News these days has been gnawing, like the squirrel on her deck steps, at her peace

Unexpectedly, a rascally squirrel taught me my resilience is solid. First, though, some context.

When life is overwhelming, we have the option of calming ourselves with the old classics. We can “big picture” our situations and ask, “Will this matter in five years? Let’s count our blessings, shall we?”

I’m thinking about this because, even if every day could be all cheery and chipper like the opening scenes of the 1998 movie,“The Truman Show,” there might still be a strange backdrop percolating. If you haven’t seen the flick, it’s about an orphan who is adopted by a television studio. He’s unknowingly living in a fake dome of a world that TV viewers outside have been watching since his infancy. Every person in his life is an actor. Even the weather is a special effect.

For me, my backdrop is not the simulated town Truman Burbank unwittingly inhabits. It’s the actual world. It’s the news. I was raised to be acutely aware of both my own script and the big picture. When I have stressful days, which have been on the uptick, I desperately want that big picture out there to be boring. Predictable. Solid. As dull as an annual report for an accounting firm. We have the opposite of that now.

I want to go back to days when TV news folks had to scrounge around the streets to deliver a lineup of compelling stories. And often they would end up defaulting to painfully long updates about this or that panda at this or that zoo. Because pandas, and traffic delays, were often pretty much it.

I remember that sweet, mostly dull era because it overlapped the time I worked for a TV network affiliate in another city. (Ages ago.) One of my tasks during sweeps was to pop into the newsroom and ask, “Watcha got?” Then I would write radio “teases” for the 10 p.m. newscast: “Panda shaped pothole causes major traffic jam. We’ll tell you where at 10.” Those were the days.

I want more pandas. I want to be mentally square dancing with pandas. Please let me be bored to death with scenes of these silly bears sitting on a pile of dirt, nibbling on bamboo shoots. That’s the news I want.

I’m noticing there’s no such thing as doom scrolling any more. It’s doom tapping. Just tap your phone, and there it is, another horrific event or baffling development. No digging around is needed.

Which brings me back to the squirrels.

One recent extra-stressful Monday, I stepped out on my back deck. It was that early February day that gave us a surprising taste of spring after our arctic January. When I finally found a moment to breathe in that rare dose of false spring, a cold front swept in. I was miffed that it was the first chance I could step outside to feel the warmth, but it was blowing away in real time. As if on cue. A Truman Burbank moment.

Before I could shake my fist at the sky, a burst of cold air blew a plastic lid off my deck table. I went down the steps to retrieve it. Upon my return, I noticed the thing I didn’t need to see. A squirrel had been chewing on our relatively new and overpriced nature-proof deck. We once spotted this rascal in the act, but apparently, he returned for many more encores.

I was surprised I didn’t melt down at that moment, given the context of, well, everything. I have strong reserves. Who knew? Handy trait.

I guess I was thankful that this time, the problem was not in my attic. Trust me: There’s nothing like having an insulation peppered pest control guy standing in your foyer chatting away, gesturing with a mummified squirrel in his bare hand as if that’s a normal thing to do. But nothing is normal right now.

Today it seems for every innocent panda, there are 1,000 destructive squirrels sharpening their teeth on the wrong things. We need to change this ratio. Let’s figure out how.

Reach Denise Snodell at stripmalltree@gmail.com

This story was originally published February 12, 2025 at 5:00 AM.