Long time, no hear

It's been almost three weeks since I last posted. I hadn't realized so much time had gone by with work and family issues piling up.

We have heard from David, in his blog entries and two calls two Saturdays ago. I was having lunch with a friend (Mia) in a noisy Thai restaurant when he called, and I rushed out just as the spring rolls were served, hoping it would be quieter on Amsterdam Boulevard, but it was still difficult to hear what he had to say as buses rolled by and New Yorkers, ever eager to lean on their horns, drove by on the busy street.

He had a cold, one that was a being passed around the company, and he was a bit grouchy then. The one thing I could hear for sure was that his unit was moving out to a different part of Baquoba.

The second call caught me in the dressing room of Filene's Basement, and was quite brief. He'd been told they were moving out a day earlier, he said.

He has since filed two amazing dispatches (as the journalist in me describes them) each quite different.

The first, an expansive love letter to life and perhaps to an individual, caught me by surprise on a tense deadline day. After I read it, I rushed downstairs to the small foyer where I work and where only the smokers pass through on there way outside. I sat on the stairs and cried because it was so beautiful and because it seemed like a good-bye letter in case he got shot.

I doubt he meant it that way; I don't know, was it?

Then I read it again, and it seemed like a letter written to someone specific, saying all words and thoughts he had in his head about that person but never could say aloud.

Or maybe, it was just a revelatory movie experience after all. Whatever it was, it was gorgeous.

The second part is the other part of the David -- the analytical mind with the cynic thrown in. He showed what he believes about this war -- and I'll talk another day what I think about the war -- and why, at least the way I interpret his statements, his men will play it safe.

What a stupid quagmire our leaders have placed these troops in!