By David K. Shipler
Daffodils
came early this year, deceived by a premature spate of warmth, then slapped
with reality by a cold snap. But now the most exquisite season in and around
the nation’s capital has begun to take hold. The plum tree in front has
blossomed along with the magnolias across the street. The cherry trees are at
their peak, their feathery white petals blowing off and descending like snow
flurries. The azaleas will not be far behind.
It is a
cruel spring of dissonance. It is like that crystal autumn day, September 11,
2001, whose beauty should not have allowed the terror and the death. It is like
wartime Vietnam, whose stunning landscapes should not have made room for combat.
This should be a soothing time of annual rebirth, with no place for the
discords of illness and fear.
Like a
family in crisis, America and every other nation will learn good and hard
lessons about itself. This will weld us or break us. We will find common
purpose or deepened fissures. If we summon wisdom, we will discover what
matters and what does not, who are heroes and who are not, who are leaders and
who are not—regardless of their titles, positions, or pretenses.
Human beings rarely resign themselves to powerlessness.
To flee from war, crime, or hunger, refugees uproot themselves and journey into
risky unknowns. Against suicide bombings, citizens search for a semblance of
control. They reach for tricks and tactics that seem rational, hoping to reduce
the unwanted probabilities. In Israel when buses were being blown up, drivers
tried to avoid stopping near buses at red lights. In Lebanon and Vietnam, canny
locals stayed off country roads that felt too quiet. Smart cops in every tough
city in the world learn to watch and listen all around them, to read body
language, if possible to put an engine block between them and a suspect who
might be armed.
The habit of staking a claim to some small
territory of control is surely embedded in our animal survival instinct.
Sometimes our methods are futile, often so against random violence. Sometimes
they are illusory, giving us a sense of power more imagined than real.
Sometimes they are practical, and therefore comforting, as we wash our hands
while singing Happy Birthday twice, stop touching our faces, use gloves or
paper towels to handle the gas pump, sterilize our doorknobs and kitchen
counters, and look to the health professionals’ steady and factual advice.
Thank heavens for Dr. Anthony Fauci!
But
there are limits to human powers, of course.
