Michael has decided to go by "Mike." At his preschool, the teacher had written on a board the names of several of the kids. There was a Michael K, and further down a "Mike".

Later, going to the car, he told me about it. He added that some of his friends were still calling him Michael.

***

My thoughts have been preoccupied with the Virginia Tech killings, though I don't really have anything coherent to add to the pages of available commentary. So the perpetrator was a psychological train wreck, an isolated, uncommunicative and hostile person, possibly schizophrenic. The thing I wonder about is how he might have been helped – where, in the course of his development, did things go so badly awry? Who could have intervened, and when? Were there things that should have been done that weren't, or vice versa?

The factors that some have cited – loneliness, paranoia, immaturity, self-absorption, romantic failure, social humiliation, inability to understand consequences, indifference to the suffering of others, attraction to gun culture and violent fantasy – are present in many young people (and, frequently enough, older people). But they are usually not present to such an extreme degree. Most people also, along the way, find social support to moderate their loneliness. Or, even if socially unskilled, they are able to take refuge in an activity that sustains them – art, religion, career goals or a vocation, or just something they do particularly well.

Instead, we have a 23-year-old male who could not establish relationships or have an impact on people other than puzzling and scaring them. A person with no capacity to deal with the social environment of college, thrust into the laissez-faire environment that college happens to be. A person whose few efforts to communicate just came across as bizarre. A person who stalked women. His mom asking his roommate to "help him". And finally, a shooter trying to kill as much of the world as he could.

***

(Passing the physics lab on the way home from pre-school): "Is there a Space Shuttle here?"
"Ah, no, the space shuttle isn't here. They do research here."
(Pause)
"What are those...telescopes doing?"
"They're radio telescopes. They use them to study space."
"Why?"
"Ah...well, because, this is a science lab.. (Pause) Mama works here."
"Why?"
"That's mama's job. She studies space."
"Why?"
"Well, ah...because she is interested in space. She's a scientist."
(Pause)
"I...I am interestingted in space too."

***

"When the big car is dirty, we can take it to the car wash again."
"We can."
After some thought: "Xiaoxi didn't like the car wash."
"No, she didn't, did she."
"Maybe next time, we might don't take Xiaoxi to the car wash."
"Ok, yes."
"Little babies don't like the car wash."
"Right. Because it's noisy and there's water flying around."
"But boys and girls, who are not grownups but they are big kids,
aren't scared by the car wash."
"You're not scared by the car wash."
"Yeah. Because I'm getting bigger. Next time, I will be seven."

***

The cherry blossom festival began yesterday. We decided to go early, since last year we were too late and missed the blossoms.

It was very crowded, yet the atmosphere was not tense or unpleasant, even with all those people. The sight of the blossoming trees -- the dark, knobby trunks contrasting so strikingly with the delicate white flowers -- is deeply moving. You almost can't help feeling tranquil and happy.

The trees circle the Tidal Basin, and many of the flowering branches lean down to the water, while pairs of ducks swim by and, farther out, families pedal around in boats. Young couples are everywhere, stopping to take photos of each other. A woman is photographing her friend, urges her to climb up into the branches. "Go on! Climb up! Like a monkey!"

There are five of us: me, my wife, my mother-in-law, almost four-year-old Michael, and Heidi, who is fast asleep.

As we're walking along, I notice a monk in orange robes is behind me, talking animatedly with another young man in plain clothes. I listen attentively, trying to figure out what language they are speaking. Maybe Vietnamese...

Then they switch to English, and I realize they are talking about Michael, who is perched on my shoulders making loud "meow meow" noises.