Much too busy these days; being distracted by things that matter from things that matter.

On the island of Floreana, one of the Galapagos group, in 1939, a family of Germans — the Wittmers — lived. They had come in 1932 and in 7 years had created a family of five and a small sustainable farm and home. Everything they needed they created or grew, picked or slaughtered. Not liking what little they knew of Hitler they nevertheless were Germans and were worried about country, their parents and siblings under the bombs in Cologne and in London. And yet their lives were spent, day in and day out, in making –literally– their living, Margret the author of her memoir titled Floreana, making soap out of animal fat, Rolf the five year old herding and fishing, Heinz the father digging and cultivating and hunting. The news, and their fears, arrived irregularly with drops of accumulated letters and newspapers from passing ships or aircraft.

I feel like Margert Wittmeyer from time to time; perhaps we all do — living, in many respects, on our own individual islands far from mainstream America, not enthralled or caught up in television or catalog sales or weekends at the mall, and feeling that this country we love and friends, acquaintances and family are living close to danger, if not imminent at least proximate, feeling like we could or should be doing something, or something more, to pull the country back from the brink, or at least help people escape, yet pressed so hard by the necessary that we don’t have enough time, or energy, or wealth, to act beyond our own short reach. We know the danger threatening our wider families and yet we turn our attention to the matters near to hand. The Wittmers were lucky: the war did not take their children; the bombs in Europe only made their families homeless, not cadavers. No one, of course, likes the current odds.