A Blog of Personal Thoughts

Peace or War

September 2025

I sit outdoors on Douglas Island with my cup of tea looking across the Gastineau Channel at Juneau and the mountains behind it. In a month the tops will have termination dust, the dusting that indicates the termination of summer. A private plane flies by carrying wealthy tourists from Outside. When I go home to Gustavus in 10 days, I will be more remote. My view from my deck is of the thick spruce forest. I must look up or go down to the beach to see the sky and the 360-degree circle of mountains that surround our town. Yet I know another world exists.

It was a quieter world 275 years ago before the Industrial Age began, globally quieter because wars were regional. People did not know what went on 50 or 500 miles away or across an ocean. Thanks to the progress of the Industrial Age and its levels of increased communication, we can know what occurs in a smallest village or large city or country across oceans and continents. We are almost too informed and yet the benefits in ease of daily living, education, medicine, and other sciences are great also.

When I write something for a Personal Blog, I want to stay from society’s pain. I want to write something personal and positive, something about the world in which I live—a remote part of anywhere but in my case, Alaska. Perhaps the remote part is also of peace of mind. This month is different. News of the world, local and broader, impinges on my life.

Thirty and forty years ago, I thought in 300 years the United States would have such a discrepancy in wealth that we would have our own Russian Revolution, but it seems very close now, just a few years away. The seeds are sown. Many wealthy people lock themselves in gated communities or buy remote islands for vacations. People kill children in schools.

I spent 20 years being principal of three public schools before I retired. Yes, we had our problems and our threats of violence and damages to people and property. I never had a shooting at any of my schools, threats, yes, but no shootings. My family and I had threats to our lives, but more on that in my next Flashbacks blog.

Today the stress across the world is terrifying. What keeps us from World War III? Perhaps we are aware we could destroy ourselves enough that we’d throw us back to the annihilation of over 75% of the planet when the asteroid hit the Yucatan Peninsula 65 million years ago and the dinosaurs and much else died. I have three grandchildren. I can only hope a good world survives for them and their families and friends.

It is the stress across the world—starvation and war in Sudan, Gaza, Ukraine, schoolchildren and adults shot in the United States and elsewhere. Why? If someone is so angry at anything, at the world, at their own past, take your own life. (I can’t believe I said that.) Do not take children and adults with you. I say this as a person who works to prevent suicide from occurring. The stress across the world is increasing. It affects the physiology and functioning of those in the middle of war. These are unbelievable stresses I’ve never had to endure. Still, war and anger affects the functioning of those of us far away from it.

I was a child during World War II. As a family, we listened to the news on the radio. I recollect at the very young ages of 2, 3, and 4 listening to these horrors. I was young enough I got D-Day mixed up with V-E Day. I was old enough, a mere 4-years-old, when the USS Indianapolis sank in the Pacific and it was days and nights before the radio reported it. Why? Because the ship was on radio silence. It was later when military men found people floating in the Pacific. The USS Indianapolis sank July 30, 1945, 80 years ago day before yesterday. Of the 1,197 crew, 316 survived. About 300 died amidship in the explosion of torpedoes. Over 600 died floating in the Pacific after the cruiser sank. Why do I remember that specific? I had just turned four and the family sat in the den, I in my father’s lap, and listened to the tragedy of those lost and the incredible recovery of some. I think I could not fathom floating in the ocean for four hot days or the black five cold nights. I tried but could not imagine one such night. I snuggled into the warmth and safety of my father as he and I sat next to the radio.

Why do we do this to one another? Why do we do such horrors to our soldiers, our children at home and school, people living their own mild lives, to ourselves? I fail to comprehend such anger, search for power, such aggression towards others. I think I’ll always remain a teacher. Perhaps my purpose now is not only to educate children, but to educate all of us for a more peaceful and calmer place to live.

Girl at a beach. I want the world to live in peace.

What can bring peace to an individual?

1. Five minutes of quiet time each day
2. Meditation
3. A walk in the woods, on the beach, in a museum, by a lake or stream
4. A kind word to another person, even a stranger, or perhaps especially a stranger
5. A smile to another person, even a stranger, or perhaps especially a stranger
6. Calming music, anything from new age, a favorite vocalist, to classical
7. A sit on a bench even in a noisy city and watching people walk by
8. The absence of the cell phone while watching people
9. Close the computer and watch the wind blow grass or tree leaves
10. Listen to silence
11. Enjoy the company of a friend

I was in New York City in late October 2001. I had every intention of not going to see the horror of the World Trade Center. I woke Friday morning, made a spontaneous decision, and told Letty I was going. I remember as I visited the site the smell of metal, dead bodies, concrete, and the extinguished fire all at the same time. How could I smell four different smells at one time, but I did. I left in distress and anger. I intended to take the subway to my friend’s house. I walked past the first station and then the second. My steps had my New York City rapid pace to them. Another woman next to me did the same. We began to talk. Neither of us had ever seen City Hall and we had to figure out was this beautiful white building was. We kept walking. We got to Spring Street and kept walking. I don’t remember what we said or where we parted, but we’d arrived somewhere in the Lower Village. I continued past 14th Street, 16th Street where my friend lived. I was at 23rd or 30th Street before I turned to head west and back down to 16th Street, finally calm enough to return to my friend’s apartment, calmed after a 4-mile walk in the city.

The remains of New York’s World Trade Center.