I should start off by saying that this post is not what you think it is going to be about.

And, that this post is exactly what you think it is going to be about.

Since the news of yesterday’s horrific shooting in Orlando broke (and I am choosing my words carefully; it was many things, and of that I am keenly aware, but for the purposes of this post I am referring to it as the “shooting in Orlando”) I have felt a heaviness in my heart that has been impossible to shake.

Since that time, I have watched mothers sobbing on the television screen, waiting for news on their missing children.

I have read some of the most beautiful and powerful and raw Facebook status updates from friends with whom I am connected on social media and been brought to tears.

I have a whole new insight into so many people and things.

And, like so many people in this country–in this world–I have held my children more tightly than ever.

I am almost reluctant to have shared that last line, but that expression exists for a reason, I believe.

This morning, my kids made a game and a song out of marker caps, but really, my little son made a rainbow, and I posted it on my Instagram page. A reminder of fragility and beauty and innocence.

And those rainbows.

Nearly six years ago, when this blog and my daughter were both babies, I wrote about another one of our nation’s greatest tragedies and I expressed my hope for a better future. I talked about “the songs of tomorrow” and I had no idea what our tomorrow would look like.

I still don’t.

 But, today, my day was filled with songs. Because that’s how it had to be.

***

As a musical theatre lover and general love lover, I was particularly moved by Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Tony Awards acceptance speech.

and so today I tried to fill the emptiness

–that which was left by the empty shell casings, the empty beds, the empty hearts–

with music and with love.

In fact, today I wore one of my “pride” shirts. It says “Love is Love” and it has a rainbow and it is soft and it is grey and it felt right against my skin.

And in that “Love is Love” shirt I made sure to live today like I haven’t lived others recently.

I could not decide what I wanted for lunch, and so I got two separate lunches, from two separate places. And I ate both.

I stared, for a long time, at the changing mid-day sky.

I got some awe.

I took my kids on a walk and let them eat incredibly messy lollipops before dinner.

And then, at the end of today, we danced.

My son asked to hear “He-hab”, or, as it is otherwise referred, “Rehab”, by Amy Winehouse.

And we danced the hell out of that song. We shimmied. We shook our hips. We waved our arms in the air. My daughter threw her hair back and her moves were reminiscent of those from Flashdance. 

It was, perhaps, the cutest thing ever, and I felt joy.

And then, for a moment, I let myself feel pain. Because early on Sunday morning, there were other people who were dancing with abandon,

shimmying, shaking their hips, waving their arms in the air and throwing back their hair.

And then, in an instant, they were dancing no longer.

And when that thought crept in there was nothing to do but to dance harder, and longer, and to tell each of my kids how much I loved them. And then they said it to each other. And that is the best antidote for hate.

Love.

Because Love is Love.

***

After our dance party (and teeth brushing, hand-washing, pajama choosing and changing) the three of us snuggled up in my daughter’s darkened bedroom, under the covers of her bed. Coincidentally,

or perhaps serendipitously, she requested to hear “You’ll Be Back” from last night’s biggest Tony winner, Hamilton.

“I shaking my head!” said my son, as he got into the groove.

And when it was time to put him down for sleep he looked up at me with his giant, crazy-crystal-blue eyes, and he asked, “Will you sing ‘Mommy loves the baby’ a me?”

“Will you sing it with me?” I asked in return.

And so together, not breaking eye contact, my face so close to his that I could feel his breath, we sang together.

Mommy loves the baby, 

Daddy loves the baby, 

Everybody loves the little boy.

It is the song that my Pop Pop made up when I was born and it was the first thing I ever sang to my son when he was born, as I was being stitched up on the operating table after my c-section.

Tonight, though, somehow, it meant more than ever.

Tonight, it was our rainbow.

***

I said that this post was not going to be what you thought that it was going to be about, and perhaps it was and perhaps it wasn’t. Because yesterday’s shooting in Orlando means something so different to every single person who experienced it, either personally, tangentially or through a TV screen, thousands of miles away.

And though I thought I had an adequate, or at least appropriate, way to end this post, I am now at a loss for words. I am choked up and I am sad and I am trying to dance through it in my mind, but nothing that I can say will ever do it justice.

I can hear my daughter from her bedroom, reading to herself, confidently and peacefully.

Please let our world be a better place for my children.

Please let them keep dancing.

Please let them keep loving.

And again, as it was said,

love is love is love is love.