Love & Linden

I wrote this first on my typewriter as a stream of consciousness process just to get some words and feelings out. When sentences started gelling into something somewhat coherent, I decided it was shareable…and so, greetings to you all. I hope this reaches you with warmth and courage in your heart. <3

The last light of the day is filling all available spaces with a rich rose gold. I’m preparing to paint my bedroom floor a mix of purple and pink, aka “DAHLIA” and “KISMET”, and a Sky Blue in the kitchen. That clear, early afternoon, axis-point blue. The blue of my soul if my soul were a color. Looking to the sky is its own relief, and I’m grateful that someone dear to me suggested I could give all these wrestling mental calculations and heavy feelings more SPACE to settle and untangle themselves.

Earlier this week I thought I miiight be dying — my mind and the medical internet locked in a not-unprecedented dance of doom. However, I’m obviously still here and as it turns out, what I was feeling was not a medical emergency, it was more than likely my old friend anxiety, showing up in a different outfit than usual.

So now I am sipping some linden tea. An ancient folk medicine, known to calm the heart. I read somewhere once that one “cannot tell a lie” while standing under a Linden tree. Lopsided, heart-shaped leaves and clusters of yellow flowers, and strong, sturdy trunks — a sentinel of them formed the border around my grandma’s apartment building. She died the day after Christmas, and not long after I’d packed up and left, I learned that the lindens had been torn out — making way for the construction of a new apartment building. Before, the trees encircled a green swath of manicured grass where I would sometimes do my witchy movements and prayers before going to bed at night, or run laps to get my blood flowing for the day. I stood out there on several nights hoping to catch a glimpse of the northern lights (sadly the street lights were too competitive) and once I peeled a way from a dismal battle scene in an evening screening of War and Peace to gasp at a midsummer rainbow, illuminated with the grace of another rose colored sky.

Today, a friend and I were talking about linden and they described that its essence felt like being visited by angels — angels appearing at your back.

I think now of how I would lean my back against these trees, and touch their bark, and breathe into them. That space is gone now. What was once there, no longer is. So much has happened in the last few weeks. Lives transformed, trees uprooted, community members stolen by the government.

There’s something about the container of an old self no longer fitting. A storm of chaos, a branch torn from limb, an octopus growing her tentacle back from scratch — only to dissolve herself completely a few months later into thousands of offspring.

A shell that used to contain something is now just a container, because there is nothing left to contain. A new shape must be taken.

The morning my grandma died, I cradled her head in my hands and wept. I could see that she was free, with a look on her face of surprised relief, realizing she had figured something out. Sitting with her afterwards, as her skin cooled and blood became static, it was clear that this body was a vessel that had served its purpose. She was no longer in there, and there was nothing left to cling to, but I held her hand anyway as we all sat and absorbed the moment. We washed and anointed her body, thanking her lungs for all the air she’d exchanged with the world, her throat for carrying so many kind and funny sentiments, her hands, arms, and shoulders for all the babies they’d held, the card games played, peonies planted, and Lefsa formed and flattened. Her hips for bearing 4 children, her belly for digesting all the food she’d savored as long as she possibly could. Her feet, her legs, her eyelashes, her fingernails.

We lit candles, said a few prayers, and sometime around 8am toasted her with glasses of wine. My dad went to the store to get supplies for a pancake breakfast. My aunt called the funeral home to schedule a time later that morning to pick up her body for cremation. Life continued on, rearranging itself around this freshly emerging void.

I left Minnesota a few days before Renee Good was murdered. A heaping platter of emotions. Numbness & detachment. Shock — though not surprise. Fear, anxiety, grief, heartbreak. And deep inspiration, pride, and activation as I’m moved to tears daily seeing the multitude of ways that people are standing up and showing up (in -20 temps) to protect each other.

One of the hardest things for my grandma to let go of in the last few weeks of her life was her “banning project”. After the devastating shooting at the Annunciation Catholic Church in August, she “got a bee in her bonnet” and took it upon herself to talk with everyone she knew about taking collective action to ban assault weapons and protecting students from gun violence. She would wake up between 2 and 4am, have breakfast while reading her Bible, and then get to work drafting letters to her state representatives, the NRA, the National Teacher’s Association, local and state newspapers. She had us help her make a Facebook account so she could share her thoughts there as well. She instigated conversations with her friends and family about the topic and saved every relevant newspaper clipping in a folder in her kitchen.

Her message was that we all have to take responsibility for our country, for our world. She realized, “even though I’m in Hospice, I’m not powerless. I can do something.”

In one of our last family conversations she asked us to “keep this thing going”. “You all still have to do the work to make the world better. You can do it, even with lil trumpy boy.” (a direct quote)

My grandma also said to me once, “if you’re feeling anxious, do something to help someone else.” I’m profoundly proud to be her grand-daughter and to be an auxiliary Minnesotan. I can only imagine what she would say, and what she would think about what’s been happening. As I refill my linden tea, I picture her as that angel at my back, and at the back of so many who are sacrificing so much in service to justice and human decency, for LOVE. It is clear that this is a story much bigger than just Minneapolis — it’s about all of us, about our whole world, people yearning to be free, to be whole, to be healthy and loved and have the opportunity to live lives that are rooted in connection and reciprocity with all of life. Something deep is changing in the world and within me / us. I truly believe that we have the power to create our world, and that it’s something we have to do together. I ask that you consider joining me tomorrow (Friday Jan 30) in participating in the National Shutdown (No Work, No School, No Shopping) in support of the people of Minneapolis (and all of us really).

Other info —

This link has a comprehensive list of organizations & people on the front lines to support, and to help families that are sheltering in place to pay their rent. Also, I have a friend who has been buying food for families that don’t feel safe to leave their homes. If you’d like to contribute to her grocery fund, please get in touch with me!

Check out this list of corporations to BOYCOTT longterm !!

The congressional switchboard # to call your reps and ask that they OPPOSE any further funding to ICE: (202) 224-3121Colorado Rapid Response Network and other orgs like States at the Core and Freedom Trainers offer trainings and resources for supporting your local community and neighborhoods and building strong networks.

thank you, as always, for reading.
with love and angels at our backs,
Rachel