Another Unforgettable "Where Were You When You Heard" Moment

             
​         Yesterday at 2:19 Pacific Time - I've been in Los Angeles for the past week  - I was sitting alone at the kitchen table of my California hosts, eating a sandwich and reading my book, "O Jerusalem," 

​...when onto my phone screen popped the news:
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             I immediately clicked on the link:   
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...and was hit with a shock. I lost my grip on my sandwich and it fell apart onto my plate. "Oh my God, he's guilty!" I said out loud to no one. I sprung up from the table wanting to tell someone, to have another person to share this moment with, but there was no one in the house except me. 
        I called my husband Tom who was at home in Columbus. Yes, he just heard. Yes, he was shocked. No, he didn't know what was going to happen next. I began texting with family members and friends, our texts joining all the the other texts pinging back and forth across the country, across the world, the chain reaction of our reactions to this moment in history that we were all living. 
        I felt like this moment needed more to be happening around me: It needed noise, pyrotechnics, bottle rockets, people out in the streets shouting in jubilation or protest. But in the empty house where I was there was no noise except for the continued pinging of my phone, and nothing out of the ordinary was happening in the streets, sidewalks, and yards of this tranquil neighborhood where I found myself.

         And I wondered,  how could such a momentous moment be so quiet?