WATCHING THE WORLD GO BY.

June 22 , 2007

I wrote this one after a long shift —a pause between the chaos, when the city hadn’t yet decided who would bleed next. I was sitting near a playground, just watching people live their lives. Kids laughing, parents distracted, joggers moving with purpose. And there I sat—exhausted, detached, and strangely invisible. It struck me how much of this job is spent on the outside looking in. Not quite part of the world anymore, but tethered to it by a pager and a duty to show up when everything goes sideways. That feeling—of being both present and disconnected—hung heavy on me that day. Writing this was my way of capturing that distance, and maybe trying to close it, if only for a few paragraphs.