Spring thoughts

I would like to write something more optimistic, now that spring is here. Winter made me too severe. Severity has its uses - it clarifies, sharpens the mind - but in excess it leads to narrowness, dogmatism, radicalization. One cannot be like Flaubert's Senecal, whose doctrinaire revolutionism seemed inexorably to lead to militant reaction. There has to be a happy middle.

Besides, how can one not feel some optimism at this time of year? The days are getting warmer, the sun is out longer. Even last week's "snow emergency" seemed, in its aftermath, somehow milder, more cheerful than those that had come before - the birds were out chirping immediately after. There is something poignant, too ephemeral, about spring snow (we have had two beloved cats die in early spring); but in its thaw and glisten, in its quickness to melt, in the little rivulets of water one sees running through the streets, one believes again in the primacy of life over death.

I sat at the window and watched a cardinal flit around on our deck. It was a bright and sunny day, and for a moment my oppressions lifted. I felt grateful and blessed. But just as this feeling took hold, I remembered, as I always do, that it is not this way for so many - that there is so much horror and suffering in the world, some of which is enacted in service of a system that benefits me, that we have caused, that it is only by luck that I have been spared...

A selfish part of me said that it does no good to wallow in guilt and shame; that it doesn't help anyone; that, in a way, it is disrespectful to whatever luck or circumstance brought me here - that to treat my life with respect, I should seek out as much pleasure and advantage as I can, irrespective of others' suffering. But as quickly as it came, I knew this thought was wrong. It is not enough to give gratitude for this life: one must do something, not for oneself but for others - must give back in some way, if one is to honor the privileges one has been given.

(To be continued...)

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