It rained hard enough the other night for me to thank the sky for the lullaby. The morning sun rose a bit grudgingly to dismiss the lingering cumulonimbi and begin to mop up the mess they’d made.
My compact driveway – barely long enough to fit my car - surface showed a mosaic, then, of abstract black and less black blobs. The darker puddles’ water molecules had yet to succumb to the sun’s efforts to vaporize them. In the lighter areas lay several still plump pink worms, stranded on the now hardtop, facing a nearly impossible slither back to the life-sustaining soil.
I halted my trek to reclaim the recently emptied recycling bin, not wanting to squish anyone. I gingerly picked up every annelid and placed them on the earth.
I repeat this ritual for other small creatures. I cradle the lady- and stink bugs that sneak into my home through imperceptible access points believing, like little refugees, that they will find a better life with me, and whispering to them, escort them back to the great outdoors. I peacefully coexist with most arachnids, knowing that these eight-legged vigilantes will gobble up other pesky invaders. If the visitor is particularly large, like one recent Buick-sized visitor, I carefully concoct a contraption with which to capture and rehome it.
I relate all of this not to alert anyone to the blinding glare of my halo, but simply to say that I have what I believe is a natural human tendency to not intentionally hurt other sentient beings.
Then I see a news feed (I assiduously avoid most news sources as a way to preserve my sanity) that tells tales of an egomaniacal narcissist marching defiantly into a sovereign neighbor’s yard to wreak havoc. The scene is so surreal that it could be a violent first-person shooter video game, but alas, it is not.
What, I naively wonder, makes this man think this OK? What has made any crazed usurper over the millennia think it OK? I understand self defense, but like a Will Smith slap, this cause and effect simply do not correlate.
We, the non-usurpers of the world (and I specify that because I imagine that certain autocratic rulers wish they could emulate this particular video game) watch with incredulity: Something Happened! Everything Happened! And then we go back to our quotidian lives as if Nothing Happened. We shake our heads, donate to the valiant groups grappling with those affected, and talk worriedly with friends at Starbucks. We watch world leaders try to wrangle wild cats with pixie sticks. We fly blue and yellow flags, admire what true leadership looks like clad in an olive khaki T-shirt, and worry about the world our children will inherit. We feel helpless.
Which is why I write. I am neither a saint for saving a few insects, nor, as my editor pointed out, a political pundit. I need not proselytize because my opinion is both widely shared and completely inconsequential. The few international relations and economics courses I took over forty years ago hardly qualify me to opine, but my certainty that prioritizing the welfare of all is the quickest route to the good of all does.
My pen is all I have to combat this impotence. It is my only weapon against the horror which we have all witnessed way too much of over the last few years. The pen, as Edward Bulwer-Lytton said in 1893, is mightier than the sword. Is my ballpoint mightier than Putin’s army? Nope. Not even close. But is it the most accessible ammunition I have at my disposal to challenge his sword? Yup. For sure.
Maybe this essay won’t amount, to quote Humphrey Bogart, to a hill of beans in this crazy world. But there, I said it. Here’s the world looking at you, Putin. We, all of us deserve to feel safe and cozy on our Earth.