Yearning to be Safe

When I was twelve, my girlfriends and I walked door-to-door Halloween trick-or-treating together. When the time came for us to go home, the air was chill and the streetlights glowed yellow and lonely in the encroaching drizzle. My friends turned off toward their homes, waving weary but happy goodbyes. I assured them I’d be fine by myself. My house was the farthest down the road that led to the end of the unpaved “city” limits.

The night seemed darker without my friends, so I quickened my step and began to hum. I recalled the gutsy ladies I had read about and imagined I was one. Although the houses that had once been cheered by porch lights and shining jack-o-lanterns were behind me, I reminded myself my driveway wasn’t far. Regardless, I knew my over protective parents would scold me if they knew I was walking alone. Then I realized a car had begun shadowing me. I didn’t recognize it or the driver, and I shuddered with warning intuition.

I cut across the corner of a field and walked yet faster. The car was still approaching, perhaps waiting for the vacant lots to come. I broke into a run that took me to my driveway and up our front steps to our front door. The car sped past. I was safe.

Safety is one of those needs we don’t think about much when it isn’t in question. But credible threats steal our comfort and often our health. Stress kills. Safety begins with our bodies, our health. When COVID hit, many waited too long to realize it wasn’t a storyline with a guaranteed happy ending. We had begun taking health for granted after the advent of polio shots and antibiotics. We looked for people to blame for the deaths as we blame the villains in films. Shouldn’t science be able to cure EVERYTHING?

Without discriminating between good and evil, Nature doesn’t hesitate to mete out retribution such as floods and fires and earthquakes for acts that have ruined age-old balances, regardless of who did the deeds that set the stage. So far, many refuse to admit we can’t tame Nature to our liking or despoil all resources. They insist we’re looking at the problem wrong. We’ll probably be safe…another day, after we collect our profits.

Throughout history, people have tried to seize dominance over those they think of as “other”—willing to kill for power, pride, or wealth, sometimes out of fear. The citizens of Ukraine aren’t willing to capitulate to Putin and hand over their country. Russian citizens who don’t want to attack a formerly peaceful nation are punished for disagreeing. Citizens under selfish, violent, or greedy commanders can never be entirely independent. Those who would manipulate the majority  psychologically have only to brainwash them by making them believe they aren’t safe listening to anyone but them. Then those citizens unwittingly become puppets—collaborators, complicit in the destruction of nations and cultures. Manipulators feel free to lie and they’re brilliant at it.

I just finished reading the well written fictional thriller STATE OF TERROR by Louise Penny and former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, combining smoothly honed writing skills with experience in international intrigue. I didn’t have to complete many pages before I realized that intelligence, courage, and loyalty to the good of all are necessary components of our real-life safety. Running a country is an extremely dangerous game of multi-level chess. The leaders of other nations, including those we may think of as enemies, are often extremely clever, perhaps hoping our leaders are not. Like our international allies, we the people are utterly dependent on wise leaders. Without them, we can be the ones huddled in bombed-out buildings, eating and drinking whatever we can find while others feast. We only wish it weren’t possible for us to be without safety, but ultimately we must earn what we want to live. We earn safety as we earn freedom. Like the little girl alone on a deserted road, we must learn to watch our backs.