First of all, I don’t remember the lead singer of Nena being so attractive. Her name, by the way, is also Nena. She’s Nena and the band is named Nena. I don’t think it is an accident. Still, though, I don’t remember her being so attractive. We did not talk about that much when the song came out. We talked more about how deep the message was and about how we were so cool because we liked the song in German before the English version came out. We didn’t really understand it in German of course, but we got the point: the world could end in nuclear Armageddon at any minute and for no reason.
At the time, that seemed true. Somewhere around 1984, I came into the realization that this could happen. We talked about it sometime, and it was the reality we grew up with. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, I thought about how the kids would grow up without having to live under that constant fear. I think they did for a few years. Maybe the whole Clinton administration. That ended for sure in 2001.
The threat of terrorist attack has never felt quite the same to me. Maybe that’s because ICBMs had already been the thing that, if I really thought about them, I would not have left the house ever again. Somehow we all have to come to terms with the extraordinary fragility of the things we rely on for their permanence. The very Earth itself, for instance.
Today Louisa heard that some climate scientists fear that our planet may become uninhabitable in the next decade. I don’t know if that means we won’t be able to live here by Superbowl LVII or if this particular creek will be filled with point source pollution and we will be without a paddle. In any event, it’s scary stuff for a ten year old, and Louisa was rightly scared. That knowledge of life’s fragility is something I would have liked to have shielded her from.
Except that I don’t want to. I want her to know how precious life is, how precious she is. I also want her to know that she can make her way in the world despite the fear that it might all fall apart, mostly because it has all held together. At least up to this point. I know what I believe about why that’s so. My daughter should have the chance to choose what she believes. She can’t do that all walled up in a garden of my parental good intentions. Anyway, there’s always something big and red hanging around to break up the illusion.