Part of the allure of traveling is stepping out of the norm. We get up, have breakfast, look around what every small city we are in, and hit the road. We get to the new small city, check in, go out to dinner, and go to bed. In between and we look at our photographs, Michele catches up with work emails, and, I blog. We only watched TV as we are checking into our hotel or are walking through the lobby on our way out. We are strangers wandering through strange lands, outside the collective, only vaguely aware of the National Trauma that our country is going through and feeling like the outsiders we are.

The country is going through a long series of Collective Experiences that we are not a part of and not being a part of the collective shock and grief seems shallow. I have an almost overwhelming desire to apologize, but I wouldn’t know what I was apologizing for. I think acknowledging our detachment is not enough but it is really all we have.