I'm not here to talk about guns.

And I'm not here to talk about failed security measures. I'm here to talk about nests.

When something like Florida happens and something like Westerville, OH happens (which happens to be the tight-knit community where my alma mater is nestled), there is definitely a need to talk. It's just that I don't want to talk about the stuff of lawmaking or the stuff of breakdowns in safety protocol.

For now - at least - what I want to talk about is nests.

We have had a lot of them in our home recently. 

Since we moved in to our house, we've had a mouse problem. They would come and they would go with seasonal changes. And, despite significant cash being blown on varmint control services, the sneaky little devils found ways to enter, visiting for short whiles to crunch up some crumbs (PLENTIFUL HERE), and exit at their own free will. This past Fall, we did some remodeling to our kitchen. Knowing that their main entry point from outside was behind the existing 1950s cabinets meant that I WAS A MADWOMAN about having our contractor patch... patch...and then patch some more the walls once the old cabinets went Bye-Bye. Seriously... a mad woman. Lots of boards, plaster, foamy stuff, then more boards, plaster, and foamy stuff... Lowe's loved us. And, better yet, it worked! Our house was like Fort-freakin-Knox. 

Except that then we had a couple rogue furry friends trapped inside Fort-freakin-Knox. 

How do I know this? 

When a mousy has no home to return to in its natural outside environment, mousy makes one. When Tricia stumbles upon it (say: in her scarf and hat basket), he skitters out, makes a mental note not to return to that territory and then proceeds to scout out a spot for another one (say: in one of the kids' drawers of trinkets) and so on. 

You get the idea: Mice need nests. 

Fast forward to now. We finally found and captured our two little mouse inhabitants after awhile and all was peaceful and nest-less in our home.

Then, this week, our 5 yr old forgets to secure the little door clasp on his hamster cage one evening and the next morning... no Harry the Hamster. 

I'll go ahead and spoil this story by telling you that there is no happy ending for his owner: Harry is still lost (sad for Anderson), likely doing trapeze routines from one 2x4 to another in the inner structure of our home (happy for Harry). But while, in the first few days, we were still fervently on the hunt to uncover Harry's whereabouts, the first thing I told Anderson was that we were looking for clues other than a siting of the small, furry critter itself. Fresh off of the newly acquired Mice-Behavior-Crash-Course I said, "The very first thing an animal knows to do when it is newly in an environment is to make itself a home - a nest - to serve as his safe place." I then described the string and shredded paper and fuzz and carpet threads to be on the look-out for that might compose a hamster home.

As I said, no dice.

But when I listened to my unscripted description of animal homemaking instincts, I instantly realized that one could replace "animal" with "person." 

We humans are built to need nests. To need shelter. To need home. 

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs teaches us it's at the top of the list... We seek physical safety and protection above all else.

Yes yes. A physical nest is a requirement.

There's a another kind of nest that I argue is right up there with sticks and feathers and yarn and 2x4s and shingles. Our particular brand of animal - our human species - requires the social and emotional nest just as desperately. (You knew I was gonna do that whole figurative thing, didn't you?)

Where do you find your social and emotional nest? I go to mine to contemplate and to process and to disagree and to cry and to giggle and to drink and to gain perspective and to gripe and to get on soapboxes and to be humored and to be put in my place and to be listened to. I go to mine to feel loved, to feel sane, to feel safe, to feel my realest of real selves. I get the willy nillies even contemplating a life where my social/emotional nest doesn't exist. Actually, to get real with you, I get nauseous in my belly.

And, so here's what I want to talk about.

Why are so many people lost? Why are so many people hurting and confused and rage-filled and desperate and deranged and perspective-crushed and hollow and disassociated and isolated and departed-from-wholeness and... back to the crux of it... LOST?

Why are so many people eating next to us and driving next to us and grocery shopping next to us and working at the desk next to us and living next to us and coming home to a home every night like the rest of us... yet without a nest?

Why are so many socially and emotionally homeless? 

And how are we not seeing it?

Guns - the place they have in American society as it stands now - are a problem. Security measures, particularly in schools, have room for improvement.

But today I want to talk about healing people. And the most on-the-ground way I can think to do that in my I'm-a-normal-person way is to look around. Put on my sensitivity goggles and look through those lenses so hard that the socially homeless...the emotionally bankrupt...the "nestless".... do not go unnoticed or untended to. At least not by me.

But I can't do it alone.

As American society rebounds from our cultural abandonment of the work of intentional nest-making, I hope fleets of people will be on this same lookout... I hope that we will return to believing that we belong to each other, that we are in this together. I hope that at some point nestlessness will be not only a rare thing, but a forgotten epidemic altogether... something in our distant memory. That there will be not one soul left shivering in a dark corner, hungry and alone and scared. And by that point, I would hope that guns and safety and the work of dodging worst-case scenarios would not need to be talked about at all.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* Know that I know there are reasons bigger than social isolation which bring people to a deranged state. I omitted diagnosable mental health from this conversation on purpose... In part, because I think the two are connected... those with mental illness know best the experience of being disenfranchised from social nests - sometimes by choice, sometimes not. The other part of the reason I left mental health out is because it's so damn complicated and, admittedly, above my pay grade. But know that I know that it is there and it is big.

* Know that I care deeply about the very things I didn't want to talk about today: legislature to change gun laws and protocol to keep our kids and police officers safe during the day. I do not intend to come off as flippant or "above" those very real issues. I just didn't want to talk about them today. (Maybe tomorrow.)

* I can't. I just can't. That's the reason this entry positions itself a distance away from the anguish and heartbrokenness of the actual events I cited. I don't get close enough to it in my writing to do what I've been doing for the past 5 days: crumble and cry. For those of you directly connected to these deaths, my heavy heart sits with you in your grief.