Today is my birthday. Every September 11 since the “original” September 11, I metaphorically hide under the bed, hoping something bad does not happen. Something terrible happened yesterday, which has seeped into today with profound effect. In spite of my best intentions to avoid the news cycle, this morning I spent an hour and a half drowning in what feels like an insolvable momentum towards societal breakdown. No matter how much violence is reported daily in the United States, the assassination of a public figure carries a unique and deeply disturbing shock.

I have no solutions for Israel versus Palestine or Muslim versus Christian or Right versus Left or Chainsaw versus Tree, or Christian Nationalist versus Secular Humanist. None. I am chilled, wondering how I will approach public political gatherings, and how or if I will continue to engage in advocacy— it had never occurred to me until very recently to think of asking, “has the perimeter been swept 200 feet? What about that window up there?” I went through the violence of the 60s. It did not leave me tough, it left me vigilant. I can too easily imagine something distant occurring on my doorstep.

We never solved the question of extremes in the 60’s with fire bombs or militias or with gurus or cults — most of the leaders eventually drove away in a Cadillac with all the stolen goods; the best were gunned down or wrongly imprisoned for decades. If we were lucky, we acquired some tools for looking within. And if we were able to practice that enough, we could perhaps look outside ourselves differently.

I have a dear and rare friend who smiles at everyone unequivocally, which can create difficult situations. I asked her once, don’t you ever think before you smile, about whether that person . . . deserves it? She looked at me as though I was from another planet and said: never. We live in a culture today that rations good will, checking religious and political credentials at the door. To smile, to assume the best, is a radical and sometimes dangerous act. Internet culture, where so many of us live today, is shaped by political and tribal suspicion and has no room for innocence. Reflexively, most of us judge first, ask questions later. This 9.11 is the one I have been dreading.

What to do?

I make tea and gather the poets. I’ll spend an hour this morning reading Jack Gilbert, Louise Gluck, Hirshfield, teachers who open doors to transcendence and healing. The early fog has made everything soft. Perhaps I can walk in the garden and forgive the squirrel for his daily malice. I can gently repot the zinnias, knowing he will dig them up again tomorrow. I’ll try again to read the language of twigs fallen beneath the locust tree and organize the river rocks in a new constellation. When sorrow and anger overflow it is time to turn to nature’s psalms. Violence is not the only pattern: the work of creating a better world is love.