It is cold again. We are wondering, why do we live in Minnesota? Shall we stay? Sometimes we need convincing. Sometimes not. Some days the literary vitality in this town is enough.
Uprisings!
People are arising
All over this land.
The holidays keep piling up. I think most of us survived Valentine’s Day, and we do not even have to turn the page to get into that traditionally festive mood for President’s Day.
For most of my life, I have felt like a fish out of water on Valentine’s Day. First grade logistics that had a Valentine for each classmate from every other classmate addressed and placed in cereal boxes still seems to be the best way to handle the holiday.
I spent last month with a lot of books. Too many books! I know a lot of you are saying, how could there be too many books? I have several answers for that query that fit today’s context and many others, but they are all hard to reconcile with my bookseller past and pack-rat pathology.
I watched the State of the Union address with my father on Tuesday at an undisclosed location. (Not with the cabinet member who had the “football,” and I am not disclosing only because it was someplace other than Saint Paul.)
Even though the Saint Paul Winter Carnival is creeping up on us, our atmosphere is making its march toward spring. How is this? The calendar still says “January.”
The “blue wall” is the impervious police/military state that brings destruction and injustice. Recently, we have seen resistance to the violence of the blue wall in the United States through the Black Lives Matter movement springing forth in Ferguson, New York, Oakland, and other places across the country.
I’m looking for a winter escape. I am not a snowbird, nor am I likely to find the space for a sunny vacation in an alternative climate. Alternative states of mind and heart are easily at hand.
I always like to think about the fun one could have around the late 1960s. We could dance the night away. The clubs you could go to if you wanted to dress up or dress down.
Even though it seems like the economy has gone through the wrong tunnel, we as a community have to keep going through the right tunnel. We come together as one, to a place where everyone can pitch in and get something in return.
Skin flakes like the brown earth.
The grass, each small and singular strand,
lies listless, without hope.
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