One hell of a weekend.

Back in October, I met up with a friend about 10 minutes from my childhood home for a walk. I snapped the above picture because of how picturesque and peaceful the landscape is. 

Friday morning, a gun-wielding lunatic took the lives of 20 children and 7 adults about a mile from where this picture was taken. The last three days I've been glued to the news, the television acting as sort of a filter - behind Anderson Cooper, Barack Obama, sobbing families, and the FBI in full tactical gear, is the same familiar landscape. 

Across the street from my favorite ice cream joint, CNN is broadcasting hundreds of people gathering for a vigil. A very well known flagpole, curiously placed in the dead center of a busy intersection, is now "the" iconic flag at half mast. At the movie theater a couple buildings down from that flagpole my friend Gary and I would go see $2 movies in the early 1990's, hoping to catch a glimpse of Jenna Von Oy, a local native who became famous from her role on Blossom and who would come back to visit every once in awhile. And Treadwell Park, an excellent venue for snow tubing (even as immature adults like me), is now designated as the gathering place for the satellite trucks of every major news network in the United States.

I moved out of there 9 years ago this month and now I live in New Hampshire, some 3 and a half hours away. The filter of my television and computer monitor kept the whole situation surreal until the pictures of the victims started to come in. I do not personally know any of the victims but my friends and family do - and, naturally, they are devastated by the town's massive loss. 

So while the reality of what's happening so close to my home is starting to sink in, my mind is trying to push that to the side to deal with a second major reality. Tonight, at 7 PM, my wife is checking into the hospital to deliver my daughter Violet. My family and friends are driving up from Newtown, Bethel, and Danbury CT to meet her and maybe escape the tragedy and media circus for a day or two. 24 hours from now I'll be fully entrenched into the parenting routine, taking a few days of daddy duty before I drive home for Christmas and see a familiar landscape, drastically changed.