TOMORROW BELONGS TO ME

The sun on the meadow is summery warm,
The stag in the forest runs free;
The heart as a shelter defies the storm,
Tomorrow belongs to me.

The branch of the linden is leafy and green,
The rage has deserted the sea;
The world holds promise that shines unseen,
Tomorrow belongs to me.

The babe in his cradle is soundly asleep,
The blossom embraces the bee;
And love, like a valley, lies wide and deep,
Tomorrow belongs to me,
Tomorrow belongs to me.

The words of this song, Tomorrow Belongs to Me, written by Fred Ebb and John Kander for the musical Cabaret, have recently moved me like nothing else. Perhaps it is because I have, like so many, been deeply depressed about the situation in world, most especially about the appalling oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The permanently imprinted image of oil spewing endlessly into the habitat of one of our most biologically diverse bodies of water affects not just my visual sense, but also impacts my entire body. It makes me feel ill. I can hardly bare to watch it, though it is hard to avoid since it is shown continually on most news shows.

This event has been called by our president (and others) “the worst environmental disaster America has ever faced,” though a recent story in the New York Times questions that pronouncement. There have been other horrendous happenings which we tend to forget. One is the Dust Bowl of the 1930s. Just as this spill seems to have taken place because of a lack of proper safety procedures, the Dust Bowl occurred due to poor farming practices and lack of good stewardship over our earth. Farmers in the early 1900s heedlessly removed most of the prairie grasses which helped hold much needed moisture. When a severe drought occurred in the 1930s, the soil, with nothing to hold it down, swirled into massive storms, obliterating everything in its path, choking livestock, and causing serious respiratory illnesses in those exposed to the dust. It is reported that by 1940 more than two million people had left their homes in the Great Plains States. The effects of the Dust Bowl lasted for more than ten years.

We do not know yet the extent of the disaster in the Gulf region—how many humans and animals and how much aquatic life will be affected, either directly due to toxic exposure to the oil, or indirectly due to economic deprivation because of the destruction of fishing grounds and loss of income from tourist trade and other business failures. It seems certain that the effects of this monstrous spill will be around for a very long time.

And yet I find that putting this event into historic perspective gives me some hope. One advantage of living a long time—eighty-plus years in my case—is that one does get a deeper sense of the resiliency of our earth and its people. I do not mean to diminish the suffering of those individuals whose lives have been upended by this oil spill, any more than I deny the upheaval and misery of those families caught up in the Dust Bowl, but it is somehow reassuring to know that our country and our planet have endured countless disasters, and our species has demonstrated over and over again that we can survive seemingly overwhelming threats. Life does go on.

So, I find some comfort in the words of this song. I like the idea that tomorrow belongs to me, that I can find something of hope, and beauty, and love if I choose to focus on those thoughts. I am especially touched by the last verse of the song, since it refers to “the babe in his cradle.” As you all know, in the fall our family will welcome a new baby, my first great-grandchild. I wish to feel that this child—to be named Noah, like the Biblical Noah who saw a newly refreshed world after the flood—will be born into a world that, in spite of its catastrophes, finds a way to right itself—a world that “holds promise that shines unseen” and that he will find reason to embrace his life with joy and optimism. It is my hope that he will know “summery warm,” the “leafy and green” of the trees and many other pleasures of life, family, and nature. Of one thing I am absolutely certain: that our Noah will always be aware that from his family “love, like a valley, lies wide and deep.”