Yesterday I went downtown for the first time in weeks.
I knew the Government Center, above, had been barricaded with concrete, chain link, and barbed-wire for the trial of Chauvin for the murder of George Floyd. Seeing it was something else though.
I felt thumped with the sense of being inside History As She Is Made.
I knew the Government Center, above, had been barricaded with concrete, chain link, and barbed-wire for the trial of Chauvin for the murder of George Floyd. Seeing it was something else though.
I felt thumped with the sense of being inside History As She Is Made.
BELOW: Signs stay up for a brief time before they get taken down.
The above sign is clear. "The whole damn system is guilty as hell."
The below sign, above the toilet, is confusing.
I mean, what's a foreign object, where toilets are concerned? Usually that means menstrual pads and tampons, but since those are "hygienic products", is it really okay to flush them in this toilet?
With another pustulous white boy going on a murder rampage, killing Asian American women this time, I mostly felt numb, with just a muffled sense of horror getting through, like thunder in the far distance.
I went to get take-out at a downtown coffee shop Penny's––Penny Cooper's favorite––and it had closed.
And that's when I felt a flood of grief and loss and fear, and rage at our stupidity.
Sometimes the feelings come only with the smaller, more digestible events.
Weirdly, my afternoon out ended on a happy note.
I dropped off neighborhood coffee-shop gift cards to the librarians in my newly reopened branch library.
They seemed very pleased.
In an emotionally remote way, I'm pleased too.
You can't sit in the library, of course, but you can go in and browse, and also RETURN YOUR OVERDUE BOOKS. After a year.
No fines.
Sometimes we get things right.
You can't sit in the library, of course, but you can go in and browse, and also RETURN YOUR OVERDUE BOOKS. After a year.
No fines.
Sometimes we get things right.
