I am sitting on my deck in the early hours of a new day, isolated from the world, including — believe it or not — you, dear reader. I am trying to be privately and honestly at peace and content with myself; I am trying to put the world in perspective.
Trying.
I have some help. It is absolutely quiet. There is not a sound to be heard aside from a distant barking dog. It is already warm, but early-morning warm, enveloping and nurturant and not yet oppressive. A pair of catbirds patrol the yard, flit so easily about the trees and bushes, and occasionally visit the jelly feeder I provide for them. They are frequent visitors; they cheer me, and I feel affection for them.
A chipmunk joins me on the deck, a small acorn in its mouth. Has a cuter creature ever been created? Somewhere, a gray squirrel frets about something, reminding me that there are other concerns in the world beyond the human ones.
It is the human ones that I am trying to incorporate into the peace I am seeking. How is it possible that while I am close to some kind of acceptance on this beneficent morning, so much is going horribly wrong in the world? Do I need to tell you? At this very moment, people are being slaughtered in Gaza (over 60,000 to date), Ukraine (over 10,000 to date), and elsewhere; images of starving babies with bloated bellies dominate the news; and now, in Africa, some are dying needlessly of HIV/AIDS.
I just read that there have been 8,590 gun deaths in this country so far this year, and by the time you read this, the number will have gone up. People going about their business have been roughed up and apprehended without due process by agents of our government. Agencies and nonprofits of all kinds are being deprived of funding, with ramifications for our general welfare that are becoming increasingly apparent.
Closer to home, there are people waking up today homeless; others are yet again hung over or suffering from other kinds of addiction. Someone has had her heart broken overnight; worse, someone has been abused — many someones. A friend will begin chemotherapy next week. Another informed me yesterday that he had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. And the backdrop to all of this is a planet descending into irrevocable destruction.
There are many people out there trying to do the right thing. I am constantly heartened by the young people I meet who are dedicated to worthy causes and believe in the future of this world, like the interns at the Center for Coastal Studies or the ones who work with such diligence for this newspaper.
But there are many others whose views are shortsighted, selfish, and heartbreakingly wrong — like Illinois Congresswoman Mary Miller, who declared the climate crisis “a sham” and stated that “God controls the climate, because he controls the sun, and the sun controls the weather, primarily.” Of course, she echoes our president. And for every fair-minded and rational person there appears to be another who is blindly misinformed and hateful. I heard yesterday that a woman I know stated that Joe Biden was evil and deserved to go to hell. How can our country sustain itself in this poisonous atmosphere?
But it is August, and we live in a resort. Some of us are enjoying vacations as if we deserved them, and the rest of us are eagerly trying to help them do so while having some fun as well. We have to: life would otherwise crush us.
I am reminded that the world has never been an Eden. I often go to Walt Whitman, who wrote: “…Battles, the horrors of fratricidal war, the fever of doubtful news, the fitful events;/ These come to me days and nights and go from me again,/ But they are not the Me myself.”
That “Me” is all I really have and all that I can control, and on this day and all that follow, I search for it.
