Musings on the Onslaught

Songs come to me like the weather. Some liltingly float on the breeze while others pull thick tears of summer rain down my cheeks. Still others hit me like a hurricane — chaotic, swirling storms that threaten my well-curated safe existence. One such storm found me this summer as I sat on a beach listening to anthems from my youth by Blues Traveler and Pearl Jam. Like an actual hurricane, the music first offered a strange calm; then came the walloping: raucous thunder, lashing rain, bullying winds from every direction.

John Popper’s whip-smart cautionary tales — and a young Eddie Vedder’s urgent, unabashed hunger for truth — dragged a younger self back into the room: the kid who read everything, chased new experiences, and spent late nights in smoke-filled rooms sharpening his intellectual edge debating politics and policy. Those records were atlases; the songs were maps. Far from nostalgia, the music dropped a ledger in my lap: a running account of the promises I made to myself …and a plain tally of credits and debits.

I spent much of my life as a sort of nomadic hunter-gatherer — a counterculture kid and hopeful wanderer who bounced from city to city and from person to person. I never stuck around long enough to get closer than an arm’s length. I romanticized the lone wolf. Paradoxically — and perhaps somewhat tragically — all I wanted to find was acceptance. Belonging. I have friendships that mean the world, and yet I do not speak to those people as often as I should. The weeks when connection slips away are the same weeks when the world feels too brittle to touch. After looking death in the face, I’ve put the lone wolf in his cage — for good. I won’t pretend otherwise: I need company. I need friends. I want to know and love others the way I want to be known and loved. I want to be a good friend.

Clearly, I stand at a personal inflection point. As a nation, we teeter on a similar edge. History is painfully practiced at repetition; the remedy is not found in chaos or violence. The map to Eutopia sits in the margins of our ledgers. When we keep the tiny promises we made to ourselves long ago, we poke holes in the lies that justify our unpaid emotional debts. We planted emotional trees in our youth; those roots keep us grounded in hope, wonder, and connectedness. They don’t stifle growth; they allow for it. They don’t restrict wandering; they offer a path back home.

So here’s my small request: do one awkward, brave thing this week that breaks a pattern. Call someone you’ve let go silent. Say the hard thing you’ve been carrying. Plant a literal or symbolic seed and tend it. These are not self-help platitudes; they are modest acts of civic repair. We will all be better for it. Tell us what happened if you want to share, or keep it private if you prefer. Either way, know this: these tiny acts are how we relearn to unite — state by state, heart by heart, America.

Make one deliberate reconnection this week — a call, a note, a visit. Reply and tell us what happened; we’ll collect and share our small revolutions. We’ll keep your story anonymous at your request.