On Life and Living

A note before getting into the thick of it; what is happening in Minneapolis, Maine, and other areas of the country at the hands of ICE and Border Patrol agents is sick and inhumane. There are many places to donate but Voces De La Frontera is a local organization in Milwaukee, Wisconsin doing all they can to help immigrants. If you can, please donate funds there.

January; how you come in with so much hope but somehow turn out to be the coldest and longest month out of the year. January has been incredibly busy for me. It’s been a month of thinking things will hopefully calm down to being slapped in the face with the reality that bad things don’t stop happening just because it is -50 degrees Fahrenheit out with the windchill.

With a week left of the month I filled my “memories” page of my Leuchtturm 1917 dot grid journal. That’s how busy it’s been. It’s been filled with birthday celebrations for my oldest who turned 6 only a few days after Renee Good was murdered in Minneapolis. And today I have to attend a pool party at the Y for one of her friends.

It’s been a month of figuring out how to explain why Mom and Dad are so upset to an almost 4 year old and a 6 year old. It’s been a month of wondering if dumbing any of this down will have negative impacts or if I’m only furthering their anxiety of the world at large. It’s been a month of no illnesses after the flu hit my youngest the first weekend of winter break - somehow the rest of us were ok (thanks to masking and disinfecting like mad).

It’s been a month of school being canceled due to the cold. Living in my thrifted LL Bean down parka because of subzero windchills. Immersing myself in books and realizing that I don’t want to track data anymore in apps so instead I’ve taken to writing them in the “notes” section of my hobonichi weeks similarly to how I track the weather monthly.

In other words, it’s been a hard month to navigate. It’s been a month of playing lots of Animal Crossing Pocket Camp (I finally updated ACNH last weekend but since re-starting my island on accident I haven’t hit 3 stars to get the hotel yet, maybe that needs 5 stars) ingesting as much news as I can tolerate without wanting to throw something at a wall. I’m sure this isn’t an “only me” experience. I’m aware many are angry as well right now and we need to harness that anger into action. It’s a mental mind fuck to be sitting in a house, fully paid off, safe, warm, and watching “Dog Man” with both kids snuggled next to me while others are being ripped from their families without legal reason. Also recognizing that I live within the 100 mile border zone (which many in Wisconsin think is a joke and do not recognize Lake Michigan as international waters when our own federal gov’t views Lake Michigan as such) which means that rights are a little different here and could make it easier for Border Patrol and the FBI to unlawfully arrest and deport someone.

It’s been a month of texting friends and replying with “I hate it here”. I don’t though, but I have hated what we’ve become synonymous with as a country. I recognize the systems of imperialist oppression have always been here, but now they cannot be ignored any longer, they are in our face. The brazenness and wrongness that many people are blindly following is disheartening. I do not know how we can ever come together again as a country. I’ve already cut off a good part of my Dad’s side of the family after his death from COVID complications and things said after that about COVID, but it’s become even fewer people on my Dad’s side I talk to due to their politics and who they support and the policies they proudly support.

It’s been a hard month for me, but I cannot imagine that it’s been any easier for anyone else.

Let’s find some glimmers of hope and joy. It’s the only way we continue.