12 dwellings "home." Yes, there is no moss on this rolling stone but at the same time I think about people that lived on the same street their entire lives and admire it.
Yes, I am the one who leaves and that does make things easier, for me. The ones left behind are the always the ones that have an empty space of where I once sat, drive by a house I once lived and a voice that is no longer there. I am also the one less likely to show up at my own going away luncheon. I just want to leave. Selfish. I know. Just say goodbye to me like you do every time we part. Like you will see me later and I am okay with that.
Lately, I have been the one left behind. My Father, Brother and Grandmother all left me in the past 3 years. Childhood homes sold. Memories seemingly changed, altered, erased...I'm not sure how to describe it. With these people and places gone there are no new memories, just old ones. I am starting to embrace that nothing is permanent. I am selling things to make room for new interests. I am playing an instrument and thinking of working on a language. I am writing. I am looking at my children and wondering about how many goodbyes they will face. My son will hug me and cry that he never wants me to die. I know, I don't want to say goodbye either.
I deeply consider my own mortality. Its almost as if death is something we are just waiting for and fill it up with things to do until then. I guess that is basically as true as it can be. In the mean time I will fill it up with the laughter of my children, the caress of my husband, the hugs of family, the beauty in nature, the banter of my co-workers and the music that I am creating because goodbye can come at any time. For any of us. For all of us.

Regular Girls

On a recent summer vacation I found myself sitting on a dock watching boats coming and going. It seemed every other boat was a pontoon boat and it was filled a dozen teenagers. They would pile out of the boat, like clowns out of a Volkswagen at the circus, and I would catch sight of them, the regular girls. There they were of all shapes and sizes wearing bikinis, giggling, taking selfies and nudging each other. Tagging behind would be parents or several boys that may have been relatives or even boyfriends but it was hard to say. I watched them with a sigh and thought about how wonderful it must be to be one of them, one of the regular girls. They appeared so normal and girl like. They pulled their hair up into pony tails as they approached the little store that sold ice cream and continued the giggling. Who are these "regular girls" that I mention? If I was my 15 year old self sitting on the dock in my shorts and my "I'm with stupid" t-shirt, I would have scoffed at them. I would have thought they were just some mindless idiots who were pretty and popular or at the very least fit in. I thought that about my classmates in high school. The ones who talked about make up and who tried to get away with wearing nail polish or the wrong shoes with the their uniforms. They would get detention for such acts and I thought they were stupid but really they were asserting their individuality more than I was. I really wanted to fit in and be one of them. I suppose I owe them all an apology. They are all remarkable women.
Now, I watch and envy the regular girls. I envy their youth and lively beauty. That is not saying they are all classically beautiful or all should be wearing bikinis but they are young and hopeful. That is more than I can say I am or maybe more than I ever was. I think about what I would say to my 15 year old self if she were sitting next to me watching those regular girls. I would be looking at my sulking face and know that I was thinking of the unfairness of the world. I would have been thinking about how skinny and awkward I was and how I could never be one of them. I wish I could say to myself that it is going to get better and that those regular girls have the same fears and doubts that I do but I doubt I would listen, even to myself. As I watch the regular girls go by I want to shout to them that they have their whole lives in front of them and it can be spectacular. I watch my own daughter fishing off the dock and tell her she is beautiful. She responds, "I know, Mommy." But does she really believe it? I never thought I would want my children to fit in and be like everyone else but I do. I suppose that sounds awful but I want them to avoid the pain of not fitting in. I know they will be fine because they are a lot more well adjusted than I was as a child and maybe even more than I am now.
The regular girls giggle back to their pontoon boat and swing their hair over their shoulders and smile. I wave and they wave back.

Solving Crimes the Old Fashioned Way

I have stumbled upon a recent trend, or at least recent to me, of crime drama, detective drama, sleuthing television shows set in an era without DNA results, maspectrometers or anything else we now expect to solve crimes. I have wondered why this is trend and I believe I know.

When CSI (Vegas) premiered over 15 years ago, it set into motion the “CSI effect” with juries all over the country. Today’s savvy jury member holds the prosecution accountable for solving crimes with forensic science and all the other devices that appear in the subsequent crime solving shows like the CSI sequels, Bones and NCIS incarnations. The prosecution obviously has access to all this technology and therefore should have an iron clad case and that is not always so. Are we now over stimulated with all this? Is there nothing new that forensic science can bring us other than TV shows making up their own devices? That would be called science fiction. With those questions in mind and all that being said – where is there to go to make it interesting to watch? Only one place. The past.

I found myself watching these shows set in the past and didn’t even realize what the appeal was except it is the appeal that Sherlock and Elementary have – crime solving with actual deduction rather than technology.

Murdoch Mysteries (The Artful Detective) set in early 1900s (Toronto), Ripper Street set in 1889 (London), The Pinkertons set in 1860s (American West) and Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries set in 1929 (Melbourne) all have this appeal of the past. The advantage these shows also have is history. They can delve into actual cases and historical events to move a plot line along. There is some basic fingerprinting methods, autopsy results and microscope usage but that is not the answer to everything instead it is what is used to back up theories of the crime. How these lead characters solve crimes is often looked at with confusion and even dismissed by fellow law enforcement types and even lawyers because it is new and unusual thinking and fledgling forensic methods.

Murdoch Mysteries, in its 8^th season, also known as The Artful Detective in the U.S., follows Detective William Murdoch in Toronto and often delves into the history of the times. This history is very important especially when it touches on the temperance movement, women’s suffrage and the progress that arrives in the way of the automobile and even wiring homes for electricity. There are also visits from President Roosevelt, Mark Twain and even Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to move along a plot line. The writers have fun with Murdoch and his odd ways of solving crimes and interacting with others. There is an episode where Doyle decides Murdoch can solve crimes brilliantly but would not be an appealing character for his next book or the episode where Murdoch has gained such notoriety as a crime solver that he has his own fan club. The fun of the show is the crime solving and how Murdoch’s “Holmes” like mind bends things around.

Ripper Street, in its 3^rd season, is set the year after the unsolved Jack the Ripper murders, Detective Inspector Edmund Reid of the H Division of White Chapel and his department is still under scrutiny over the case never being solved.  This show has a lot more drama than the others with a multitude of characters and intertwined relationships. There is, of course, a murder or some other bad event that must be solved. Reid has a keen sense of people and can read them easily, skills which serve him well as he delves into the ultra-seedy neighborhood he works in. He is obviously educated and well brought up and tries to keep himself above the cruel experiences he endures. This is a dark serial series but one that has appeal for the same reasons as the others.

The Pinkertons follows members of the Pinkerton Detective Agency founded by Alan Pinkerton in 1850 and is set in the American West in the early 1860s. Alan Pinkerton’s son and a female detective run the operation out of a mining town. These Pinkerton detectives solve crimes like murder, robbery and corporate espionage. The female detective is the one with the cool head for solving crimes and does the basic forensic work that was available for the times. The show has only been on one season and in spite of what the Pinkerton name eventually meant (as they turned into and were famous for as strike breakers, union infiltrators and as security for mines and factories) the show has potential for more crime solving of the old west.  (There is a Pinkerton in Ripper Street that is an unsavory character with more than questionable morals for a law man).

I could surely write a much longer post if I were to delve fully into Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries, in its 3^rd season. Never has sleuthing been so much fun! This show follows the Honorable Phryne Fisher, “lady detective” and Detective Inspector Jack Robinson as they solve murders in all walks of society. Miss Fisher is also surrounded by a cast of characters, reminiscent of Holmes and his Baker Street Irregulars, who assist her in her crime solving. This is also a time when the “modern woman” of post war Europe was coming into her own with driving a car, having her own money and knowing her own mind. The men she is surrounded by must often bow down to her overbearing insistence of being correct about a person or a case. What other’s chalk up to “woman’s intuition,” we can chalk up to Miss Fisher’s intelligence as well as her skilled way of reading people. Her partnership with Robinson is also fun to watch. As others are shocked by Miss Fisher’s promiscuity, mindfulness and devil may care attitude, Robinson rolls his eyes and just continues talking. The phone will ring at the station house and he will be told its Miss Fisher on the line, his response, “Is someone dead yet?” She seems to have this uncanny way of showing up at a crime scene and taking it over. This show is a pure delight and just ran its third season in Australia.

Perhaps delving into crime solving of the past connects us more with the human element that we like to see in any good TV series. With people spending most of their time staring at screens of all sizes, we are losing the human connection with each other. I believe it is this human connection that will bring us justice or save us from injustice. Give me a sharp mind over a sharp piece of tech any day.