“Bad news on the doorstep, I couldn’t take one more step.”
You and me both, Don.
I recently read that the Amazon rainforests are disappearing at an accelerated rate grossly underestimated by scientists and climatologists. “Forever chemicals,” compound substances in all kinds of household products that do not break down and are linked to a string of frightening health problems are 1. Totally real and 2. EVERYWHERE. Apparently, much like the rhythm, these toxic chemicals are gonna get you. And last week, a leaked opinion draft from the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) indicated a willingness to overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark decision delivered by the same court—with much, much different justices—enshrining the right of every woman to legally access abortion services. File under: hard pass, SCOTUS. Maybe we could take a spin around literally anything else on your docket: sticky second amendment rights, marriage equality between people and their emotional support animals, a good, old fashioned case of something involving the tobacco industry?
The morning after this story broke, I caught an NPR interview with the democratic Governor of Colorado, very much on the side of “bad call, SCOTUS.” He painted a grim picture of how overturning Roe could threaten all sorts of other personal protections.
“Aren’t you being a little alarmist?” the morning host interjected.
“Yes!” he replied. “This is all very alarming!”
I couldn’t help but burst out laughing. It reminded me of that tiny, brilliant moment in Dr. Strangelove, Stanley Kubrick’s dark comedy about the Cold War. On the brink of nuclear war, the American president and a host of military advisors hunker down in the war room. Tempers flare and a scuffle breaks out between General Buck Turgidson (George C. Scott) and the Soviet Ambassador (Peter Bull). “Gentleman!” the president scolds, “You can’t fight in here. This is the war room!”
WHY ARE YOU GETTING UPSET BY ALL THE VERY UPSETTING THINGS? As George Bernard Shaw famously said, “When a thing is funny, look for the hidden truth.”
I walk to get my head right. And sometimes it works, but it always helps. I was on a lakeside trail early in the morning and caught this pattern of clouds reflected in the surface of the water. The clouds were strung together in undulating rows of soft garlands, linked and seemingly infinite. And I thought, we all look up at the same sky.
We think things are over there, out there, somewhere else. We think there’s another time, a tomorrow or next week or later on. We think things are happening to someone else. But that’s not true and we need to own that knowledge with same kind of devotion that we reserve for our beloved sports franchises and musical icons.
We all look up at the same sky. Somewhere else is here. Sometime is now. Someone else is you and me.