Proof of Life
The tuning fork of children’s laughter
“I love this world,
but not for its answers.
And I wish good luck to the owl,
whatever its name –
and I wish great welcome to the snow,
whatever its severe and comfortless
and beautiful meaning.”
~Mary Oliver
I started the day today feeling heavy and a bit at a loss for words. When I went to sleep last night, the news was filled with headlines of the shooting at Brown University. As has been widely reported at this point, for at least two Brown students this was the second school shooting they’ve now survived. Zoe Weissman was a student at Westglades Middle School, which is located right next to Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, during the Parkland shooting. The other Brown student, Mia Tretta, was shot in the abdomen in 2019 at the Saugus High School shooting in California. As Zoe Weissman noted in an interview with NBC News, it is likely to become increasingly common for there to be people like her, who have not only survived one mass shooting, but been witness to multiple shootings.
When I woke up this morning, stories of the shooting at Brown had been joined by news of a second deadly shooting, just hours later, targeting a Chanukah celebration at Bondi Beach in Australia. It seems this shooting was carried out by a father and son together, which feels especially tragic somehow. The one note of hope worth holding onto in this awful story was the heroic actions of Ahmed al-Ahmed, a Muslim father of two, who disarmed one of the shooters, taking a tremendous personal risk to protect others.
Each time these events occur, particularly those at schools, I find myself wondering about the utility of writing about them again and again. On the one hand, I’ve written so many times already about the unnecessary fear that children and teachers carry into school and compartmentalize every day just to learn. I can’t help but wonder what else there is to say and what the impact could possibly be of yet another plea to take the lives of children at least as seriously as the right to carry a lethal weapon. If so many children in caskets have not been enough to move us to greater action, what more could I possibly say? But I also fear the day we stop writing about these incidents. We’re already too numb, but if we stop describing the pain and fear of these losses, it must only be because we’ve finally taken sufficient action to significantly prevent them, not that we’ve given up on that possibility altogether or decided that nothing we say or do will matter.
And yet, it gets harder to find new words each time. So this morning, instead of sitting down to write, I took my heavy heart out into the New York snow. I went looking for joyful children sledding and building snowmen. I went looking for dogs playing in the snow. I went looking for peaceful wooded paths. And I trusted that this would give me something new to say tonight.
Those who know me well know that I have an almost obsessive love of snow. Perhaps it comes from an internal longing for my midwestern roots. Or maybe it’s the way snow fundamentally changes the tenor of the city, bringing a lightness and a sense of calm to the otherwise gritty, noisy streets. Whatever the reason, snowy days bring me as close as I come to reinhabiting the spirit of childhood. Snow covered branches, bundled children sliding down hills, and birds fluffed against the wind always bring me a renewed sense of clarity. So off I went, leaving my writing for later.
Today’s snow was the first of the season in New York and on a Sunday, no less. So the hills of Central Park were filled with snow-suited children, and there was a giddiness even to the adults, not yet weary of winter. I passed by a man who, as I walked by, was exclaiming to someone on the phone, “The kiddos are all out sledding and there’s cute dogs playing everywhere!” Two teenage girls had brought a giant bin and were in the midst of building an impressive snow fort. And, when I passed by Belvedere Castle, the wind kicked up creating a fresh dusting, while music drifted through the air along with the snow, carried from somewhere else in the park. There are occasionally days in New York that actually do feel like the movie version of the city and this was one.
Turn the volume up and listen for the music (and the birds)
At one point, I stood for a few moments watching children gleefully slide down a hill in the distance, while another child, closer to me, added the finishing details to a snowman—snowballs held in its tree-branch arms, a snowman having a snowball fight. As I watched these children play, I thought about Zoe Weissman and Mia Tretta locked down in the midst of a school shooting yesterday for the second time in each of their lives. I thought about the fact that at least one of the victims at Bondi Beach was as young as ten. I thought about all the children who will go to school tomorrow morning, including my own child, and do their best not to think about why they have to practice hiding and barricading their classroom doors so often.
The snow didn’t distract me from these heavier realities, but I hadn’t really meant it to. I’d left this morning looking for clarity and for something to counter the feeling of futility that these events provoke, not to forget. I once heard a poet describe a crying baby as “a tuning fork for the world.” We ought to hear children’s tears this way. If we did, surely we would do much more to protect them from violence. But children’s laughter is also a tuning fork. It’s proof of life and a reminder of all that’s worth protecting.
We can’t afford to distract ourselves or to simply tune out the sadness and fear, accepting its inevitability. But I think the sustenance that helps us carry on and continue to find new words and new solutions can only be found in learning to hold these two tuning forks at the same time, one in each hand—the laughter of children delighting in ordinary joys and the fears of children, who wonder when they might need to put their training to use, pushing chairs and desks against a locked door and hiding in dark, predetermined corners. Holding these two realities at the same time and viewing them side by side is, I think, the only way to fully comprehend the stakes while refusing to give up. Laughter keeps cynicism and numbness at bay, because how could we possibly turn away when the joy of playing in the first snow of winter and of so many winters to come is on the line for every child?
So, here I am, back at my desk after a day out in the snow, asking that you listen to both the laughter and the tears of children with me—that you hear their harmony and keep working toward a world that shifts the balance of notes more and more in the direction of their giggles.
Wishing you the pleasure of joining children in their delights and the courage to protect them,
Alicia
P.S. I'm planning to take the next two weeks off from sending notes. Wishing you a new year filled with light and hope. I'll see you back here in January.
A few things I found helpful and hopeful this week…
- While the shooting in Australia may warrant a renewed look at their gun laws, it is not evidence that their existing restrictions, which have long been an international model are not effective. Mass shootings in Australia remain extremely rare, particularly when compared to the U.S.
- Gen Z is defying authoritarianism globally with joy and whimsy!
- Forest preschools transform children's health and mitigate pollution
- Transgender and nonbinary youth, whose pronouns are respected, are less likely to attempt suicide
More from Notes on Hope...
Below are a few other notes I've written about gun violence and children, several of which include resources on taking action and on supporting children.
- We Shouldn't Need to be Heroes
- Raising Citizens
- Everything We Do Builds the Future
- Raising Gentle Angry People
