Shelter in Place, San Francisco, September 23, 2020
When the Fatsia Japonica (glossy-leafed paper plant) blooms, it does so in spectacular style, forming a stalk full of individual pods that look like - you guessed it - corona virus cells (everything these days reminds me of the virus). Eventually, the pods will open and uncurl into small, white flowers that then become dark berries in the spring. But this branch of buds, right now - the collective ‘virus cells’ - reminds me of depictions from my youth of (undoubtedly friendly) multi-eyed space travelers emerging from their capsule. “We come in peace…”
Back in 1962, my favorite, favorite teacher got teary-eyed one day, as we watched some satellite launched into space, over what seemed like accelerating discovery and good fortune of every kind throughout the world. “You are the luckiest generation that has ever lived,” she told us. “From now on, through scientific discovery, through immunizations, civil rights, decreased poverty, education, and the lessons of the past, your lives will do nothing but get better as long as you live.” I will never forget her words. I’d never seen a teacher cry.
It’s taken my whole lifetime to count up all that she had witnessed in her life to engender such optimism, the hardships my teacher had once endured and hoped would never come again. And for the most part, I have shared her sense of wonder at my own good luck. Still do. Generally. But here we are now, frozen in a nightmare mostly of our own making, and I have a sense that perhaps my luck - our luck as a nation - is running out. As I approach my own elder status during these troubled times, I ask myself daily what my role should be. How do I pass on that sense of promise to another generation when I witness many of the things my teacher never thought we’d see again reach our collective doorstep: rising nationalism and racism, the loss of democratic norms, economic insecurity for all but the richest among us, distrust of science, environmental degradation and back-pedaling, lost international respect and cooperation, and a disease that we cannot muster the courage and determination to vanquish from our midst? What do I do? What do I say to make a difference?
I take heart from the Japonica’s quirky buds as I ponder these hard questions, and I look forward to the flowers that they will soon become. But what will have happened before these flowers turn to berries, what will this country be like next spring?