I just got off Skype.  I was talking to someone I love very much.  She is going through a difficult time in her life and I have been of very little help.  My heart knows.  My breathing knows. The clinch of my jaw knows. My mind races when I don’t talk to her for a few days, when she doesn’t answer the phone. It’s as if I’m walking alone at night and I’m in a strange city, empty streets, blank faces.  I’m lost in the city and the wind is cold, like the east coast or up north somewhere, and I feel worthless, alone. 

Earlier today I talked to Leland in Jordan.  He told me about sitting on a panel discussion in Cairo about child soldiers in the Central African Republic. He’d gotten 108 released from a training camp and as he addressed the people in the audience, he offhandedly…