Notes from Minneapolis
No, it’s not better yet.
The continued presence of ice, guns, abductions, violence, and potential violence is taking its toll. January felt like a year. We’re limping. Stopping is not an option. Slowing doesn’t seem to be either. We are getting hyper local—choosing families and city blocks and organizations to support. We feel the news cycle moving on. We do not want to get used to this. We do not want this to be our new normal. We know we can’t sustain this. We cannot see the end. We are doing the next right thing, one day at a time, like driving at night in the fog.
*
I got a group text asking if I wanted to buy some gelatina from a woman the texter knows who can’t leave her house to work. I asked if I could just Venmo her some money without buying anything. The texter said I could add extra money to my payment, but that work brings dignity, and this woman afraid to leave her home misses working. So, I did just that.
*
A man who owns a successful plumbing business told me one of his documented workers of color was followed by ice agents while driving a work van. The owner did research into what it could mean to have his business and his vehicles under surveillance by ice, and it shook him. He immediately got new plates for that van and implemented more safety measures for all of his staff. He is working with school social workers to offer free services to folks who can’t work and need it.
*
A fellow yogi who has the biggest heart I’ve ever seen told me he can’t cry lately. He watched a sad movie on purpose and still couldn’t cry. He works with vulnerable kids who are deeply affected by ice’s presence in our city. He has calcified his heart to hold it together for them. Even when he is safe at home, he can’t seem to let the bottom drop out to grieve.
I told him one of my tools has been tricking my body, coming at my grief sideways. I put on a song that is a light, fun, guilty pleasure, and dancing to it gets my body moving and feelings flowing, which sometimes unlocks the damn so anger, sadness, and fear can flow out of me and keep me unstuck.
The other day I was editing a colleague’s essay on the importance of citations. I did not expect it to move me. It was so surprisingly beautiful I started crying. I cried and cried and cried.
*
A man who patrols and observes daily in his neighborhood is starting to get recognized by ice. On a Saturday morning, while answering calls from his neighborhood dispatcher, he got followed by multiple ice vehicles. Not thinking straight for obvious reasons, he took a bad turn and ended up on side roads made very thin by snowbanks and cars parked on either side of the road. He kept looking for other pedestrians and witnesses to signal to, but he found himself alone and vulnerable.
“I felt like a mouse caught in a cat’s maze,” he said. “I was just waiting for a vehicle to cut me off from the front and trap me. I’d be done for. I thought to myself, ‘This is it. This could be the end.’ And then I thought, ‘Well at least all these vehicles are busy following me instead of abducting other people.’”
This is math we do not want to do.
ice wanted to scare him, and it worked.
He had previously planned to have fellow comrades over that night to eat soup that night. He can’t remember making it. There are hours of that Saturday he can’t recall. But he does remember eating the soup and realizing how poorly he had been eating and taking care of himself. He does remember folks gathering, how they felt a little guilty to pause and let others take a turn on the streets. And he remembers how much it—the soup and the safe gathering-- nourished him.
Another day soon after while out patrolling, he stopped into a store to pick up food and ended up behind a man and his teenage son in the check-out line. They were buying raw ingredients in gigantic quantities.
“I normally wouldn’t say anything to this guy,” he admitted. “He looked like a stereotypical suburban bro. Kind of an asshole. Not my kind of guy. But he was buying so much food, so I pointed out the obvious saying, ‘Making a huge meal?’ and the guy answered quietly, ‘No, we’re just gonna give it to folks who need it and let them decide for themselves what they want to cook.’”
The young cashier perked up then, and the teenage boy engaged, too. At the end of the conversation the dad looked my friend in the eye and said, “We’re not going to let those f*ckers win, are we?”
He smiled and shook his head. “F*ck no. No, we are not.”
*
A friend got in a car accident. A friend got diagnosed with cancer. A friend had a miscarriage. A friend is navigating a nasty divorce. A friend’s grandma is dying, which is bringing up grief about her dad’s death. Before ice came in and occupied our city it was already too much. There is so much suffering in the world. So much of it we have no control over. We are fallible. We are mortal. Time is fleeting. It’s tragic. This added, urgent, violent, avoidable suffering is abhorrent. The community’s organization, creativity, resolve, and endurance are remarkable and inspiring. And we are ready for the release valve.
*
Two Minnesota friends came with me to Ames, Iowa to see a third friend and go to two of my book events for FAIR GAME. The city is one of a few blue havens in the red state. It was so delightfully quiet. Anti-ice without the ice. The three of us hadn’t realized the depth of what ice’s occupation of our city had done to our nervous systems until we walked around the streets of Ames soaking up the sun. We noticed our vigilance because in Ames it could drop away. We noticed how our muscles had been clinging when in Ames we could soften.
We hear it might be shifting. We will believe it when we see it, when we feel it. And that doesn’t mean it is over.
One Tiny Thing That Feels Scary to Say to Documented Citizens in Minneapolis During This Hellscape but I Have Said Because I Believe it is True and Macro Overwhelm is Dealt with in Micro Shifts and also Embodied People are Harder for the Systems to Control
So many people in my Minneapolis circles are noticing neck pain. So much of our community organizing and mutual aid is happening on our phones. It is fast and seems constant. Doomscrolling also happens on our phones. And so often the body posture of looking at your phone is curling your shoulders around your heart and jutting your chin forward. This posture is hard on your neck. It asks smaller muscles to over function and get fatigued. This is a metaphor for the whole damn thing. Stay in alignment and distribute the work. Pulling into your center isn’t pulling away, it is showing up to community as aligned and resourced as possible.
Here are a few things you can do to bring balance and relieve neck fatigue:
1. Get flat on your back on a couch or bed. Let your head hang off the end for five minutes. Unclench your jaw and soften your tongue. Let your teeth fall away from each other. The weight of your head will provide some light traction and gently reintroduce the curvature of your neck.
2. As often as you can, be mindful of your posture. Gently reach the crown of your head toward the sky and pull your chin back toward your throat an inch, feeling the back of your neck lengthen. Trust the strength of your skeleton when it is in alignment, distributing the work to the bigger muscle groups.
3. Drink water. Take a hot shower. Get a massage. Unclench when you can.
4. Stand against the wall and notice if you are jutting your chin forward. Pull back into alignment until the back of your head is gently touching the wall.
5. Put your phone down and go outside for five minutes. Look all the way up to the sky. Take a deep breath. Begin again.