Haiti

I have never been particularly good at living the gorgeous day—the forgiveness of a blue sky, the bulb of a warmer sun —when not all that far away, across an ocean, on an island, a world has disappeared, entire. Houses slid down mountainsides, families trapped in rubble, a presidential palace clobbered and chunked, tens of thousands dead, and millions homeless.

How do you live, how do you worry the everyday worries, how do you oblige the routines, when the news comes in of sudden amputees and missing children and mothers and fathers vanished? How do you?

They say that money is nothing right now. That water is what is needed. Water and also rights of way amid destruction to rescue those who are still holding on, and also more time to rescue.

"I want to do something," I said to my son. "Something."

He stood. He reached for his wallet. "I want to do something, too," he said.