A Life Divided
and some things that made me smile this week
On Sunday, I go to book club and then spend the afternoon watching football on the couch, tucked into my coziest blanket. At halftime, I check the new app on my phone and there are over 50 messages. Plans are being made, volunteer shifts to sign up for, reminders to be careful, people asking if anyone will need hand warmers on their school patrol shifts.
On Monday, I take my daughter and one of her friends with me to a church across the river. I give a password at the door and we spend the next few hours helping assemble hundreds of first aid kits for passing out at protests, complete with instructions about what to do if you get tear gassed. We work alongside families, young couples, a high ranking executive from a Fortune 500 company, a lovely elderly lady and her pink haired granddaughter.
Tuesday morning, I leave a quiet house for work. The kids are both still sleeping, school has been cancelled for the next two days so teachers have the chance to prep for the start of optional virtual learning for students who don’t feel safe trying to get to school anymore. Later that afternoon, I text my daughter a “good luck” message. Even though school is cancelled, she still has a Nordic ski meet because this is still Minnesota in the winter.
On Wednesday, my babies are safely at home when I see the first pictures of Liam Adrian Conejo Ramos, and I want to set the world on fire. It doesn’t take long for the lies to start, that ICE tried to give Liam to his mother but that she refused to take him. I imagine how his mother probably helped him pick out his Spiderman backpack before he started pre-K this summer and how she probably made sure he had his cozy blue hat before he left for school that morning. Only someone who believes that brown people don’t love their children like white people do could fall for the lie that a mother would literally leave her child in the cold, alone with men with guns.
Thursday I text a friend that even during the fall of the Roman empire, they still had to figure out dinner. My kids are back at school for what turns out to be their one day of school for the week. With wind chills expected to be at or near -35 at school bus times, the district sends out a cancel message. Several of my friends are relived now - their kids can participate in the general strike on Friday without having to decide if they should ditch school or not. I’m still not sure what to make for dinner. I have laundry to put away. Someone calls me a bitch on Facebook again for calling out Christians who are pro-life but deadly silent when it comes to lives like Liam’s. A friend, a clergy member, posts on Facebook that she got fired from her church job because of a post she made decrying ICE tactics.
On Friday, I don’t go to the protest. I’m not afraid of the cold (over a decade in Minnesota and hand and foot warmers purchased in bulk from Costco would have made it cold but doable), but a condition of one of my volunteer gigs is that I don’t go to protests, out of an abundance of caution that my face or license plate isn’t recorded for tracking later on. I spend most of the day working on a research project for work but stop to take an anonymous call about a family that needs immediate aid this weekend. I get the information and reach out to the family, hoping they’ll trust me enough to let me help.
Friday night I’m on Threads and it feels less doomscrolly than usual. There is so much love for Minnesota and I’m so proud of my state for putting on such a massive display of activism and the ability to layer in cold weather. I think that there is really nothing you can’t accomplish with a good coat from Land’s End and a way to keep your hands warm. I make my to do list for the weekend, I put my daughter’s hair in twists before she goes to bed so she’ll be ready for soccer practice in the morning, I floss my teeth. I wonder if today was a turning point.
I sleep in on Saturday and wake to the news that ICE has murdered another man and I wonder how this will all end. My son is the team manager for the school hockey team and he rushes from soccer practice to leave for a hockey game. I watch him put on his coat and give him the new standard Minnesota goodbye: “I love you, stay safe”. I pay some bills and learn the name Alex Jeffrey Pretti and that he was a nurse at the VA center where one of my dear friends works.
There is a new calculous to life in Minnesota right now: how far away was your house from the shooting, the place where the baby got tear gassed, the store where ICE agents dragged an innocent teenager screaming from his job, leaving him bruised, cold, and alone once they finally released him? How many people do you know who were at the Target that got raided? Was it the Speedway you drive past to go to work where they almost killed the man or was it the one closer to your church?
I didn’t plan to write another post this week about Minnesota but I’m not sure how to write about anything else after today. My life is such a combination of the mundane and surreal and, unfortunately for any of you who have stuck it through to the end of this post, I can only really try to make sense of it through writing. I am a life and a brain divided right now, and I wish I could see to the end of this but I just can’t yet.
I love you, stay safe.
***
There were some things that made me smile this week or at least offered a much needed moment of distraction or two:
“I Am the Payroll Accountant for Professional Protestors in Minnesota, and I am Swamped”. John Moe, you are a treasure.
This guy is totally gonna win a photography ribbon at the State Fair this summer
This thread on, well, Threads, made me giggle.
FACTS
I’m always grateful when people are willing to talk openly about financial stuff, so was fascinated by this look into what an author really made on her, by all measures, successful first book. I’ll tell you what… this makes me feel better about my book buying habits!
This house is a DELIGHT
Enjoyed this new Netflix series and am hoping for a second season. This is a brisk three episodes and the actress who plays Bundle (yes, the character is named Bundle) is really well cast
Don’t stop writing about Minnesota. We are with you so deeply. It feels insane to live the mundane and global yet here we are. But we are not alone. 💜
The crop art version of that photo will also win awards. Thanks for the post. I needed it today.