"How Many More?"

 

I don't think I feel normal... I feel kind of numb... sad... strange...

I heard on the news that there have been 67 mass shootings in the U.S. (where else?!) just since the start of 2023--a mere 45 days ago. I don't know what it'll take to disrupt this awful pattern.

Haven't slept in the last 24 hours (like not even my usual 4-5 hours) but didn't want to cancel classes because I had canceled classes just last week after the active shooter hoax at Nu's school. I ended up taking (having to take) Nu to work with me because their school was canceled. 

Classes were a bit somber because so many students had high school friends or cousins who go to MSU, but we made it through with the help of V-Day candy I'd stocked up on--in both classes students brought me candy too... that made me smile. Also, making me smile (quizzically), students framing their thoughts with "I was listening to the police scanner yesterday and..." Is this something people do now?

Attended an online prayer-vigil meeting for the students who were shot this evening. May make it to the anti-gun-violence rally at the capitol tomorrow. 

Pic: MSU spirit rock with the message "How Many More?" Photo by Colin Jackson, NPR reporter.

sheltering in place

So... there was a mass shooting on the MSU campus this evening. Three people were killed and five are critically wounded. The shooter is still at large. 

Helicopters are hovering, sirens are blaring, I've locked the doors, set the alarms, turned off the lights, and am trying to keep Scout and Huck calm. Nu is, thankfully, safe in bed and fast asleep.

I'm learning that a lot of my friends listen to the police scanner. Friends in class and at meetings have had to shelter in place for hours (it's now past midnight).  And I guess this is now national news as friends are texting from Texas and Minneapolis and DC and so on. The shooting started at Berkey Hall (where I used to teach) and the latest shots were heard at Hubbard Hall (across the street from us). 

Actually though, I'm not feeling particularly scared. I dozed for a while and woke up a bit worried that I might feel sorry if the shooter showed up at our place since everyone is after them... This is uncool as there are people dead... but I guess I imagine that people who do this are not ok themselves...

Pic: I tried to take a picture of the moon this morning when Huck, Scout and I walked with Nu to the school bus stop, but Scout was jerking me around as usual and I ended up with this sequence of cool blurs. That tall blur is Hubbard Hall, where law enforcement is concentrated right now.

words, words, veggies

Earlier this week, I was invited to say a few words about love at today's UU sermon. I started with one of my favorite writers--the late, great June Jordan who wrote at the intersections of feminism and anti-racism and her statement that "none of us have known enough tenderness." How right she sounds--and how I want to do everything to change that. 

I teach, so I'm no longer afraid of public speaking, but my heart rate certainly galloped when I climbed up to the stage and saw all the rows of semi-familiar faces. Nu was such a great support and hype-person all morning.

Pic: Superbowl? More like super foods bowl. Haha. Nu and I were so charmed that that tomato is so Valentine-themed. It reminded me of my long-ago peace tomato.

trains, complaints, and all the feels

Last week when At was here for dinner, we watched White Noise, the new film based on Don DeLillo's 1980's novel. Earlier this week, I was shocked by how presciently that movie mimicked this week's train derailment in Ohio... I was pretty weirded out by how the news photo of the derailed cars looked identical to the movie scene with derailed cars. It turns out that some the people affected by the Ohio derailment actually acted in the film?!? That's a bit too 'life mimics art' for me.  (Also: our house is close to a train track, so my interest in these calamities tends to be emotional rather than rational.)

Today, I left the fam after Nu's Boss Day Sushi dinner to do drinks and a movie with girlfriends... I don't think I've done that since early 2020. I had dessert instead of a drink as I'd been working since 5 am and thought I might fall asleep if I had a drink. Guess what? I fell asleep anyway--it's difficult not to in those super comfy reclining seats. But that's ok. Being silly and chatty and loud was the point anyway--all that I got to do. 

Pic: Huck, Scout, Big A, At, and Nu in the rumpus room when I said goodbye to them.

winning

I got so much paperwork: forms, proposals, petitions, registrations, reminders, scheduling, ticketing, etc., etc., etc. done today.

This is not the kind of writing I enjoy...

And I'm freaking out a bit with how much more there is to do and all the deadlines that are creeping up. 

One deadline I'll need to fulfill this weekend is to write letters of recommendation for three wonderful students whom I'd nominated for an award... the same award. They all deserve to win it. I wish we had more awards to hand out instead of making all of them compete for one. (It would make my job much easier too.)

Kareem Abdul Jabbar's generous vision is what I want. In "What I think About LeBron Breaking my NBA Scoring Record, Jabbar says: "In the months leading up to LeBron breaking my record, so much was written about how I would feel on the day he sank that record-breaking shot that I had to laugh. I’d already written several times stating exactly how I felt so there really wasn’t much to speculate about. It’s as if I won a billion dollars in a lottery and 39 years later someone won two billion dollars. How would I feel? Grateful that I won and happy that the next person also won. His winning in no way affects my winning."

Pic: View from the Bogue St. Bridge with Big A.

 

happiness as a puzzle

your postcard from there--is happy you're not here 

morning has already withdrawn into itself  

this sun shines as cold as a moon

*

your news from the doctor is called "not happy"

decades grow like blessings on my body

I wish I could send them to you 

*

and somewhere, a grim chorus of earthquakes 

I'm overcome by measuring the ever afters  

without "happily" prefacing them

_______________________

(unrelated) Pic: Huckie being cute; Scout's somewhere under there too. 

Notes: Sending JG and MB off to Portugal, BS's diagnosis and treatment, 20K + people dead in Turkey, Sistrum chorus rehearsals yesterday, rainy-ass day today.

striving for ordinary

We tried to have an ordinary day around here. After watching several youtube tutorials, Nu made pots de crème, which were sublime. So I guess the day was elevated into something special. 🤗

But there were no scary phone calls... no panic... no being terrified in the moment and traumatized repeatedly after...

I could get used to this.

Pic: Nu's pots de crème (in repurposed Mentos gum containers).

how CAN the kids be alright?

Nu had just raised their hand to answer a question in Spanish class; I'd just landed in my office and poured myself my first cup of tea. And then both of us got the news that Nu's school was on lockdown due to an active shooter. 

I've lived in fear of this since Sandy Hook, but there's no preparing for this kind of call from the school. Thankfully, it turned out to be a hoax. And everyone's okay.

But as I canceled my classes via email and sped to the church where families were supposed to pick up their kids, I kept thinking of this morning when we'd run a little late and Nu had to sprint to make the it on to the school bus... I kept wondering if I'd spend the rest of my life wishing they hadn't made it on to the school bus. 

I guess there's always a low-key anticipation of this happening if you live in the U.S. I remember not sending the kids back to school until well into the new year after Sandy Hook, although I didn't seem too bothered by a gun incident in a neighboring school district last month. The other time I had to pick up the kids due to a gun threat was when they were at ecocamp together.

This is a messed up way to live. I couldn't bear to be apart from Nu for the rest of the day after I picked them up... and I got absolutely no work done... Tomorrow, I'll make up for it tomorrow.

Pic: Students gathered in the football field from a news article.

un-Monday

It felt a bit like I was playing hooky today. 

After I dropped Big A off at the train station and my precious Bluey car off at the dealership for battery updates, L picked me up and we headed to Ted Black Woods for a hike. It was beautiful but super icy, so I was glad L had brought trekking poles for us to use... they saved me from wiping out so many times and made me feel like an all-weather champ. I'm wondering if I should put trekking poles on my otherwise empty birthday list...

I was back by 10:30 to hold meetings and work online for the day, so I got some stuff done. But I did spend nearly two hours stressing that the courtesy shuttle wouldn't pick me up in time for me to pick up Nu and then panicking when it didn't, so there was wasted time. The driver who finally picked me up in the nick of time was third-generation Lebanese and I enjoyed our talk about diasporas. (I asked him about the audio book he'd turned off when I got in--books are such a passport to conversation!)

Back home things fell into dinner, kid time, and class prep mode, but it still feels like an atypical Monday and a bit unsettling. It's not helping that I can't stop humming Young the Giant's "The Walk Home" with its lonely heartbreak and its messy homage to the wind telephone.

Pic: L's sneak pic of me using her poles at Ted Black Woods.

 

tall portents

trees make me feel small 

and immense all at once

each connecting me to all

--the rich darkness of roots

under my breath I'll call

for a spring into existence

from extinction in leaf fall

--secretly yearning to be lost 

_______________________

Pic: Baker Woods with Big A.
 

a time for ice hockey

Into the woven silence--shouts

--like applause in the quiet 

of song just ended 

O these joyful, prayerful wars 

--ice in the curve of a river

smiles up at the sky

Pic: The Red Cedar is frozen solid; when we rounded the corner, MSU students were playing ice hockey on it.