"A Man Was Lynched Today"

Another tough day today. I'm in tears and so tired as I write this. 

This morning on my way to work, I heard on "Michigan Minute" that today marked Michigan's last death penalty in 1830. Stephen Simmons was guilty, but his final address was so moving that it led "Michigan to become the first English-speaking government to abolish capital punishment." It made me proud to hear that, and it felt like a good sign. 

I didn't sleep at all last night. (Max and Huckie were delighted I spent all night with them, Big A was mad, and if the timestamp on some of my internet comments seems weird, this is why.) 

My mother would say I was importing other people's troubles into my life. And I guess that's true in a way, but also isn't that the point of being human? I'd never heard of Marcellus Khalifah Williams until about ten days ago when the Innocence Project and the NAACP began bruiting the news that this innocent person was about to be executed by the state of Missouri despite evidence of innocence, lack of DNA proof, prosecutor's admission of racial bias, and dissent from the victim's family. The death penalty is always a human rights violation, but unspeakably evil when it executes innocent people.  Even the prosecuting attorney filed a motion to vacate Mr. Williams's conviction. But the M.O. Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court both failed to stay his execution. M.O. Governor Parsons (who previously pardoned the racist couple who brandished guns at BLM protestors) received over 1.5 million petitions to pardon Mr. Williams in addition to calls, emails, and faxes, (including some of mine over the past week). But he merely disconnected his office phones and allowed Marcellus Williams to be executed at 6 pm central time today. 

The title of today's post comes from the title of NAACP's statement after Mr. Williams's execution; it is in turn based on their iconic, anti-lynching "A Man Was Lynched Yesterday" flag.

Pic: This is the poem Marcellus Khalifah Williams wrote recently about the children of Palestine. How humane it is to be at death's door oneself and express solidarity and love for others... It reminds me of how in 2020, in the wake of the George Floyd protests, the Palestinian people would tweet all the way from across the world, sending BLM protestors tips on how to avoid/recover from tear gas based on their own experiences. I love when we support each other... Some day I hope we will all be free. In the meantime, we must hold our democracy accountable. I noticed today that the Democratic Party, which previously opposed the death penalty, seems to have quietly removed that part from their 2024 platform. That's where I'm going to start. Tomorrow. 

birthdays, bookstores...

I got to bed before midnight most days this week--progress! 

I did stay up well past midnight by accident last night, but it was just as well because I got to wish my dad in India a Happy Birthday bright and early. (It's also Chairman Fred Hampton's birthday and Mary Shelley's birthday, so he's in a very special club.) He didn't put his hearing aids in, so we didn't talk for very long though.

At the end of the first week of classes, things are going well (I think). I already know everyone's names--that's kinda my superpower so far. And the older I get, the more adorable I find my students... it was so cute when one of them made up a song to remember how to spell my name. 

It's also EM's birthday and the birthday of the independent bookstore in town so I stopped to pick up some book gifts and was gifted in turn with a lovely heart-to-heart with D.D. who still ministers to my soul although she no longer works as a pastor. 

Pic: My sister (with whom my parents live) sent me this pic of dad at breakfast and it made me miss my dad extra: our old hours-long conversations, his smiley face the way it was.

watermelon and chocolate chip

Story 1: I'm embarrassed to admit this, but when the term "watermelon people" was used online last week, I bristled because I thought it was an anti-black slur. Apparently, it's anti-Palestinian. I'm bristling.

Story 2: Today I saw our new theater director standing by themselves in the cafeteria and as I started to introduce myself, she told me she remembered being introduced to me in the parking lot when she had her campus visit. We ended up having lunch together and while we were saying goodbye I marveled that she remembered me from that one interaction all those months ago (March? April?). And she laughingly said, "Oh, I remember you, Chocolate chip!" LOL. She's a person of color too, and we are a PWI. 

Pic: The beautiful watermelon earrings Rev. KPB gave me this morning!

six on Sunday

1. The girlfriends and I were supposed to see It Ends With Us this weekend. I'd even persevered through the book with its weird use of language.  (Although I've since learned that the author didn't get to go to college and has written several novels anyway--so you go, Colleen Hoover!) But all the mean girl drama around the movie's release soured it for me. So I bailed and then everyone else bailed as well. NGL, I really wasn't looking forward to seeing DV enacted on the big screen.

2. Wouldn't you know it, as women began to call for justice, instead of demanding justice alongside them, Indian men got all defensive and started to protest that it was "not all men." The awesome comeback has been "perhaps not all men, but it is ALWAYS men." Word.

3. We got a new mattress and when we were cutting it out of its plastic packaging this morning, I accidentally nicked it with the box cutter. I apologized so much... and Big A was so... magnanimous telling me not to worry about it. Later as we set it up, I realized his side had three or four nicks. Dude!? Why didn't you say something? 

4. There was a Not Another Bomb gathering this afternoon downtown calling for an arms embargo. I think there would have been more people there if not for the rain. There is an online petition circulating as well.

5. I thought I'd use the summer to fix my broken sleep habits, but I've been going to bed later and later and usually at 4 am. It'll be a relief to revert to going to bed at 2 am now that I'm back to work tomorrow. And as LV just texted to say, "Nerdy admission of the day: I’m kinda excited to see everyone tomorrow." Same!!

6. Pic: LB wanted to try my Evening in India menu, so I scooped a couple of tablespoons of each dish into the tiny jars I bought long ago for food prep but never got around to using. And then all 12 jars nestled perfectly in the crate my tomatoes came home in. I just feel so happy about how this turned out.

"cruel optimism"

My problem with the meds reminded me of Lauren Berlant's cruel optimism--in that, the thing that I was doing to make myself feel better was actually making me feel worse.

I gave myself the day off from editing to hang out with At. We're down to one car (because of our fender bender a couple of weeks ago) and Big A needed it to go give a talk in Ann Arbor, so I took a Lyft to At's place, and then At and I rode the bus everywhere. 

I got my pre-semester haircut, and then we went thrifting and hung out drinking tea and talking about what we'd read. I've put Andrea Long Chu's Females on my to-read list. I think it's a book meant to be disagreed with (meant to be disagreeable?) but it's very short. I had to chuckle at At's current playlist, which had the theme from The Battle of Algiers in honor of Imane Kheleif's Olympic victory and lawsuit. As Imani Gandy said, I hope she gets that "wizard money."

Big A picked me up from At's and we got home just as Nu got home from "kickstart" where they'd gotten their picture ID and senior year schedule. Max and Huckie were relieved to see everyone again and it reminded me that those poor babies have NO IDEA that school starts up next week...

Pic: At and me at the bus stop! We got there way too early for the bus because I was anxious we'd miss it. (Can I say... I'm glad At is so skilled at navigating Lansing's public transit system and that Lansing has such good public transit for such a small city, but also that it makes me sad to think of At waiting for the bus especially when the weather is bad. We've offered to buy another car after they totaled the car we gave them (as has my mom), but At's refused, and it's probably safer all around. But still...)

joy ride

for E.M.

our car crawls through I-96 

and idle light

we race through conversations

wondering 

at coincidence and serendipity

of finding the exit 

for "Baldwin Street" just as we 

gush about 

James Baldwin's centenary  

or of seeing 

"Dayton Freight" just as we were

discussing 

a time at the University of Dayton

So... now fired up

by our "power to manifest" 

we tidy up earth--  

call out all we want: world peace,

an election landslide,

an end to poverty... and billionaires,

humane higher ed...

It's as if we believe in the madness

in ourselves

as we believe in the hopeful darkness 

cradling stars

___________________

Pic: The Red Cedar through the grille on the Spartan Bridge.

you probably *should* read this

Bestie KB wrote a novel and it arrived in the mail today. 

Nu had a sleepover last night, went to the Mint Festival in the afternoon, and then watched a movie at someone else's place in the evening--was basically gone all day--so I curled up with Huck and Max and read KB's book from cover to cover... it is so, so good. I know all our friends are reading it with bated breath to see if we show up... luckily, we don't (with one satirical exception, IMO).

Pic. I took this photo when my copies arrived. I posed KB's work with that other Minneapolis treasure... and I think there's a reference to "Raspberry Beret" on page 229 just for me.

you probably shouldn't read this

you probably shouldn't read this     I've said it all before        I get through another day          it piles up and becomes a life         what can be said       you've seen it all yourself       another school was bombed today in Gaza         Al Tabin School        I watched it in words         but there are pictures if you want it          can you bear to see another photo of dead siblings huddled together under the rubble       who picks up the bodies and the pieces of bodies      the guts       the hearts     the ashes    white phosphorus buries itself into the body and burns all the way down to the bone like a firework        it is sick         I am sick          there's a great sickness in this            there's a sickness in doing this       and a sickness in a world that allows this to happen         we know this is happening       how have we not shut this shit down          I fall on the same rock         I beat against the same rock             massacre       genocide       holocaust        the words are not enough          and also the words are so old and immense             they sound a bit like I might be misusing them                    like I might be exaggerating a bit               I'm not                     I feel self-conscious for saying the same thing over and over           186,000 dead after living through this over and over and over     I feel I might go mad       I go mad      I feel myself going mad      I keep saying words that have no power           they have no power   they move no one             they have no power   nothing happens after I say them           they have no power   they cannot answer the blinded child asking "why do they do this to us"        I am an adult in this world this child lives in        I bear responsibility      I am American and my taxes pay for those bombs       I bear responsibility         they will never forgive us for reminding them they are human

___________________________

The wonderful June Jordan said all of this and so this beautifully back in 1982 in an unpublished letter: "I claim responsibility for the Israeli crimes against humanity because I am an American and American monies made these atrocities possible. I claim responsibility for Sabra and Shatilah [sic] because, clearly, I have not done enough to halt heinous episodes of holocaust and genocide around the globe. I accept this responsibility and I work for the day when I may help to save any one other life, in fact." The whole article in the LA Review of Books about Audre Lorde, Adrienne Rich, June Jordan, and Palestine is awesome.  

midwest represent

We had a visit from Engie today. Huck and Max *loved* her; Nu and Big A automatically looped her into the ribbing and silly jokes around the dinner table. Engie has the prettiest toes and sparkling quips and tried hard to get us to follow "dog" rules. I loved hanging out with her solo later and we took a long after-dinner walk to Beal Gardens before saying goodbye.

It felt like meeting a dear long-lost friend... it was meeting a dear long-lost friend although we'd never hung out in person before. I love all the ways we can connect in the world.

(Also, this is Engie's 20th year of blogging. I helped celebrate by writing a guest post on poetry a few months ago and forgot to log it here.)

Pic: Engie and me--our hand signs are supposed to rep the midwest (MW). Pic by Nu.

the news... and nourishment

Heartbreaking news about Alice Munro... and tragically one reminiscent of the world she evoked in her fiction where children are betrayed and damaged by adults (plural!) who were supposed to care for and protect them. I hope Andrea Robin Skinner finds peace and experiences continued healing.

and

Unfathomably soul-crushing news from The Lancet (medical journal of record) warning that conservatively, "the true death toll in the Gaza genocide could be 186,000 or more." And that this "staggering figure amounts to 8 percent of the population of Gaza. A similar percentage of the US population would be 26 million people." I'm coping through a cocktail of hope (there has been an increase in public support for Gaza including from the French left--the surprise election winners), drugs (including OTC Ashwagandha), busy-ness (deadline after deadline), and the loving support of family and friends.

Pic: Some of my farmers' market haul from this weekend. I used the summer abundance for dinner today--ratatouille, which I served with focaccia (also from the market) and tzatziki. Our meal was already solidly Mediterranean, repping French, Italian, and Greek foods, so I cut up some Valencia oranges to add Spain to our dinner mix.

an easy hang

A lovely day-spend with the lovely KPB. 

I joked to KPB about how I finally sent off my work because I had to get ready to hang out with her today and how she was helping me check things off my summer fun list too... Today: A walk though the Rose Garden, Baklava at Sultan's, and a meander through the Broad Art Museum's new exhibits.

Bestie KB set me and KPB up when she left to go live in Minneapolis.  So KPB reminds me a little of being with KB (they even have similar names and initials)! But KPB and I have lots in common and today was just an easygoing ramble of chatter and jokes and shared positions on things that matter. And new ideas--now I want to get a glass-cutting tool and work with old bottles.

Pic: "Angel Soldier" by Yongbaek Lee (2005). In this hanging video installation, there are soldiers wearing flower camouflage moving ominously through a vista of artificial flowers. It's their movement that gives them away, so they're difficult to detect in a photograph. (But if the photo were a clockface and you look in the region of 10, you can kind of see the muzzle of a gun.) Broad Art Museum today with KPB who came down from Alma for the day.

just press send already

I should just press send, but I'm finding so many excuses to hang on to my manuscript. 

One main reason being I can still find things to tweak and improve and cite and... and... and... every time I  open up a random page. How do professional writers do it?! (StephLove?)

It's 3:30 am, one more run-through, and then I really will send it. I swear. I didn't even go to the Juneteenth thing I was supposed to go to...

The series editor to whom this will go is in New Zealand, so I'll still technically be compliant with the deadline.

Pic: Max and I found scads of tadpoles in the pond this morning. I'm excited for our future frog chorus.

the time I need

My deadline was this past Sunday. I got an extension until Wednesday, because I wanted to spend a few more days fine-tuning things. When I asked for the extension, the editor good-naturedly said I should "take the time I need." I think about how they (could have but) did not say I should take "all the time I need." I'm using it as a kind of rubric--does the tweak I envision fit in the "time I need?" If it doesn't, I'm making a note and passing on it/passing it on. 

I lugged my laptop to the sports bar where Big A was watching the Dallas-Boston NBA game tonight. While there, he tried quite valiantly to tell me all the "subplots" and rivalries beyond the score. His description of someone looking like a cream cheese was very apt--I recognized them as soon as they showed up on screen. Anyway, the Celtics won, everyone was happy, and we're home.

(That's two sports-themed events in the space of a week... who am I these days?!)

Pic: Big A in this year's Father's Day tee. It's Star-Wars themed and has all the kids' names on it. Huck and Max just got a treat from the treat jar. 

reading between the flowers

I think teenager Cass makes a terrific point in The Bee Sting when she is irritated with the ubiquitous nature themes in poetry: “You go to class and discuss famous poems. The poems are full of swans, gorse, blackberries, leopards, elderflowers, mountains, orchards, moonlight, wolves, nightingales, cherry blossoms, bog oak, lily-pads, honeybees. Even the brand-new ones are jam-packed with nature. It’s like the poets are not living in the same world as you. You put up your hand and say isn’t it weird that poets just keep going around noticing nature and not ever noticing that nature is shrinking? To read these poems you would think the world was as full of nature as it ever was even though in the last forty years so many animals and habitats have been wiped out. How come they don’t notice that? How come they don’t notice everything that’s been annihilated? If they’re so into noticing things? I look around and all I see is the world being ruined. If poems were true they’d just be about walking through a giant graveyard or a garbage dump. The only place you find nature is in poems, it’s total bullshit." 

And I think of the message Mohamed Hussein in Gaza put out this morning: "This flower has bloomed next to my tent as if to tell me not to lose hope, that tomorrow the war will end, and everything will become beautiful. Life will surely blossom again."

And I think that's why. That's the answer to Cass. Hope enters our lives and stays as long there is a single bloom.

Pic: These flowers have bloomed next to our house as if to tell me...

it's going down at the (book) club

Pic: Today my bookclub people were so delighted with the verdict finding Trump guilty on all 34 felony counts--JS brought a grocery store cake whose icing read "34 Convictions" and CD had a bottle of wine whose label had been altered to say "34 Crimes."

(We were discussing The Bee Sting--I could have talked about it for another 24 hours. Our next book is Percival Everett's James--the Huck Finn re-vision.)

Bonus: My WTF dream in which I was upset because in addition to my real life kids, I had twins who were killed in a bus accident. I didn't seem to be grieving them, I was upset because (a) I hadn't put their names on the Father's Day T-shirt I had made for A (IRL, I've put Scout's name on it, of course) and (b) I couldn't remember the name of the second twin. In the dream, I went round and round wondering if it was "Collin" or "Mike" or "Asa--" all real life twins I know. I was so relieved to wake up and remember I never did have twins.

another six on Saturday

1) If you're watching Bridgerton Season 3--the person playing Lady Stowell (minor character, she's the one signing to her debutante) is someone I went to school with!

2) Out to dinner with friends yesterday and when I was in the minority on something AI-related, EM announced to the table that she was going to be on my side because she's my "Ride or Die." She beat Big A to it. It was epic.

3) I have no more professional tasks left this year--I've written all the letters of recommendation, completed all the committee work, reviewed all the articles... nothing left to do but stop procrastinating and work on my own damn projects!

4) To which end I joined a writing group this week for accountability and dedicated writing hours. I love that (a) its called "Summer Scrivening" (b) we meet only Tues, Weds, and Thurs--in a way that feels civilized and respectful of summer.

5) Speaking of summer... it's almost here! I prepped everything for Monday's Memorial Day picnic, but I forgot the raspberries for the red, white, and blue cake (I have blueberries and cream). I'm consoling myself that it's probably for the best, as raspberries turn so quickly. 

6) Pic: Huck and Max waking up from their nap. Max's waggety tail wakes up first.

a night different from others: four answers to questions unasked

1) The MSU Gaza solidarity encampment moved indoors a couple of times yesterday because of storms but was back outside today. Morale is high. Lots of arts and crafts and some teach-ins about in-state weapons manufacturers. The university authorities have (wisely? cynically?) allowed the encampment to go on until Monday in the hope that many students will go home after graduation weekend. 

2) On Engie's recommendation, I'm reading Elizabeth Moon's Remnant Population and it made me want to reread Amitav Ghosh's The Nutmeg's Curse because of all the references to terraforming, so I am. Both books really pack a punch individually and in tandem. 

3) I've made a couple of shifts with writing projects that have helped. Firstly, instead of thinking I "have to..." I'm framing things as "I get to..." It makes a big difference whether I think "I have to finish my context notes and they're yet another actionable item on my list..." versus "My poems got accepted, I get to finish these context notes, yay!" Secondly, I'm trying to remember editors exist. Instead of obsessing over every possible nuance, I'm just going to turn things in and let the editors let me know if they want me to make changes. (Haven't actually done this yet; famous last words.)

4) Pic: Passover seder at our friends' tonight; Nu was relieved not to be the youngest at the table responsible for asking "the four questions."

Ick and Yay

ICK: Something Engie mentioned in yesterday's comments made me wonder how I know of John Ruskin. It's almost all second-hand (save a few anthologized passages here and there), and from knowing people like William Morris, Tolstoy, and Gandhi revered him. I knew he was radical and sort of a socialist precursor and that he was a friend of the working class because Ruskin College in Oxford offers adult education. (Ruskin was an art prof at Oxford, Ruskin College is not part of the Oxford system, however.) I thought I'd read his Wiki to learn more... there were no big surprises except about his statement, "I like my girls from ten to sixteen" and learning he'd asked women whom he'd met when they were preteens to marry him. What is it with Victorians and the fetishization of prepubescents? That's already ruined Alice (Lewis Carroll) and Little Nell (Dickens) for me. And hurt who knows how many children in real life?

Pic: YAY for yesterday's egg hunt: Huck, Nu, At, and Max. 

I... we all.. missed Scout so much. We were so, so lucky to have him last year.  This was Max's first, and I hide puppy treats in the eggs as well, so he really got into this new game. 

This year the easiest clue rhymed "...arboreal" with "...Scout's memorial." They had a tough time with "...you could"/ "...birthday dogwood" (the dogwood tree my dear friends got me for my birthday). They didn't get it even after I explained it. "DOG WHAT? DOG WOOD?" They kept asking me. How do they not know what a dogwood is? Should I have taught them better? It made me laugh so much because they sounded so clueless! They're so sweet for still being all in about the egg hunt though.  

Poetry Hour: Mosab Abu Toha

I tuned into the Mosab Abu Toha event for an hour or so during a convenient break between classes and meetings. 

It was an amazing outpouring of solidarity and poetry. He read from Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear and talked about the new sounds he could add to his titular poem.

Pic: A friend grabbed a screenshot of me in a tile right next to Toha's. Something to treasure.

visions

Pic: I prepped copies of poems to hand out at the Gaza panel on Monday. 

I felt so rich in poetry after I collated this collection to pass on to the organizers. 

I had visions of myself just standing in the hallway shoving poetry under classroom doors, putting them on bulletin boards,  and throwing fistfuls of paper into the air so it would rain poetry... like Regina George distributing copies from the "Burn Book" in Mean Girls, but more meaningful.

I hope I do a good job at the event on Monday. And I'm excited for Mosab Abu Toha's event on Tuesday--to which I have online tickets.