continuity

I did not have any big resolutions for the year.

And truly, I'm at a point where I want to move through the world with ease and empathy rather than trying to upgrade myself into some model of efficiency... 

If anything, I think I do too much and hold myself to standards only I care about.

This year, I will let myself be playful and curious rather than serious.

Pic: EM's post dinner photo of Nu reading to Max and Huck. Nu was home briefly this weekend to see Hadestown with us. They are reading from a book called Bedtime Stories for Dogs. JN had it sent to me from Thrift Books because I'd told her I was reading to Max and Huck. The book cost all of $1.29, but tells me how rich I am in friendship. 

back to life

January is gone. It was cruel. 

It was a clusterfuck. 

Or to put it more politely, in a word I learned this year, it was a polycrisis, overwhelmed by bad news and hemmed in by uncertainty. It's not surprising that I kept trying to start and restart and kept failing. It felt like some part of me already knew... But finding out from last semester's class notes that this was the week (Week 5) when I headed home for the funeral was the slow-motion gut punch on repeat I did not need. 

But I'm here, so once more into the breach, I guess. 

Adam Serwer's piece in The Atlantic, had this absolutely remarkable passage I cannot stop rereading: "The secret fear of the morally depraved is that virtue is actually common, and that they’re the ones who are alone. In Minnesota, all of the ideological cornerstones of MAGA have been proved false at once. Minnesotans, not the armed thugs of ICE and the Border Patrol, are brave. Minnesotans have shown that their community is socially cohesive—because of its diversity and not in spite of it. Minnesotans have found and loved one another in a world atomized by social media, where empty men have tried to fill their lonely soul with lies about their own inherent superiority. Minnesotans have preserved everything worthwhile about “Western civilization,” while armed brutes try to tear it down by force." SO much yes!

And Tressie McMillan Cottom says about political exhaustion that sometimes it's not retreat and rest one needs but actually action and connection. That "sometimes we're not exhausted because we're aware of too much, we are exhausted because we're doing too little." The antidote, she says is to get involved, as "people who feel agentic aren't as tired." This is something for me to remember.

Pic: Baker Woods with L. I feel like the trees are nodding their wise heads over me. 

down and then a recharge

I spent Friday night in the E.R. with Nu (so thankful they're ok now), and there was another fatal ICE shooting in Minneapolis. 

My brain is fried, my heart is sore. 

Friday's meetings got shifted online due to the weather, so I absolutely did not have driving to the E.R. at 2 am in -20 degree weather with my car barely 50% charged in my plans. I made it with 8 miles left on the battery. But I found a charger in town and recharged.

I got a heart recharge too with bestie KB too. She spent two days here and I heard about her adventures marching with her fellow Minneapolitans, we talked our hearts out, and I have plans to see her again later this week, so it's not goodbye yet. 

Pic: Timeline cleanse. Huck, Max, and K. It was Max's first time meeting K, and he was all over her. 

Minneapolis goodness

What a day! Labor and faith groups led a general strike in Minneapolis--thousands upon thousands marched, hundreds of small businesses closed for the day. It was just inspiring to see streets full of people braving subzero temperatures demanding ICE get out of their city. It really revitalized my faith in people power.

Over 600 faith leaders from all over the country showed up, and I saw pictures of them on social media protesting at the airport trying to shut things down so deportation flights couldn't take off. 

Another good thing out of Minneapolis--Bestie KB is coming for a visit this weekend! I hope her flight out of MPLS is able to take off!

Pic from In These Times.

babies as bait

What are we doing?

Why is a literal five-year-old in ICE custody? Why has been taken from Minneapolis to San Antonio? Why not hand him over to CPS in his home state? 

School officials say he's being "used as bait" to trap members of his family. I can't get over that thought or terminology. It feels like my heart is being shredded.

Pic: Liam Conejo Ramos with his pre-K Spiderman backpack and his floppy-eared hat, and a middle name that I keep translating to "bunny rabbit," and a little face that looks like he's trying so hard not to cry even as he's dwarfed by a huge van and a portly ICE goon.

Is this the criminal ICE claims they're getting off the streets? Do we all feel safer now?

love so ordinary

you have to shut your eyes to see it

that's when the day goes dark
running like a scar seaming 

into something close

I stop, blind as a person in a photo

coming to the raised edge 

of spectacle to gather 

you, mother

from vast violet evenings to say

goodnight, knowing I will 

endure--or at least see

you in the morning 

___________

Pic: Squirrels on the MSU campus... honestly, they seemed monkey-sized!

some warm thoughts on a frigid day

So far this year, the kid from Chicago has visited once and the college kid has spent two weekends at home. I squeezed them every chance I got. Not only did they squeeze me back, they're prone to special things like doing my chores for me when I'm not paying attention and bringing me treats when I'm working. They're consistently the best.

It's painful doing video calls with my dad and sis... because from my side of things, my mom's absence is so plain. It's difficult also because my mom was the chatty one on that side, the one with whom I shared books and shows, and now it's just the three of us being sad. 

My mom was so very chatty. I always laugh when I think of that one time At was on a phone call with my mom (maybe when At was 9/10 years old). At had been silent on the call for a while, so I whispered encouragement to say something, and At shot back, "I'm still waiting for Ammama to stop talking." Haha. Good times. 
______________________
Pic: A glimpse of The Maple River. Cold. It's going to stay in the single digits all week.

if meaning is made of anything

the air feels full of fussy messages 

from the future

every black pebble I gather whispers

reminders for later 

how easily your attention slips away

--a dancer in the crowd

multiplying me with mute mystery 

until I exist

for you might say the book is complete 

but I have a feeling 

I'll still imagine there are places inside 

where I can color it

____________

Pic: Max and Huck ready at the treat jar. We used to try to get them to ring the bell for service, but that didn't take.

a good reason to cry

Grief has a calendar. People have been telling me that it'll take a year at a minimum. And that other things like crying daily will change. I did not believe this to be possible, but it happened--I no longer cry every day. Even my weird nausea has mostly abated without medical assistance. I'm now in a new phase where it is "How have you been?" from someone I haven't seen in a while that makes me cry--because the last time I saw them, things were likely very different.

But this past week, I had a very good reason to cry. A non-binary elementary school music teacher was recently hired in the small rural school district to the north of us. Things were going well until there was the usual hate and outrage about kids needing to learn "non traditional pronouns" etc. At the public hearing, as a student relayed it, all this was shared in detail by two very vocal people. And then... over 70 teachers, students, parents, members of the community spoke up in support of the teacher. The school supervisor had always been supportive, but the Board could see in real time how much the community did not want to give in to hate. Here's something of a live report. I'm glad to have a "good" reason to cry.

Pic: Another amaryllis blooming: this is one I bought myself a couple of years ago from the $3 discount bin.

the three lessons

while I make myself legible to the world

my body, who has only one owner 

is learning to rebel 

someone holds the book, another gets to ask 

the question and I learn to answer 

without making things up

I am not a child, haven't been one for years

you teach me my past tense, I learn how

to bear being human 

________________________

Pic: Today's sunset along the Red Cedar. Late afternoon walk with Big A. 

public sightings

1) At the MFA student reading yesterday, I was reminded of the many things that are right in the world. Young people are creating poems and stories and journals to host other people's poems and stories and brave voices are finding themselves and amplifying other's voices (one poet read Renee Good's poem). I especially loved seeing old student CW's new work. 

2) JN took me to a drag show on Wednesday (I blew off grief group to go), and I met my first Drag King, Prince Marsallis. I love Prince, so the name in itself was a delight.

3) FYI, If I was out in public and you yelled out “pedophile protector” I would not think you were talking to me because I’m not a pedophile protector. I've decided that I'm going to use this to introduce interpellation in the Critical Theory class.

4) Aw! Someone tipped me off that on a new webpage titled "Best Decision Ever" that asks students why they love the college, a student had named me, saying,  "I’ve never met someone so passionate and caring for students."(I love my students and I'm glad they can tell.)

Pic: From the Jim Daniels reading last week. He's an alum of the college, taught here (before my time), gave the commencement speech at At's graduation, and teaches in the MFA program, but yesterday was the first time I was actually introduced to him. He then proceeded to talk my ear off (I didn't mind at all).

making my own sunshine

Wow the first weeks of 2026... I saw a meme where someone said they didn't like the "trial run" of 2026 and wanted a "refund." I concur. 

I expected a magical reset, but have found myself absolutely scuttled by... sadness? reality? the news? I don't even know anymore. But I miss my daily writing practice. If I'm going to be sad every day, could I at least not suffer from sameness?

Yesterday was Pongal, my favorite reset to the new year, but it was so grey and dreary, there wasn't even a glimpse of the sun. I guess I'll have to make my own sunshine this year. 

But here's last year's picture of a dancing Huck and a sonnet, plus the prep and lead up and the Pongal before that.  

Pic: Amaryllis (a gift from O.M.) blooming profusely and boldly like orbs in their own solar system.

still on this

I am so sad the last words she may have heard as she died were "Fuckin' Bitch." I wonder how many women have heard those very words because someone felt enraged that their perceived power wasn't being obeyed and deferred to.

Pic: Lansing protest in honor of Renee Nicole Good. 

Her name was Good

Today was a day... especially for checking up on my Minneapolis people. It has been so heavy lately. There was the middle-of-the night shooting of Rep. Hortman, her spouse, and Gilbert and then the daytime Annunciation school shooting. This morning on a residential street, ICE randomly shot 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good in the head and did not allow her any medical assistance (they threatened the physician who offered to provide medical assistance with a gun); she died. What are you supposed to do when masked goons with no ID surround your car? If they're shooting white people now, the fascism has really escalated. 

She was a human being. She was there as an observer. She was innocent (if that matters). She was a citizen (if that matters). She was a parent. Her six-year-old's father died in 2023, so this child is truly orphaned. 

Renee Nicole (Macklin) Good was a poet. She won a prize for this poem.