I lost my temper the other day. I used a couple of bad words in public. I have apologized, but the incident has troubled me since.

In the past, I have managed to keep my cool under extremely trying circumstances, and to make reasoned responses to completely unreasonable, even deeply offensive people. Once in a while I lose it and say something I should not. It is not that my opinion is wrong—at least not always—but that my approach, my words are wrong.

There really is not excuse for that.

This morning on the beach, I shared my distress with a neighbor and she was quick to offer me excuses, mostly having to do with stress. “We are all so stressed,” she said.

Yes, I would agree with that.

One of the essays I used to share with my students concerned civility. The author contrasts the offenses upon civility as noted by the right, and then a slightly different list of offenses identified by the left. All concerned offenses on common courtesy and decency. In the middle of the essay, the author asks of himself: “What do I think?” He thinks they are both absolutely correct, but then he goes on to identify his own take on civility.

Civility is more than words and one-on-one actions. Civility is how we regard others as individual members of the greater community. Is crude language offensive? Is bragging about casual sex offensive? Both likely are to most. What about lies and exploitation, taking over a business only to dismantle it and putting people out of work in the process? How about ridiculing a person with a health problem? What about the family of a soldier? The soldier? People struggling to make ends meet? Saying whatever will draw cheers at a rally, even to the point of advocating violence?

There was a time when a decent member of either party would have found all those behaviors deplorable.

What happened?

Why am I losing sleep over an f-bomb spoken in the heat of the moment, when our leader with speech-writers at his disposal chooses to speak as if he were leading a Klan rally instead of my country?

Does anyone believe that man ever loses sleep over anything but his personal bank account?

Well, maybe that is unfair.

This morning I saw a tiny shrew, dead on the sand a hundred yards out from the shore. Poor little thing. It knows to eat insects. It knows to hide from predators. It was completely unmarked.

Four raven fed on the most recently dead seal. The other day the body—now more gone than remaining to be eaten—had been dragged a few feet across the sand. No human or dog footprints. I suggested maybe an eagle had tried to lift it.

“It’s too heavy for an eagle to lift.”

“Exactly.”