May 17, 2025
As a child, the news felt like yet another lecture. A continuation of the school day coming through the television to bore and ruin my fun. Much like bad music, you’re just waiting for it to end. Over the years, I’ve noticed what many of us have, a tonal change in that droning that has become fervent or even, dare my own liberty to say it, malicious. Yet there are moments within what we consider the news those sparks of joy and the most dangerous of all, hope, maybe even facts. The glimmers that catch our hearts and let us have a reprieve from the dread of the future.
I find myself looking backward to create a sense of what to look forward to. What have other little peons like myself been possible of? Who has found themselves capable of the gargantuan out of the obscurity of existing as insignificant? In the dark, as I try to sleep, my mind dares to ask like the child I once was, “Who will save us?” Then from the corporeal monsters that inhabited my life and now the ones I see on the screen. The ones that are eroding our human rights and possible existence.
As typical for my atypical household, I’m inspired by, while simultaneously maddened by, the interests of my children and began recently reading more about past wars and, pointedly the pre-war days leading up to each event to find encouragement. After all, reading about someone overcoming the odds you’re currently facing can give you the courage to achieve what they once did. That’s what we’re taught as children. The more I comb through my books, though, the more frightened I become for what the future could hold for my children, for us all. Those glimmers are elusive amongst the darkness of our current reality yet I’m expected to wake and engage with the world as if everything is fine enough to carry on.
So carry on I do. Booking appointments, advocating, researching, writing and, in the midst of all this, the other day I overheard my children debating the news. The hair on my arms rose as I caught the end of one of their statements.
“…we can’t side WITH Russia. They’re our enemy!”
“Yes, we can, that’s what the news is saying.”
“No, no, we were allies with Russia during World War II but then they turned on us – “
“But we were in the Cold War with them AFTER World War II?”
“YES! That’s what I’m saying – “
“But – wait – that doesn’t make any sense…Why did they turn on us?”
What is this reality we’re living in now? History repeats itself and we’re the pawns of the karmic retribution among the generations played out by the megalomaniacal few who presume to rule over us and we allow their horrors with our silence for fear of retaliation. Is that a reality that we can accept? Is this what we want our world to be? Is this acceptable to everyone as long as they can have their amenities and comforts?
People tell themselves it isn’t that bad.
We’ve survived worse. Worse wars. Worse horrors and autrocities. Worse presidents.
We’ll make it through this.
We’ve seen worse.
All is normal in the world for those of us scraping by while those with money and power exploit us and make deals that we’ll only hear about in documentaries years from now that unveil the truth as if it is a questionable conspiracy theory and not the baseless oppression that it was. The fact that I find myself questioning and considering such theories lately makes me more frightened than the content they conjecture.
On some level, I hope they’re right, I hope this is business as usual. I hope their phone campaigns to local elected officials, newly built chicken coops, and free libraries amount to a sign of the era and not acts of necessity based on events to come.
I think back to my childhood and not once do I remember worrying about our country siding with those against democracy. Now, I worry about what the world will be like for all of us in the days ahead as the current leaders echo very clearly the days we once thought we would never revisit. The wars to end all wars. Something discussed in a popular show that aired on PBS, “My Grandparents’ War”, where celebrities discuss and revisit the experiences of their ancestors that were involved in the world wars.
The actress, Helena Bonham Carter, appeared in the show and discussed the history of her family and their involvement in the war. In particular, her grandmother, Helen Violet Bonham Carter, Baroness Asquith of Yarnbury, who was known as “Lady Violet”. Helena shared about her grandmother and her diary that she kept during the war:
“…this is her diary entry but this is the 19th of July, 1944.
“It’s a long time after December 13th. Cressida is wonderful and little Adam are great solace and occupation. How Jasper would have loved him…Met Cressida and Adam at Liverpool Street.
The first time I have seen her. Her face moved me more than I can say in its indescribable suffering. I am haunted by her words, the unbeaconed future. That is what she faces every hour. Oh, that I could go as Orpheus did to Hades and bring back Jasper and stay there myself instead.”
Helena reflected on the entry, “Unbeaconed future”…It’s a great phrase.”
Unbeaconed future feels like the right phrase for the times we’re in now as well. We feel the grief of losing the hope we had in our country’s ideals and identity as a beacon of democracy as a world leader. Now we’re lost as to who we are as a country and who will save us. Much like those that survived the world wars, we’re discovering that we have to save ourselves. I can only hope that we can right our course for the sake of us all and be the saviors our children look towards for reason and integrity. Ideals that feel folksy and hyperbolic when discussed on the evening news. Who do we look towards when there isn’t a clear path and we all are afraid of crashing on the rocks?
Helen Violet Bonham Carter, Baroness Asquith of Yarnbury, who was known as “Lady Violet”
“My Grandparents’ War”, PBS
Politely Defiant 