A bee and its stinger

So life seems very normal right now, but I'm still having a hard time shaking that feeling I got last Thursday when London was attacked. The feeling is made even worse by the fact that this attack wasn't "close to home" as it were. I wonder if this is how the rest of the world felt when the World Trade Center was attacked. It's awful, it's the most horrible thing to happen, the world is very scary - and yet life is normal.

We haven't heard from our friends who are stationed in London yet, but we have heard from our civilian friends and family, and I'm grateful to say they're fine. But angry. Everyone is so angry. After September 11 I spent a few days looking up the renewing lists of casualties finding names of people I knew and feeling that clenching, stabbing terror of "Oh jesus, I worked with that girl. I slept over at this girls apartment. She slept over at mine. This guy and I went to school together."

I spent days doing that, being just plain scared that it was never going to stop. And I was sad, and upset, and I was angry. Frighteningly angry. I was angry my family was upset, I was angry people were hurt, people were killed, I was angry that because of all this more people were being sent away from their families. And I was viciously angry at the people who did this, even though I knew the hijackers themselves had already died, and I was certain they were sent to hell, I was bloodthirsty angry at them and of course as their leaders. It frightened me because before this I had no real notion of that kind of vengeance. I'd seen a lot of evil up close, felt the same pain and anger when my friends were murdered before. And of course I knew in the abstract sense of the atrocities that have been committed all over the world...but I'd never wanted anything more than for them to rot. In jail, in history, be forgotten. This time however, I wanted the people responsible to suffer, really really suffer. I wanted them to feel the same rage and fear and sadness that I felt and everyone else around me felt, and I wanted them to be helpless about and have to feel it over and over and over again.

I don't think I was different from anyone else. It was just new to me because it's the first time I really felt something like that so powerfully. I didn't stop to wonder then where it came from. I wonder now, when it's happened all over again and there is a shadow of the same feelings over me - when people I know and love are shouting the same things I felt back then - I wonder where it comes from.

I don't know, but I think it's something inherent. I think we learn it young and I think we hold it on to it for comfort. It's easier to be angry than sad.

And I think this because of a bee.

Yesterday at the autocross I got stung by a bee. It got stuck in my hair (which is actually something that happens a lot with bees when it's windy...lucky me) and as I checked to make sure it had been shooed away it got my finger good. I went through the "bee sting dance" of flicking the damn bug, shaking my hand, blinking away tears (I am after all still a girl) and then biting my finger really really hard - and as I went through the motions of relieving the small pain the first thing that popped into my head was: "When a bee stings you, it dies right after." the second thing that popped up: "Serves him right."

I learned the bee thing from my Dad, who was certain that when his three year old daughter came running to him crying over another sting the knowledge that the bee was breathing his last would be enough to comfort her. I don't know if the fact that the bee was dead comforted me, or the fact my Dad took the time to tell me. Regardless that moment did bring me solace and ever since that's what I look for when I've been bugged by some stinging bug. Solace. I got hurt, and the thing that hurt me died. Solace and Vengeance at the same time.

I know a lot of people have that same story with their first bee sting. I've even seen it in a few movies and television shows. I think it's a common experience, at least in my world, and I wonder if that's where everyone gets that idea of vengeance. That vengeance will give us comfort. Do we link suffering with closure because we're taught too? Does the fact that revenge feels so right when we're children mean it's already a seed planted in us? And is that thing something that keeps us alive and perpetuating the species, or is it the thing that will topple our empires?

Of course I think it's more than right that the people who were touched and hurt by any of the attacks feel that anger, and they do deserve their revenge. I personally would do anything in my power to help them find it - even if it gave no solace. But I worry sometimes what will happen when those that do deserve to pay have, and our loved ones and heroes are still gone. I'm afraid that it just might not be enough to really help. And I want it to help