Crocus are blooming in my yard. It is a spring day to remember. Translucent, electric green life explodes through the mulch of last year’s abundance. Lilacs add a faint little old lady scent to the breezes. Sunlight dances, as the trees’ leaves unfold and swell with life.
I sit on my backyard steps watching two chubby squirrels gorge on the sunflower seeds I’d put out for a variety of birds, a ferocious chipmunk, a pair of ducks who appear towards late afternoon, a family of rabbits that appear towards dusk, assorted small things living in the yard, and a tribe of squirrels who wintered over very nicely.
I haven’t listened to the news today. I have no idea if we are attacking Iran or North Korea; or Canada for that matter. The President of the United States is a completely self-absorbed madman. His followers are angry that the old America is evolving and their social status is changing. They feel threatened and are destructively lashing out. The President plays to his supporters by stoking their fears with lies and then promising to protect them.
Most of the news media, contributes to the chaos by chasing easy stories that titillate rather than tackle the more difficult issues requiring understanding, nuance and time.
The absence of news let’s me contemplate in peace.
I’ve been fond of history since 5th grade. Through these books I’ve visited our distant ancestors roaming the savanna, the first cities along the Tigress and Euphrates as urban culture and laws are invented, ancient Rome as its Empire grew and then withered, the Renaissance with the explosion of creativity that would lead to science, the Enlightenment with its light of reason, and much sooner, the springs of 1914 and 1939.
When I read the accounts of life just before the eruptions of two the World Wars, I am confused by how life just continued on normally, while most people knew, that something terrible was going to happen. How could they let disaster overtake them? Why didn’t they do something to save themselves? Scientist and author Jared Diamond asked the same questions in his book, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, when he recounted the story of the collapse of Easter Island. The Easter Islanders slowly stripped their forested island until nothing remained Even though the trees were a critical source of materials for survival, the islanders slowly chopped them all down. Couldn’t they see the calamity they were bringing on to themselves? Apparently not.
As I relaxed in the scented warmth. A chill made the hairs on the back of my neck bristle. I realized that I did know how the islanders and the Europeans felt. Sitting here looking at the crocus I realized that it was no longer a theoretical question. I am looking at the last trees on Easter Island. I am listening to the drum beat to war. I can hear the chanting, “Make America Great Again!”
On this spring day, there is a poignancy, a special light that makes me want to remember each and every moment, and a feeling that time is both motionless and hurtling forward into an ominous unknown.
Looking at the crocus in my backyard; it might as well be 1914.