The inspiration for this brain dump is that even after the months of meetings, negotiations, tensions, debates, research and sheer time that it took to get to Monday night, I must recognize that there is a very vivid 2014 version of myself who is not inside the Ferguson Commission work and who is all "blah blah blah, great.”

Today, as I watched/overheard/texted about the 180th round of "violence isn't the answer/it was a peaceful protest/get off my lawn" it hit me: the wedge is so wide, the damage so deep, that most words fail. We are so wounded, so on edge, so passion filled, so sad, that even a sentiment of the most empathetic intent can get hijacked by words. But more accurately by pain. It's really just that the words are no match for the pain.

I've been thinking about this for a few weeks, but today seemed like as good a day as any to try to verbalize how the feelings I had during the aftermath of the conflict in Ferguson felt a little 9/11.