I hope nobody else does this kind of thing regularly.

I’m a klutz. Klutz is not quite the right word. Some in my family would say disaster or catastrophe, at least when it comes to handling physical objects. By physical objects I mean breakable things and anything that can bend, crush, shatter, disintegrate, rupture or explode. I’m out of verbs.

So now I have a garden, or budding garden (no pun intended). The last time I planted a garden was in 1974, unless you count a few patio plants. Unknowingly, then, I planted a garden big enough to feed six families.  I was one person and everybody else had a garden too. Think bushels of unconsumed produce.

This garden in our home in North Carolina is about the right size (I do learn from my disasters). And because North Carolina has moderate weather and regular rain, there’s a high probability that tomatoes, cantaloupes, peppers, onions, and squash will grow. But so far I have only rows of fragile plantings, although they are doing well, I think.

So when I got word of a freeze on Wednesday night, with specific advice to cover my baby plants with pots, buckets, boxes, or anything I could find, I decided, on a poorly reckoned whim, to take out a bunch of my glass bowls to flip over the most vulnerable plants. For the requisite four minutes it took to gather them, it seemed like a good plan: solid, waterproof, insulating covers until Thursday’s mid-day sun rings the “all-clear.”

Except, being the not-very-good-with-breakable-things person I am, I carried too many down the deck stairs, lost my hold, jostled them trying to set them down in the dirt, and, boom, my favorite vintage Pyrex mixing bowl shattered.

Now if you’re thinking I had no business bringing that special bowl out in the first place—or any of these bowls—you are right. And did I know that? Of course I knew that. The cadence in my head the whole time I gathered them was “Carol, this is not a good idea. Carol, this is not a good idea.”

Perhaps you never do such ill-advised things. Hopefully you always listen to the smart, moderating counsel inside of your head—those spinning words that, otherwise, you will wish you had heeded.

Staring at the shattered shards I nearly cried. Except this was a bowl, and with all that’s going on in the world now, do you cry about a bowl?

What I do want to cry about, though, is the failings of our human nature. In this case, it is my stubborn human nature that doesn’t listen to my own good counsel.

But a darker side of human nature is unleashing itself across our society as people attack each other on social media in ways that are scarily reminiscent of eras we’d hoped never to revisit.

I am not speaking solely about the crudity and viciousness of today’s political discourse. That’s an abomination, one of those phenomena where I think “I’m glad my parents are not alive to see all this.” Political viciousness has always existed. The present levels are unconscionable and probably beyond repair at this point (sorry to be a pessimist).

No, I’m talking about the spread of such viciousness to places that ordinarily are benign venues: specifically neighborhood sites like Nextdoor.com.

Neighborhood groups, the traditional ones and the new ones on-line, are intended for positive purposes. They exist to ask about a plumber or restaurant, to seek a specific piece of furniture, to find a lost dog, or to clear up confusion about when bulky items will be picked up by the city. I love neighborhood groups. Once, back in Texas I asked our Nextdoor.com community if anyone wanted to sell an old globe—something nicer than available in today’s stores. I got responses from several neighbors, with the first person three blocks over offering us a gorgeous vintage globe on a wooden stand gratis! They were downsizing and happy to get rid of it, and we were ecstatic to get it.

But right now, groups like Nextdoor.com are degenerating into forums for unbridled nastiness. Far too many people are shattering breakable things (good will, mutual trust, mutual cooperation, and much-needed encouragement). I suspect these indignant folks sense what damage will be done, yet they do not listen to the moderating counsel in their heads, so they race full-steam ahead with their emotional reactions.

If you’ve read extensively about the way ideological poison infects society, or lived in Communist countries (I have), or spent time in regions ravaged by the damage of Communism or similar oppressive systems where “inter-personal relationships” are manipulated by open and hidden agents like the Stasi or the KGB (I have), then you know why even a hint of this type of social interaction chills a person.

This is not an America I know. It saddens me and worries me deeply. I refer not to legitimate, if controversial issues like racial inequity or institutional corruption that always need threshing out. I refer to a neighbor (admittedly bored, cooped up, but still) looking out the window and counting whether one member of an already large family talking near the fence with a member of another large family next door could be standing only 5’ apart, rather than 6’, so the police receive a report of a gathering of more than ten people and a violation of social distancing. I wish I were joking.

I refer to a situation where a thoughtful neighbor alerted others online that a few people might beep their horns (from their own cars, on the street) between 2 p.m. and 2:30 p.m. to wish her 5-year old son a happy birthday. She wanted to apologize in advance if people heard beeping. Someone else on the neighborhood site brought the police into the situation, who came to say those well-wishers could not drive by and beep their horns. The family would be cited if they did. Happy Birthday, son.

Yes, there are things worth telling the authorities. Worrisome things. Drastic things. Always. I could make a list and so could you. Would these same virtuous neighbors report domestic violence they know goes on next door? Or child neglect and hunger? But, hey, people do not want to get involved, right? It’s none of their business.

Over time I hope those who were safe in their houses, derailed by a sense of panic or with too much time on their hands, might reevaluate their actions and the destructiveness of their verbiage and apologize. They know better. They do.

It’s not the same story as me knowing I should not have carried all those glass bowls. But listening to the moderating voice of our own good counsel is needed right now to keep our communities from shattering.