Top stories from home: guns. More guns. Anger. The horrific murders of two harmless black men by police, one of them in front of his partner and their little child. Anti-Semetic ugliness from Donald Trump. A disappointing lack of transparency and judgement from the otherwise bright and qualified woman who is all we've got to keep Donald Trump from the White House.
And now waking up this morning to the news of the shootings at the Black Lives Matter protest in Dallas. Ken is downstairs, reading. I'm sitting in the loft of this cottage,watching the tide come in, trying to comfort myself with metaphors.
Sometimes I think we're making progress in the States when I spend time around very young people. The ones I know tend to be incredibly open-minded, quick to love, and slow to judge. Sometimes I tell myself that we've come so far in my country, that gay folks can get married, and women are all over the broadcast media and in high office, and a black man has been our cool-headed and effective President for the past seven years. And sometimes I think that the ugly stuff has retreated. But maybe it's only gone out with the tide, and now it's back, crashing on the beach on a day too cold to even walk down there.
No. That's got to be wrong. It's not the tides. It's no part of the natural world, except for our species' deeply-wired surrender to fear. Fear is what makes people cling to their own racial and social and economic groups, and see others as threatening. Fear is what makes people buy worse and worse guns, horrible guns that can kill a room full of people dancing. Fear is what makes cops panic. Fear is what sets off the cycle of violence and anger and hate.
So I'll leave you with the sidewalk affirmation I saw last week in St. John, New Brunswick. Dammit, we are all pretty. We are all wired to love as well as to fear. I'm glad I get to write books for young people about magic and love. Magic and love are really important.
No book plug today. But I'll have some needed good news very soon! Peace, my friends, and fear not.