The Unraveling

There is something about the modern age that makes me feel as if the old adage, Children should be seen and not heard, is more than just the words of some curmudgeonly aunt historically lamenting the annoyance of her visiting nieces and nephews. 

It's an old saw that pretty accurately describes adolescence.

Between electronics and earbuds, the house often feels like someone accidentally hit the mute button.

The only time we even notice the quiet is when some sudden noise shatters the silence. And even then we tend to ignore it: footsteps on the stairs. Water flowing from the tap. The rustling of bags and a dry cascade of chips into a bowl. Footsteps back on the stairs. 

Midnight mice.

They sleep well past the morning. And sometimes there is a noise that jolts us awake. A dog barking. A cat hissing. An expletive that wakes up the snoring.

It was some blue utterance followed by a slamming sound that jolted me into awareness. 

I knock on the door … and wait.

As I stand in the hallway I can't hear anything coming from the other side. Wireless headphones, I assume. The kind that seems to blend in with the structures of their ears and block out the background so they can focus on a distraction.

This is one boundary I try to respect.

I knock again before I turn the knob and send my voice into the room alone.

“Yes?”

“Is everything ok?”

I look into the room, seeking out her reflection rather than finding her directly. The room is tidy and warm. It smells faintly of cinnamon and vanilla. I can barely make out her shape from the corner of my eye … wrapped in a blanket and still tucked into bed. 

I can tell from her mirror image she is looking at me as if I have crash-landed on her planet. I am intruding.

She sighed but didn't slam the door. 

“Everything is a mess.”

Like most of us who are obsessively checking the news these days, she has little knowledge of foreign affairs and no expertise. Yet somehow the distance from such understanding feels like a lens bringing our failings as a society into sharp focus.

"War? Why is that still a thing?"

My daughter has awoken from the sheltered, childhood part of her youth and embarked on the portion of the journey through adulthood where one tries to keep whatever is left of the insulating chrysalis intact. 

"Why?"

She's not looking for answers. 

She knows I don't have them. And that I never really do.

I don't remember the world ever having more than small pockets of peace. 

But I remember reaching the age of so-called reason and breathing a small sigh of relief.

The things that had worried me had involved scenarios that with time and distance seemed to become rather remote:

Quicksand.

Nuclear war. 

The Handmaid's Tale. 

These seemed quaint in comparison to the true terrors that presented themselves to our kids: passive aggression, active shooters, and an increasingly apparent apartheid state. 

I've been watching what is happening in Ukraine. I've been seeing the news from Texas and Missouri and Florida and Idaho. My level of outrage feels like catatonia. 

We think we have been watching insanity unfold, but this feels like the part where insanity entirely unravels. And a new hope takes hold: That her generation won't try to piece it back together. They will make better, fairer, more humane choices.

And the peace the follows won't seem as quiet.