The Chickens Are Coming Home To Boil

The abstract thought of leaving this planet in worse condition than it was on the day I was born is difficult. I’ve confronted that abstract feeling for years. It hasn’t been hard to even articulate that in clearer detail as terrible things happen all over the Earth. There are places I’ve been that will be underwater by the time my daughters are old enough to get a learner’s permit. There is a tacit acceptance of how bad it is gonna get even if we fix our behavior tomorrow. And I think that tacit acceptance means we are hard pressed to find a reason to do it TODAY. The buck doesn’t stop anywhere anymore. No one feels they are to blame for global warming. Or they feel that whatever blame lands on them, there are people to blame more. “I’m not driving a Prius, I bet the the Koch brother who is still alive pours gasoline into wild poultry while he lowers minimum wage while wearing alligator boots.” We are all aware that a moment will come with our children where they will ask “what did you do”. My kids will ask what I did to make Minnesota better when George Floyd was murdered, when a man was slowly killed by a band of tax funded employees in the city next door. I’ll tell them I put em in a stroller and took em to one count ‘em one protest. I probably said some stuff on twitter. I bought a Black Lives Matter sign, I argued with people. But I know I didn’t do enough. I was and am a young dad. I thought the arc of the moral universe was inarguably bending in the right direction at that time. I’m not so dim this time. I know we are not doing what it takes to make the world hospitable for future generations. I hear the positive stories too, we compost, I take the bus a hilariously small amount but I do take it. I get it. But I also know there is too much money in doing the wrong thing. And the buck stops nowhere. Or more accurately, we believe the buck will stop somewhere after we die.

My oldest daughter has been to Jewish camp for the past two weeks. Living it up, loving it. Learning songs, playing games, playing tricks, laughing with her friends, swimming, acting, crafting. Got that email that this week on Wednesday and Thursday all the activities were going to be at the Temple. It’s the right call. It was not safe to be outside. And kids don’t know when they’re safe. They can’t find shade easy, they’ll forget to drink water. It was the right call. But for the real me, not the academic me, this was that first clear cut example of the following: you’re giving your kid something worse. I remember inside days at summer camp, it was for rain, it was for something temporary, necessary and unavoidable. But here we are in a different thing. My daughter misses the swimming, the camp ass shit that makes camp different than school, makes camp different than hanging out with your friends. The swims, the suns, the games, the just OUTSIDENESS of the whole thing. Two days gone. She’ll be fine. She had fun, they played games, it was good. But it was that first stark relief of what the worsening of the world is at home. She might not notice, she might not notice when her kid has four days of their summer camp cancelled. Or when there are summer camps where you only do outdoor stuff from 7am-10am or something. But collectively, between our generations, we are losing something and this July, it’s countable, it’s measurable for me. There are larger tragedies from global warming every nanosecond on planet earth, but I am looking at this mini-tragedy right here in my home. I don’t believe in God, that’s a big part of why I didn’t convert to Judaism when I married my Jewish wife. But I do feel this cosmic alignment the past couple years where it feels like we are conspiring to prove to the Gods we aren’t worth it. To prove to the Gods that we don’t have a vision beyond our comfort, or even beyond our own salvation, beyond the problems we can see. I encourage the Gods to laugh at me too, I see the world boiling and I pick out jazz records, I load the dishwasher, I take the dog for a walk. The planet is boiling and I’m blogging.