This is what it has come to: Smoke rising from the fires of violence in our cities all across America. Those sincerely hoping to change society for the better in peaceful protests were joined last night by those who wanted to lash out at any symbol of authority within range.
The end result was senseless destruction.
If you're old enough, you've already lived through this at least twice, in the '60s and again 30 years later in the '90s. It's 30 years later once again. Police violence against black people ignited rebellions then, then, and now again.
Nothing has been resolved by a half-century of shouting at each other. The whispers of peace and love cannot be heard; we've become a nation of the hard of hearing.
In 1968, as young journalists, a group of us piled in my old car and drove from Ann Arbor, Michigan to Memphis, Tennessee. We wanted to cover the largely peaceful demonstrations in support of that city's garbagemen, who were black.
The march was led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
We spent some time there, attended the (huge) march, wrote our stories, and returned to campus.
Roughly a week later, I was washing dishes in the pizza joint where I worked nights when an African American woman burst in, screaming and cried out: "They've shot Dr.King!"
The riots that erupted spontaneously across this country were as angry as any that have ever been seen in this land. I did the only thing I could imagine doing -- I went into a church to mourn the loss of perhaps the greatest man of our time.
There was irony, naturally. I didn't even believe in going to churches; at least I was pretty sure I didn't. It was April of that year, and more horrors were yet to come.
This country is often, in its more hopeful moments, called a "melting pot." Perhaps before the melting can occur, the heat has to rise and finally boil over.
It feels like our nation has reached the boiling point once again, so will we finally melt this time?
Sitting outside in the sun yesterday I watched some delicate flowers swaying in the wind. The breeze started to stiffen as it came from the ocean to my west, sucked in from by the oppressive heat in the great valley to the east, where temperatures were reaching 105 degrees.
The coastal fog can reach us at any moment in the San Francisco Bay Area, which is why natives carry layers of shirts and coats with us whenever we venture out.
It is tempting to philosophers and poets to seek an answer, any kind of answer from the fog, but the only answer I've found is that you can no longer see very clearly.
You can't see very far; you can't see anything distinctly. It's no use to stare off in the distance, because there is no visible distance. Often the fog is so thick that it engulfs you like a river.
Bathed in that moving white flow, you shudder and you shiver. It is possible at times like those to feel very, very alone.
The heat retreats in the face of the fog. Anger and certainty are displaced by silence and uncertainty. The fog wins the day.
Holding on to the concept that there may be no answers to any of this is so unsettling that you just wish you had someone to hug.
But hugging has become rare in America. A virus is loose that we pass one to the other by breathing the same air, let alone hugging. Even those who would seek comfort by visiting their place of worship are warned that that may not be a wise thing to do.
If you can't hug anybody, you can't pray with others or don't want to, if you can't even see the way forward in a time like this, what is left for you to do?
The other day my daughter, whose birthday it is today, wanted to serve fondue to us. She had a large order of strawberries we could dip in melted chocolate. She had two types of chocolate-- white chocolate and brown choeolate.
For some reason the white chocolate had trouble melting; it came out lumpy. The brown chocolate by contrast smoothed easily and perfectly.
I took a helping of both and mixed them together before dipping my first strawberry and noticed the two colors blended together to create a new shade with a kind of taste.
It was very, very sweet.
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