Things that are taken away

I couldn't sleep last night so I got up and prepared more books to bind. By today, three more. Well, one is a mini, waiting to be gifted.

Last night, I read Linda Sue Park's wonderful historical novel about a Korean family during the Japanese occupation, leading up to WWII, called When My Name Was Keoko. It was well researched (except that I'm unsure if comfort women actually got a satisfactory apology from the Japanese government), besides being well written, and it made me so sad about history that we'll never know, not only about this pocket in time and space, but so many others. I learned about the late Korean marathoner, Sohn Kee-chung, by reading the book, and then noticed that his story had been shared recently in the Guardian. My sister noted that I seem overly sensitive to this topic, but it's the same feeling that keeps me from being able to read Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, and makes me wonder if I can handle reading the late Iris Chang's The Rape of Nanking, sitting in my current pile of books. Humans keep doing unspeakable things to each other.

In that light, I shouldn't be too upset that the DMV ate up a few hours of my day. But I still wonder about how important, or not, our lives are to each other.