6:30 a.m. It's dark. The official temperature is 44. And Karen Falkenstrom sits in the middle of a labyrinth outside the Tucson Medical Center hospice, softly pounding her drum, like a somber heartbeat.
At first, it's just media. Sage is burned. Then others begin to come, armed with mittens and hats and thermoses of coffee, to take a seat on one of the white lawn chairs encircling the area.
Susan Willis, a 48-year-old businessperson, is among the first to arrive, bundled up in a scarf. Willis, who remembers she was taking her son to karate practice when she heard the news last year, was struck by how many connections brought her to this place. She's friends with Ross Zimmerman, who lost his son, Gabe, in the shooting. She works at UMC, so was right in the middle of the heartbreak and healing last year. She used to work at TMC.
"It's a new year, it's a new start, and I wanted to celebrate that with people in the community," she said.
Soon, there are more than 100. Oliver Hickman, a 49-year-old massage therapist, said he appreciated the meditative aspects of the ceremony. His hope: "To heal the world and everybody that we lost that day."
Tere' Fowler-Chapman, a 23-year-old freelance writer cradling a cup of coffee, said she was touched by the way Tucson came together after the tragedy. She's afraid we've lost some of that since. "I'm hoping to get that unity back. Sometimes, we wrap ourselves in our own world, but I really do hope we can rekindle that feeling of community."
Dan Rogers, a 58-year-old nurse, slowly walked the labyrinth, before taking a seat in a flag-adorned chair. The journey, he said, was a way to prepare for meditation and reflect on what he calls "human mistakes" - chief among them, failing to respect others. "There's a lot of political unrest today, but I really hope we can remember that there are respectful ways of disagreeing with another person's political stance."
"I want to walk away with a sense of peace, and I really want in my life to give out those vibrations and be a role model for others."
Cliff Berrien, one of the drummers, said he was a youth when Martin Luther King Jr. and John F. Kennedy were shot. "It felt like that kind of feeling on a local level for me," he said, remembering a year ago. "I think music and the arts are a big way that people can heal."
As the sun's rays brought light, Cheryl De Ciantis layered the tones of Tibetan bowls over the pulse of the drums, the vibrations a way of bringing people into a place of recovery.
Dancers dressed in white slowly enter the labyrinth, starting their journey to shed anger and apathy and to embrace the gift of a new day.
Slowly, the pace of the drum and the movement picked up. Organizers handed out maracas for the crowd to participate. Smiles replaced solemnity. The crowd joined in, unique rhythms blending into one joyful whole.
"If what I saw wasn't celebratory, I don't know what is," Ross Zimmerman told the crowd. "One thing you can be sure of - in this world, there are many, many things that may happen that you don't have control over." What we can control is our response, he said. He planned to celebrate in his heart the nearly 31 years he had with his son. Whatever anyone else may celebrate, he said, "Do it joyously and make it a good day."
By 8:30 a.m., the crowd had largely dispersed to do just that.
Afterward, Ron Barber, the district director for U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who was wounded himself in the attack, said he was moved by the whole experience.
The bells brought up a number of complex emotions, he said, and we has touched by how many people came to surround him and others with love. "It moved me from a place of remembrance and sadness into a place of celebration."
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