THE FIRST TEN DAYS AFTER A SHOOTING AT YOUR DAUGHTER’S SCHOOL

OR, WHAT TO EXPECT WHEN YOU ARE EXPECTING THE INEVITABLE

by Beth Kanter

DAY 2.

You clutch your daughter much in the way one who is about to fall holds on to the edge of a cliff. Soon you will send her back to school, to the scene of the crime. You will have to let go of her again and again and again.

DAY 3.

You feel acutely aware in your gut, in your brain, and in your heart that you are “lucky” compared to others who have been pushed onto this path. You contemplate the notion of luck. You swirl the word around in your mouth. It tastes wrong and is hard to digest. You imagine it boring holes in your belly much the way the carpenter bees attempt to make holes in the old pergola outside your kitchen window. They do not understand the sealant recently applied to protect the wood is keeping them out. You identify with the bees and the pressure-treated wood.

DAY 4.

Your appetite becomes strange. You consume things that seem momentarily appealing like a vegan cheeseburger, personal pizza, lox on pocketless pita bread, or runny eggs. Your taste for them is intense in the moment and then fleeting. You settle on room temperature Fresca and pretzel nuggets because they will not make you more nauseous than you already are all the time.

DAY 5.

Words that never left a mark suddenly grow sharp edges that leave bruises when you casually bump into them. That date is still a moving target. Just send over a few bullet points to start. I like that he is someone who shoots from the hip. We were just shooting the breeze. She spent most of the day trying to troubleshoot that problem. We sure dodged a bullet with that one. It’ll be tough but we need to stick to our guns. Don’t jump the gun. Let’s give it a shot. She is the one calling the shots. It’s a long shot. It’s worth a shot. It’s a shot in the dark. (You hear shots everywhere.)

DAY 6.

Phrases you reach for to explain your experience also grow fangs. The news is triggering. We all seem to be sniping at each other. My nervous system is shot. (More shots.)

DAY 7.

You take up counting at night when you can’t sleep. First backwards from 200, the number of bullet holes the selfdescribed “AR-15 aficionado” forced into the heart of your daughter’s high school. Then backwards from 800, the number of rounds of ammunition found in the shooter’s sniper nest. (You pause to note that nest once was a pretty word.) Then backwards from the growing number of shootings this year, a number higher than the number of days so far in the year.

DAY 8.

You’re still awake. So you try again, this time counting forward to 3 million children, the number of young people in this country traumatized by gun violence each year. You definitely are awake when the sun rises. You are surprised that the sun has decided to come up again. You are not surprised when you hear about more gun violence. Horrified, furious, sickened, depressed, outraged, terrified, yes, but not surprised. You wonder how anyone can be surprised by it anymore.

DAY 9.

For reasons you cannot explain, you try naming all of the kids on Eight is Enough. It takes you two nights to remember that David is the name of the oldest brother and by night three you can name them off like rapid fire. (Another jagged edged phrase to add to your collection. How many more words now can wound you?) Mary, Joanie, Nancy, Susan, Elizabeth, David, Tommy, Nicholas. You guess that there is meaning in this but are too tired to figure it out.

DAY 10.

You cry and scream and howl. Into your pillow. In the shower. In your head in the middle of the night as you sing the Eight is Enough theme song like a lullaby. As you walk the dog. On the phone to your partner in the middle of the day. At the newspaper, which has abruptly stopped reporting about the shooting at your school because it has moved on to another or on to other stories entirely. At the people who do nothing. At the voters who stay home. At the Senate and Congress. At the Court. At the talking heads. At the alerts on your phone. At the understanding that nothing has or will change yet everything in your world, in your child’s world, has changed forever. *

Beth Kanter’s words have appeared in McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, Idle Ink, Bright Flash Literary Review, Roi Fainéant Press, The Writer, and the Chicago Tribune

Beth won a James Kirkwood Literary Prize for her novel-inprogress, Paved With Gold. This essay was originally published on identitytheory.com

THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART’S SPRING 2023 COSTUME INSTITUTE EXHIBITION

WITHapproximately 150 works, Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty explores the designer’s stylistic language through the aesthetic themes that recurred across his 65-year career. Drawing on the theory of art and aesthetics expressed by William Hogarth as the “line of beauty,” the exhibition is anchored by two lines: the “straight line” and the “serpentine line,” which delineate, respectively, Lagerfeld’s modernist and historicist tendencies.

These lines explore different stylistic representations of themes that the designer returned to again and again, spreading in a rhizome-like configuration with intersecting moments— or “explosions”—that exemplify points of convergence. The exhibition will conclude with the “satirical line,” a section that focuses on Lagerfeld’s ironic, playful, and whimsical predilections expressed through visual puns that reflect the designer’s razor-sharp wit.

Approximately 150 garments will be on view, spanning the designer’s career as the creative director of Chloé, Fendi, Chanel, and his eponymous label, Karl Lagerfeld, as well as his time at Balmain and Patou. Most of the pieces on display will be accompanied by Lagerfeld’s sketches, which underscore his complex creative process and the collaborative relationships with his premières.

Presented at The Met Fifth Avenue in the Tisch Gallery

Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty will be on view from May 5 - July 16, 2023.

#MetKarlLagerfeld @metcostumeinstitute