Is this a word?  Or is it a description that best describes how I feel these days?  I am upset that it has been nearly a fortnight since I enjoyed a long walk … and ten days since I wrote on this blog.  Both are therapeutic exercises for me.  I was enjoying the walking and the writing immensely and now feel no joy by my lack of participation in either activity.  My blog, at times, was leaning toward recollections and reflections, but that is okay – perhaps I should rename it?  Once sunrise was earlier again, I had hoped to increase my walking time and to annotate each walk with a thought – that was my hope anyway.  Last week the only nice weather days were used running errands and factoring in a small walk.  Same this week.  Walking clears my head and in an angst-filled week of terrorism and horrific explosions and poisonous letters, not just poisonous words but poisonous powder, being sent to our President, leaves me feeling very unsettled.  What a week indeed! Monday morning, across the United States, as we all awoke, our collective thoughts centered on if anything horrific happened overnight or in the pre-dawn hours via North Korea after many threats to launch missiles on April 15th. Whew!!! Everything was okay and as the day progressed and the U.S. was unscathed we all felt at ease and could relax. Then the horror of the bombings at the finish line of the Boston Marathon at 2:42 p.m. On Monday night after the bombings, President Obama reiterated that all Americans shall stick together and be as one – we are here for you Boston, he said; I felt somewhat hollow – I am not American.  I’ve lived here 47 years and as a Canadian I am as close to an American as imaginable, but times like these I can feel like an outsider.  I do feel like one of you though – I feel and grieve for those poor people who died, or lost loved ones, or lost limbs, and lost their very spirit and I have prayed for those who will endure a long climb back and know full well that their lives, their very psyche, will never be the same.  Such a tragic loss.  And the fertilizer factory explosion in Texas Wednesday night– another large loss of life, homes, businesses –  people missing and not yet accounted for.  Hopefully, this was not terrorism.  I woke up early this morning and while curled up in my bed with my radio headphones on, listened for several hours to news accounts of the killing of the first Boston Marathon terrorist but not before a young policeman lost his life.   Boston is on lockdown while authorities try to apprehend the other terrorist and question him, and try him if he is captured alive.   Once social media helped circulate the two bombers’ pictures, it was over for them.  Social media was good for something besides Facebook and Twitter utterings but yielded thousands of tips to the authorities after the pictures were posted.  All these events swirling around in the news this last week – the death of former Prime Minister Thatcher, the NRA and gun control legislation faltering and dying as I watched the news videos on my computer of tear-stained faces of the grief-stricken parents and siblings of the Sandy Hook Massacre.  I watched Gabby Gifford’s face mirror that of President Obama’s – clearly angry and asking why?  All these people touched by tragedy and whose lives will never be the same.  I need to clear my head but cannot go out today, but maybe writing it down here will help to erase some of the images that have collected in my mind and refuse to leave. The wind is raging outside and once again it is raining – could it be that God is weeping for what has become of mankind?