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These days, uncertainty seems a little too close for comfort. I think of how danger slinks at the edges of our lives too. Or at least it feels that way.

Yesterday I clicked through some old writings of mine and found this one from early 2015. Perils lurked outside our front door then too, but I like how my five-and-a-half-years-younger self saw it. She had the right idea.

*****

The brick commercial building—lodged between the corner store and our house—was lackluster, and only its changing name captured my eye over the years. In the early days in the neighborhood, the sign indicated the building was home to Islamic gatherings. Then it went vacant. A year later, it sprang from obscurity, snagging attention from the big news outlets. The building had been used as an illegal after-hours club, we learned, and at 3:00 a.m. on March 7, 2013, almost a hundred people were gathered at the establishment when an argument sparked, turning into a scuffle. By the time it was over, two men were dead—one inside, one outside. And the two shooters had fled. The usual course of action followed: law enforcement marked off the place as a crime scene, investigations ensued, and the police issued the landlord a notice of nuisance—the legal form of a slap on the wrist—and he boarded up the building.

The morning after the shootings, we rubbed our eyes and wondered what had gone down a half block away at the brick building while we slept in our warm beds. The streets—for many blocks around—were barricaded, and exiting the neighborhood was as tricky as in the 2011 tornado’s aftermath. When the situation cooled, we noticed mourners had slipped in behind the yellow tape to build a memorial on the sidewalk. They left behind teddy bears, flowers, signs, photos of the deceased, and remnants of meals consumed right there on the pavement. The only things that touched us from the tragedy were the fast-food wrappers that blew on March winds into our yard.

The double homicide was close. But no bullets ripped through our lives. And neither did fear.

My brother, a New York City dweller, called me one day.

“So I’ve been streaming Joe Soucheray’s Garage Logic out of Saint Paul,” he said. “Anyway, a local news story came up. Notice any unusual police activity at the end of your block?”

“No,” I said. “But I haven’t been looking.”

“Sounds like a guy’s holding his girlfriend hostage,” he said. “They’ve got the place surrounded.”

I poked my head out the front door and flicked my gaze down the street.

“Well, sure enough,” I said.

The place hummed with activity. Police cars lined the streets and a SWAT team stood in position. Officers surrounded the house in question, guns drawn.

“Since it’s a domestic, you’ve got nothing to worry about,” my brother said.

“I’m not worried.”

The hostage situation was close. But no abusive boyfriend barred me inside my home. And neither did fear.

My neighbor Marta had a favorite spot in her back yard—her lounge chair—where she’d bask for a measure of each fleeting summer day. But on a Tuesday in the summer of 2014, obligation beckoned. Marta, a formidable culinary force, arose from her chair to serve the common good: she had a BBQ rib contest to judge.

While she was away, two cars sped through the neighborhood, the drivers working out their grievances through open car windows. But finding words insufficient, the men settled their differences with lead. One bullet penetrated a neighbor’s fascia, and another pierced Marta’s fence and skidded to rest in her most cherished place in paradise: right under the seat of her lounge chair.

The drive-by was close. But Marta still lived without fear—and laughed whenever she retold the story about the day she wasn’t hit in the backside by a bullet.

One of the shooters in the double homicide in the brick building on the corner pleaded guilty to manslaughter and was sentenced to nearly nine years in prison; the other had a second-degree murder charge against him dropped after serving almost a year. The hostage-taker in the house at the end of the block was apprehended, never to return. And the police caught the two speeding drivers and arrested them for gunplay on a residential street.

We knew the past, but we didn’t think it into our future. Unruffled by the exceptions who passed through our streets with guns, our area of the city always settled back into a rhythm. No over-the-shoulder glances, no lost sleep.

To be safe, though, we kept our doors shut tight, leaving fear locked outside where it belonged.

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

The weekend (and the lawn)

On Friday night, a storm ripped through our neighborhood, uprooting a tree and pitching it onto our house. We lost power, which challenged the weekend with our little houseguests, and my cellphone quit. And as if the mess from the event wasn’t enough, mental illness ran amok just outside our front door, rocking our block, threatening our safety, robbing my peace.

I recall 2002. I hadn’t even unpacked all the boxes in our new-to-us house in North Minneapolis when the love your neighbor thing switched my eyes open to life outside our curtains. And here I am again, eighteen years later, peeking out between the swaths of fabric at my windows, wondering, “Am I really my brother’s keeper?”

Yeah, I guess I still am.

These days I’d rather take care of those of us inside our house—our little visitors, our family members—and sleep at night okay with that. But dire circumstances outside call for intervention.

Let us not grow weary in well-doing.

For now, I’m weary in well-doing. Maybe tomorrow will feel different.

Here’s a light and fluffy story about the lawn (and the dog) for you to enjoy while I curl into myself for a minute.

Peace to you. May rest be yours too.

*****

Another rainy day.

The patches of grass in the backyard seem to withdraw from the lawn’s bald spots like they don’t enjoy getting muddy any more than I do. But Lala, our dog, doesn’t share our feelings. She finishes her duties in the drizzle and bounds for the back door, first making certain to gallop through the slimiest section of the yard. 

“Wait,” I tell her when she steps inside.

She knows what I want. She raises one paw at a time as I wipe off her feet with an old towel.

“Okay, go,” I finally say, and she lopes toward my white couch.

But I didn’t get her feet well enough, and the kitchen is now stamped with her signature. I sigh and wipe down the tile. By now, she and I have memorized our routine.

“Big dog, small yard,” the lawn treatment guy says with a knowledgeable sniff the next time I see him. “Yeah, you can’t have nice grass with all that going on.”

I already knew a lush lawn and a sixty-five pound dog were mutually exclusive. If we didn’t have Lala, we wouldn’t have all the mud in the house on a sodden day either. But we’ve made our (dog) bed, and now we lie in it.

Later, this animal of ours snuggles with the girls while they watch a movie. She repositions a pillow under her head for maximum comfort, opposable thumbs apparently optional. The tip of her tail flicks the air while she snoozes. When she switches her eyes open again, she licks the girls’ toes like they spent the day working barefoot at a meat-packing plant.

And when it’s my turn for bed, Lala plops down next to me, presses her flank against mine, and gazes at me with eyes like the oceans. I know that look. 

“I love you too,” I say.

Fine. We’ll take the scrappy lawn.

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

The ten-mile walk

“Let’s go for a twenty-mile walk tomorrow,” I said to the family one evening in April.

My people and I had lived the day as a bunch of snack-noshing sluggards, flickering screens of entertainment dazzling us for hours. Our eyes were bleary from TV, our backs sore from inactivity. Enough was enough.

“Let’s do it,” Flicka said.

“I’m in,” Husband said.

But the next morning, April 9, my bold proposal from the day before scared me.

“How about not twenty miles?” I said, fingers threaded around the cup holding my Italian roast. “That might’ve been the junk food talking last night.”

“Oh, I see how it is.” Husband chuckled. “Backing out now. Got it.”

I waved a palm in the air. “No, no. I’m just saying how about ten miles instead?”

I strode to the living room window to gather my own weather report. White precipitation pelted our sidewalk at a slant.

“Whoa.” Husband stood next to me. “I didn’t know this was coming.”

I grimaced. “We can always cancel the walk.”

“Let’s just see.”

And we did. In minutes, a new world loomed outside the glass. Snow gone, the sun shot arrows of blessing on the day.

We tugged on our jackets, tied on our shoes, and grabbed our water bottles.

We parked the car in the parking lot at Wirth Lake, and Husband, Flicka, and I started our long walk. At Cedar Lake, the sun warmed our faces. My down jacket was too much. Unzipping it, I contemplated losing a thermal shirt, one of my four layers.

“I didn’t know it would be this warm,” Flicka said.

Our path curved around the lake and delivered us to Lake of the Isles. The wind slashed through my layers, and I zipped up again. Covid-19 had reduced the foot traffic around the chain of lakes on this day—or was it the fickle weather?—and a twinge of sadness streaked through my thoughts. On a normal spring day, the lakes would be loaded with runners, bikers, and dogs tethered to their owners. Not today.

In Uptown, we waited for the crosswalk light to change, the sun heating the stocking caps on our heads.

“We’re at three miles,” Husband said, pointing at Bde Maka Ska ahead. “Let’s walk around the lake and head back.”

The circumference of Bde Maka Ska, roughly three miles, would put us at six after we looped it. His calculations would be just about right to hit our ten miles back at the car.

I opened my jacket again. We strode along the west side of the lake. A lone woman perched on a rock—decked out like winter—and gazed at the ripples, gray and moving. We rounded the south side of the body of water.

“Look at that skyline,” I said. The buildings in downtown Minneapolis were all shades of blue-gray, the waters of the lake, gray-blue. A world of melancholy beauty. “I’ve never seen it in those colors.”

“It depends on what it’s reflecting—and the sun that day,” Flicka said.

Great gusts of wind ruffled the waters, and the day grayed to slate. A chill took a bite into my clothing. I shut my jacket. Was the weather today imitating life?

“I didn’t know it would be this cold,” I said.

“Didn’t think it would be,” Husband said, “but at least it’s not raining.”

The skies opened up their storehouses and scattered white on us. The water next to us whipped in its hole; the clouds darkened. Up went my jacket, and I fastened it at the top to cover my mouth. I tugged my hat closer and pulled up my hood.

“This is actually a squall now,” I said, trying to catch my breath.

The three of us went silent. It would take yelling to communicate, so we didn’t. Snow blasted our left sides as we spanned the south end of Bde Maka Ska. The winds drew tears from my eyes.

Count it all joy.

“You okay?” Husband said, eyeing me.

“This is miserable.” I clenched my abs against the cold, grateful for my gloves.

Silent again, we plodded into the wind. Angry waves churned. Bicyclists, trapped like us, pumped against nature, maybe trying to get home—or to other shelter. A young boy in shorts strained at his pedals, the squall reddening the bare skin of his legs. At least he had a scarf wound around his head, leaving only a sliver of face exposed.

We were exactly half-way into our ten-mile walk and at the farthest point from our destination. No choice but to trudge on. Memories of labor pains lit up my mind. There was a point back when I pushed life into the world—three times, actually—when I thought it was too much. But there was no getting out of it. And not now either.

Count it all joy.

There were those words again. The theme of my year. My phrase for 2020. Because the new year would be too big for just one word, and I knew as much in December when the phrase dropped into my spirit.

We already had a pandemic on our hands. What else might come?

On the east side of the lake, winter fled; spring had come again. Snow, crusted onto my left side, melted away, and nature snapped the sunshine back on, drying my jacket sleeve and leggings.

We cut through neighborhoods, rounded the east side of Lake of the Isles, and at seven and a half miles, soreness crept into my muscles. Maybe I’d feel today—both effortless and arduous, cheery and depressing—tomorrow.

Back at the car, logging some tenths of a mile under our goal, 2020 surfaced in my thoughts. What more was to come? And if it were like our walk today, would we feel the ache of it still in 2021?

Maybe we would. And if so, what could we do?

Count it all joy.

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

Laughing at yourself: readers' stories (part 2)

Two weeks ago, I asked you for a story about a time you laughed at yourself. Last week, I ran five fun stories. If you missed them, read them HERE. This week (our final week), I have another five for you.

Enjoy!

******

Another school day had thankfully come to its end. I gathered my notebook and jacket and happily freed myself from the doors of the school. It was a two block walk home from school. I regularly walked home alone in our small town. I heard my name being called and saw a few of my friends hanging out the girls' bathroom window. “Where are you going?” they hollered. I briefly wondered why they were still in the school and why they'd ask me such a silly thing. “Home!” I hollered back as I rounded the corner, passing the school yard. I was intrigued why there were so many kids still playing as I passed along, taking the right turn towards home. I entered the door of my house with a sudden strange feeling that something wasn't right. Mom looked up from her ironing in the kitchen with a look of shock to see me. “What are you doing here?” I quickly began piecing together the recent events and quickly realized it was much earlier in the day than I thought. “Uh, school's over, so I came home,” I stated with question in my voice. After being set straight that it was only afternoon recess, and I still had two more hours to go, I was filled with embarrassment. I pleaded to be allowed to stay home, to be spared from facing my classmates who saw me leave. “No young lady, you march right back to class.”

It's been a few decades since then; I don't remember the walk back, but I do remember my friends looking at me with amazement that I just left and went home without permission before the day was done. It was a long two hours.

Debbie, Riverton, Wyoming

*****

I come from a family of huggers. We hug not only hello and goodbye, but my kids often just randomly hug me during the day. So, all that being said, I don’t really think twice about hugging. Years ago, at the conclusion of my yearly physical, the doctor escorted me out of the examining room. He stood in the hallway and extended his arms wide, an attempt at pointing me toward the exit, I realized later. But without thinking, I just saw the open arms and went in for a hug. I quickly realized my huge error when instead of a return hug I was greeted with a rigid body and still-extended arms. Of course doctors don’t hug their patients, especially their female ones! I was horrified at my mistake, and quickly released my embrace, turning around without a word and scurrying for the exit as quickly as possible, my face undoubtedly turning many shades of red. Neither one of us ever mentioned the incident. But I feel myself turning slightly pink, even today, at the memory.

Hope, Cataract, Wisconsin

*****

It was autumn and I had grown so many fun things in the garden that year. I had the beautiful purple and colored corn, white and orange pumpkins, and many different shaped gourds. I was inspired by so many decorated homes that I drove by and decided I was going to give this decorating a shot. I already had everything I would need, so it would be free; what more could you ask for?! I pulled a flower pot close to the front door, loaded it with corn stalks and gourds, had bigger pumpkins on a hay bale, and colored corn hanging prettily on the door. It turned out great! I was so proud of myself and my first attempt to decorate for the season. That evening when my husband came home from work, I went out to greet him, so he could tell me how good it all looked. I stepped outside only to see gourds on the ground, straw coming out of the bale, and chew marks in my pumpkins! I was sooo irritated! Those annoying dogs! We had a 1-year-old black lab, Midnight, and a yellow lab, Tucker. Well, they would just have to learn. I brought them over to my fixed masterpiece and sternly told them “NO” several times. I informed all the kids that if they saw the dogs messing with my beautiful creation, they had better stop them. I was determined. After fixing my masterpiece a few more times after the dogs thought it was all their toys, I decided I was going to stand watch and catch them in the act. The kids were all outside playing, the dogs were in the yard, and I waited patiently to teach one of the dogs a lesson. Midnight was the first to approach and after sniffing around for a while, she grabbed a gourd in her mouth, but I was ready. My plan was to surprise Midnight, grab her by the collar, and make her let go of the gourd right where she had taken it from. Things did not go according to plan. Midnight's reaction time was much faster than mine, and she took off running before I could grab her. So, I ran after her thinking I could catch her and bring her back. Midnight was running, I was running, and all the kids were frozen in place at the sight of Mom running. Tucker, the 110-pound yellow lab, saw me running and wanted in on the fun. He charged straight at me, and I saw him out of the corner of my eye, right before impact with my feet. He hit me so hard I literally cartwheeled through the air, and being the graceful mother of 4 that I am, I skidded to a stop on the palms of my hands in the gravel driveway. The kids all came running, mouths open wide in awe. I dragged myself and my bloody palms off the ground, just as my husband pulled into the driveway. I limped into the house as the kids gleefully told Dad how Mom flew through the air. My husband came into the house as I was over the sink, crying and digging the gravel out of my palms and washing the blood off my hands. He tried so hard to be supportive as he hugged me from behind. Choking back the laughter, he asked if I was okay. Crying and laughing at once, I said, “This is why we can't have nice things!”

Katrina, Valley City, North Dakota

*****

It was 4th of July weekend, and the 4th fell on a Monday. We lived on a farmstead, and my husband had decided to raise our own chickens to put meat in the freezer, and this was the weekend for getting it done. He decided to get the butchering done right away at the beginning of the weekend so we could just enjoy most of the weekend without work. I didn't want any part of it. I had participated in butchering chickens when I was a kid and that was enough for me. I'd take care of the chicken after it was in the freezer. It all went well, the kids helped, all the meat was in the freezer, and all the stuff we couldn't use was in thick, black construction garbage bags in the back of the truck ready to go to the dump. We had a couple of dogs, and they would dig up anything that got buried, and we didn't want the yucky stuff showing up in the yard later.

The truck stayed shut in the metal shed and we had a wonderful weekend in spite of the almost 100-degree heat. Fast forward to Tuesday. My husband was back to work, but the chicken remains were still in the back of the truck, and very smelly after a long weekend baking in the shed. Remember the 100-degree weather? Could I please take those bags to the dump for him because the dump would be closed by the time he got home from work and the stuff was really starting to smell? The kids were all at VBS, and I didn’t really have anything going on other than cleaning, so yes. As I went out to get the truck later that day, though, the smell hit me before I even got to the shed. It was really bad! It was a good thing it was going today. I drove the 20 miles to the dump, thinking it might air out a little on the drive, but no. As I pulled into the dump to unload, one of the workers came to help me, and he was immediately hit hard by the smell! “What do you have in there?” he asked. Embarrassed, (what hicks he would think we were, especially if I told him what it was) “Just garbage that was sitting out all weekend.”

I got out of there as fast as I could. I thought I better go get a car wash. That would get rid of whatever smell was left. I pulled up at the gas station, and there was a line at the car wash. I would just get gas first. I got out to get gas. It still really smelled! The guy across the pump from me made a face, “What do you have in there, a dead body?!” I wanted to die. “I just went to the dump,” I said. Thankfully I could pay with a credit card and hurry up and get in the car wash. I only had to wait for the car that just went into the wash. As I sat waiting, I saw the guy that was across the pump from me talking to the clerk, pointing at me in my truck. Both of them looked at me. I really wanted this to be over. Pretty soon the clerk came out and walked all the way around my truck, looking into the back end. I'm sure she thought I was taking a load of garbage through the car wash. I had cleaned the back end out thoroughly, I promised. She completed her tour around the truck, looked at me with a “Where are you from?” look, and walked back in the store without saying anything. I would get this car wash and get out of there! I finally got through and decided to stop and have coffee with my sister. I deserved it after one of the most embarrassing days of my life. I drove up and parked across the street from her house. She was out watering her flowers as I pulled up. She turned around to greet me, made a face and said, “What is that smell?!” I am NEVER going to the dump for my husband again.

Katrina, Valley City, North Dakota

*****

Over 12 years ago, I gave my mom the perfect story to start a conversation. It goes something like this.

Elementary students are taught the importance of safety, and my Litchville-Marion kindergarten class was having an important presentation given by Barnes County’s police department. All seven of us kindergartners were enthralled with handcuffs, guns, and badges, so we listened intently and waited for our chance to ask the officer if he’d ever tazed anyone. After the presentation, the officers handed out coloring books filled with directions on what to do during different emergency situations, and our teacher created a theme for the week: If You Need Help Call.

My family lived on a small farm outside the town of Litchville, ND. My mom constantly drove us kids to appointments and activities, and managed to work out a schedule to fit all of us—except for one day. Her plan was to load my baby brother into the car, pick up my middle brother, and head to town. However, my oldest brother ended up sick, so my mom packed all three of my brothers and brought them all with her to the doctor, which meant my oldest brother wouldn’t be home to look after me when I was done with school. I had to take the bus home, which wasn’t so bad because our bus driver often gave us candy bars.

My mother wouldn’t be home after school now, so she told me to watch a movie, and she would be home before it was done. Her directions to run the VCR seemed simple, but we all know how it goes with technology.

After the final bell, I hopped onto the bus full of loud, smelly, and scary big kids. Since we lived out in the country on a small farm, my big brothers and I were always the last ones off the bus. After close to an hour riding on the bus without my brothers that day, the familiar big red barn came into view.

As usual, the bus driver dropped me off at the mailbox, and I ran as fast as I could to the house, anxious to watch whatever movie I wanted. With no loud brothers to boss me around or drag me outside for a game of tackle football, I could enjoy my afternoon in peace, but as I walked into our eerily quiet farmhouse, a feeling of loneliness and panic overwhelmed me. I’d never been home by myself before, and it scared the heebie-jeebies out of me when I realized no one would be there to protect me if someone tried to break in and kidnap me.

I went to pick out a movie, but not just any old movie. I was finally going to be watching a movie of my choice and not be out-voted by the male population of the house. This movie had to be a princess movie! But which one? I finally chose one of my many princess movies and was loading it into the VCR when I realized again how nervous I was to be home alone.

Maybe you’re thinking, “What kind of mother leaves her five-year-old daughter home alone?” I’ll tell you. The kind of mom who didn’t have any choice and thought it would be easy for her daughter to sit and watch a movie. But it takes a special kind of kid to make watching a movie into a fiasco involving the police.

I turned on the TV and tried to get the movie to play. It felt like hours, but I probably struggled with the VCR for four minutes. Realizing I needed help, I scrounged through drawers and found my coloring book full of helpful suggestions from the police who had visited school. Scanning through it, I landed on the page with HELP written across the top in big, bold letters. I grabbed the phone and dialed the number written on the page. Expecting to hear my dad’s voice on the other end, I was terrified by the strange woman’s voice saying, “911. What’s your emergency?” After just learning about stranger danger, I quickly hung up the phone. I would be doomed to a life without my princess movie.

Instead of crying, I headed outside to see if our neighbor was in the field next to our shed. I spotted his tractor and could tell he was working his way toward me, but then a white pickup came barreling down the gravel road in the direction of the farm. My neighbor in the tractor drove farther and farther away from me, leaving me to fight off the stranger by myself. The image of a big, scary man shoving me into his pickup and taking me away from my family flashed through my mind, and I ran at lightning speed back to the safety of our house.

Fear clawed at my chest, and I hid in the darkest corner of our living room. When the knock at the door came, I crept up to the window. A big man with a gun. The super cool badge. Handcuffs dangling from his belt. It was a police officer! Apparently my luck had shifted because now I could get the help I needed. I opened the door to the large but kind-looking man. He asked me where my parents were, and I happily declared I was the only one home. Concern crossed his face, but he continued his questioning and ended up coming in to get an exclusive interview and tour of the house.

The police officer fixed the VCR and showed me how to play my princess movie. My dad came home shortly after, so the officer was unable to stay and watch Beauty and the Beast with me.

Minutes later, my mom came in, tears streaming down her face and grabbed me by the arms. I thought she was angry, but she hugged me tight and declared how worried she was when she received a phone call from her sister who was contacted by the police department. My dad quickly informed her no one was hurt. Only then was she able to recover from that heart-stopping experience.

Rose, Valley City, North Dakota

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

Laughing at yourself: readers' stories (part 1)

Last week, I asked you, my readers, to share a story of a time when you laughed at yourself.

It was a popular topic, so I’ll run stories again next week. If you feel like you missed out, now you have another chance to tell your story for next week.

To submit:

Subscribers, simply hit reply to this email. Other readers, click HERE to submit. (Please include your city and state too.)

Enjoy today’s stories!

*****

The Unthinkable Eggs

This particular day I decided to make scrambled eggs for breakfast. I looked in the fridge to grab a couple and the carton of about 10 wasn’t there. I called out to my hubby, “Husband, did you cook all the eggs that were in the fridge?” His response, “No, I didn’t cook any, check again.” I double-checked. My response, “That’s weird, they were in here yesterday, at least 8 or 10.” So instead, I chose yogurt with fresh walnuts and blueberries. Later that day, I decided we would have salmon and salad for dinner. I looked in the freezer to get the salmon, and lo and behold there were the 10 eggs in the carton, frozen stiff. I just stood there and laughed and said, “Husband, come look.” He came and looked and said, “Uh huh. Let’s keep ‘em. I’ll eat ‘em.” Which he did over time. Wow, that was a weird one!

Armanda, Saint Paul, Minnesota

*****

My story may not qualify as a laugh at yourself story, but I did get a good laugh and you may, too! I went to a car dealership on Wednesday to test drive a van since the transmission went out on mine. My daughter and I took off down a country road in an attempt to figure out if this was the van for us. We had driven about 4 miles and were returning to the dealership when the van suddenly started to lose power and then shut off. 

I was sitting in utter shock when I realized what the problem was... we had run out of gas! I instantly started to laugh and couldn’t believe this had happened. I called the dealership to report the issue, and they assured me someone would come immediately. My daughter and I sat chatting and then I realized a lot of time had passed. After 20 minutes I called the dealership, and the woman told me they couldn’t find me. I could see the road sign and told her exactly where I was. 

Fifteen minutes later two men and a gas can arrived. They were so thankful to find me laughing and not angry with them. The best part of the story is that in the little town of Viroqua there are two Asbury roads. One runs north and south and the other east and west. Had I just said south Asbury, help would have come sooner, but then I wouldn’t have this fun story to tell.

Lisa, Sparta, Wisconsin

*****

“May I take your order?” the voice vibrated through the tinny speaker system at Hardee’s in Thief River Falls. I took a deep breath and opened my mouth, anticipating the snickers from the back seat. That’s all it took. I started laughing and could not get out the words to place our order. It was a gasp-for-the-next-breath attempt that my kids knew would repeat itself each time I took them to a fast food drive-through, actually a rare occasion for our family.

I do not remember the first time this uncontrollable emotion erupted nor how such an embarrassment could possibly happen. Yet as I steered the Honda into the drive-through at a several different restaurants over the course of the years, I knew what would happen. And each time, I tried every trick I could muster to avoid the inevitable collapse of my demeanor as a mother. Nothing helped except the passing of time because eventually, the kids grew up, and the story of their mother’s loss of composure at the drive-through restaurant became another deposit in the family memory bank.

Avis, Newfolden, Minnesota

*****

This was our drama for the day. Mom calls about an hour after I had been there (at their assisted living apartment), asking how to get Dad’s ring over his finger. I tell her to put a little Aquaphor (Vaseline) on his knuckle. So, she did, and it worked. Didn’t think anything more about it until I go at 4:00 p.m. to take Dad to the bathroom and his finger looks a little funny. I look some more, and man, that ring looks really tight! I look a little more, and hmm, I think his ring finger looks darker in color than the rest of his hand! I realize all of this is because his ring is shoved onto his middle finger, not his ring finger! Ouch! Dad had been fiddling with his ring and got it off his finger, and when he was trying to put it back on, he only got to the knuckle of his middle finger. Mom didn’t want him to lose his ring, so she was trying to get it on without realizing it was the wrong finger. After calling Brideview’s nurse, I iced Dad’s finger for a while and then lubed it up and tried to pull it off, but only succeeded in making his finger even bluer, causing Dad pain. Called the home healthcare nurse to see if she had suggestions, and she didn’t, but the ER has a ring cutter. But I have the truck and don’t think I can get Dad in it, so I called Kristin (sister) for transportation, and she also brought Brent with a side-cutter (wire cutters?), and he saved us from a trip to the ER!

Katrina, Valley City, North Dakota

*****

I have been working from home a few days a week. Last week, we were out of milk but my calendar was busy. So I decided to take a run to McDonalds’ drive-through to get some breakfast while calling in from the minivan using the “uconnect”. I am all dialed in for the meeting, driving along thinking I am on mute because I saw the mute with the slash on the display… well, I get to the drive-up to order a #1 with a coke, only to have someone on the meeting say, “Hey, can you get me an Egg McMuffin too?” So, kind of embarrassing, but also had a good laugh at myself too. Now I know that I actually have to press that mute symbol to be on mute.

Cindy, Minneapolis, Minnesota

*****

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

Have you laughed at yourself lately?

Life is serious and difficult, so let’s laugh. And while we’re at it, let’s laugh at ourselves.

Today I want to hear from you. Tell me a story—embarrassing or otherwise—about a time when you had to laugh at yourself. 

And if you’d like to spread the humor, I’ll publish your story (along with your first name, city, and state) in next week’s blog installment. Subscribers, to share your story, hit reply to this email. Other readers, click here to submit.

I’ll get us started.

“Girls, it’s Mom,” I said, knocking on the door of the women’s restroom at the dentist office. I kept my voice low; the waiting patients around the corner didn’t need to hear my business. “Can I come in? I have to brush my teeth.”

I had a few minutes before the hygienist would call me back into an exam room, and Ricka and Dicka were still in the single restroom—the only women’s restroom in the place. How many minutes had gone by? Too many. How long did it take them to brush their teeth anyway? They were probably on their phones, maybe posing for bathroom selfies and losing track of time. Like mine, their appointments were moments away. They needed to hustle.

I rapped again. “Hey, seriously, girls. Let me in.”

Footsteps scraped on the other side of the door. A flush of the toilet. Had they heard me? Or had the fan muffled my words?

One of the receptionists rounded the corner and smiled at me as she passed. I returned the warmth, and she disappeared down the hallway. I turned up my volume one notch, curving my words with a smile. “Girls, knock it off. I just have to brush my teeth fast.”

Fifteen feet away, another door opened, the light/fan combo of the room snapping off. Two laughs floated to me, and I spun toward the familiar sound. Ricka and Dicka—cracking up over something—emerged from the men’s restroom.

“Hey, Mom,” Ricka said, spotting me. She pointed at the door where I stood. “That one was busy, so…” She shrugged.

I hurried back to the waiting room with my girls. Maybe brushing my teeth wasn’t that important.

Now it’s your turn.

“As long as you can laugh at yourself, you will never cease to be amused.” Unknown

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

At the post office

On many days, I open my ears to the requests of strangers and try to give them something in return for their asking. Maybe all I have on me is encouragement, but it’s something. Other days, I lack the mettle to deal with them pressing me for spare change or groceries or the chance to breed their dog with mine, and I avoid certain areas in my neighborhood where those questions will crop up as surely as the Creeping Charlie in the neighbor’s front yard.

I don’t remember which of those days it was the day I drove up to the mailboxes at my neighborhood’s post office, except it was in the middle of a long and icy winter where Mother Nature was cranky—and probably as tired of us Minnesotans as we were of her.

I lowered the Honda’s window. The wind whipped through the car, and I caught my breath. A snowbank hemmed the mailboxes in, and I couldn’t see beyond the wall of white, broken only by the blue of the boxes, their mouths hungry for whatever I would feed them. I slid my stack of mail into one of the slots.

A large fur body slid over the snowbank and hit the side of the car—thump!—with both hands landing on my hood. It was a man, in a variegated fur coat, and he scooted up to my open window. I jerked my head back. How had he wedged himself so quickly between the mailboxes and my car?

His eyes lit up, and a smile stretched across his face. “I have something to ask you.”

“Just a second.” I motioned for him to squeeze out from between the car and mailboxes, so I could drive forward, and he did it, the same smile splitting his face. In his ankle-length fur coat, he shuffled his feet while he waited for me to pull away from the snowbank.

Ahead a few feet now, I put the car in park and asked him what he wanted to say.

“Okay, first of all, I’m not on drugs or anything.” He patted the air with both palms like he was stopping traffic. His fingerless gloves probably weren’t cutting it on a day like today. “I’m just really happy.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Okay?”

“My daughter just had a baby this morning at North Memorial, and I’m heading there now to see her, but my car ran out of gas. Do you have a few dollars so I could get some? It’s cold out here.”

“I don’t have cash,” I said.

“You could use a credit card.” He danced in place, a drip hanging on the tip of his nose, threatening to break loose and splash the snow-packed pavement. “Like five dollars’ worth is all I need.”

Skepticism, normally my companion with requests like these, skittered away. Something seemed true about this man. Maybe it was his unshakeable joy in the face of adversity. “There’s no gas station close by.”

He said the name of a place about a mile down the road, but I had just read about someone being assaulted there in daylight hours by a complete stranger. “It’s too cold for me to walk all that way. And I’ve already been walking a long way to get here. Maybe you could give me a ride?”

“How would that work?” I said. “I give you a ride, buy your gas, and drop you off at your car with the gas?” When I said it out loud like that, it sounded ridiculous. How could I even consider allowing a strange man into my car when I was alone?

But something about the situation seemed real. And it was too cold for any living creature to be hanging around outside. While I walked to the car that morning, the snow under my boots had squeaked like Styrofoam. A person would have to be void of humanity to not see the man—despite the fur coat—was freezing.

He clapped his hands together in prayer position and bowed. “Yes, thank you.”

His cell phone trilled, and he answered. “My son,” he said to me, pointing at the mouthpiece.

Why wasn’t his son helping him? While the man talked, I took the free moment to phone Husband. Of all the needs I had said no to in the past, why did this one seem tempting to meet? Was this particular need a legitimate one? Strangely, it seemed so. Would Husband agree I should help this man?

But the phone rang with no answer from Husband—and no words on the other end of the line to guide me. Was that a sign? Something tugged me back to reality, pinning me to my spot.

The man clicked his phone off. “So, can you drive me to the gas station now?”

“Can your son help you? Because that makes more sense.”

His phone rang again. He held up a finger for me and answered it, telling his story to the caller. Still that smile. Still that exuberance. Soon, he ended the call.

“My son is coming to get me,” he said.

A sense of calm fluttered into the car. Maybe the man wasn’t what he seemed. Maybe I had been rescued from a risky decision. “Glad it worked out. Have a good one.”

“You too.” He blew on his fingers to warm them and hopped from one foot to the other; no doubt by now the cold had seeped through his boots.

I rolled up my window and drove off.

At home, I filled Husband in on the story of the post office guy in the long fur coat.

“For sure he was playing you,” he said. “You usually see that. Funny you didn’t this time.”

“Well, I guess it worked out.”

Months later, I drove to the post office. Hints of spring tinged the air, but I knew better than to believe one pleasant day in March meant I could pack away the winter coats.

Always in a love-hate relationship with the post office, I set my mouth to grim. Maybe for once the wait wouldn’t be too long. The instant hope reared its naive head, though, I quashed it with reality. It was the post office after all, wasn’t it? There were no quick in-and-outs with this establishment anywhere in the city.

Inside, I joined a line of customers that snaked around the room. I chose entertainment over grumpiness and absorbed my surroundings. My favorite employee, Byron, wasn’t working, and I grieved the loss of twenty minutes of his dry sense of humor—lost on most of the customers—something I enjoyed the days he was plugged behind the counter.

“We need some music in here to get through this,” the woman in front of me said, swiveling to capture reactions from those around her. “Am I right, or am I right?”

And in one instant, I loved her. She looked to be in her early-sixties, an unflappable type, forced there by the stack of boxes in her arms.

“You’re so right,” I said. And our friendship began.

The woman, Judy, said her packages were gifts for her ninety-year-old aunt who looked better than she did, and she wasn’t doing half bad herself at almost seventy. She lobbed out information about her health, turning each unfortunate fact into a joke. She pointed out a skin tag on her arm, a barnacle of age, as she put it, and soon she was at the front of the line.

“This can’t be it,” I said. “We’ve just gotten to be friends.”

She laughed, allowed me to take a selfie of the two of us, and scribbled down her Facebook username, so I could find her again. She took care of business—flying her packages off to the aunt—and left me to mine.

I exited the post office, my arms lighter and my outlook brighter. Who knew I’d meet Judy and my day would shift? I strode to my car, unlocked it, and slid behind the wheel, happy.

But I wasn’t the only one smiling.

A man’s face pressed up against my driver’s side window, a grin plastered to it. I gasped and a zing of electricity shot through my fingertips. I could’ve backed the car up, but he was so close I would’ve rolled over his toes.

But wait. I knew that face, that smile. He twirled his finger in the air, motioning for me to lower my window. I did.

“First of all,” he said, “I’m not on drugs or anything. I’m just really happy because my daughter had a baby at North Memorial this morning—”

“You used that story last time,” I said.

“Oh.” He nodded and sauntered away to the next postal customer who had climbed into her car.

My trip to the post office that day told me the truth about the man in the fur coat. And it brought me a new friend. But if there’s a moral to this story, I’d love to know it.

What do you think?

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

The grocery store

A grocery store arose at the corner of Penn and Lowry in the middle of a federally-designated food desert, but it was no mirage. With healthy foods, organic produce, and household items, the new Aldi was my oasis. The costs stayed low through small measures: no fancy displays, no free bags, no piped-in music, and grocery carts that cost a quarter—refundable when returned to their corral.

Instead of putting the carts back into their stall at the end of each visit, though, many of us shoppers handed them off to the next people coming in, accepting the quarters they proffered. Sometimes someone would refuse my quarter and I’d get a cart for free; other times I’d wave away the quarter offered for my cart. Every time, it made me smile.

Aldi’s inventory exploded and improved over time. Sometimes special items—kombucha or goat cheese—appeared on Aldi’s shelves, making me smile too. The store always delivered interesting surprises.

And so did its parking lot.

“Got any spare change?” a man said one day, walking a little too close to me as I headed to my car.

“Just this.” I handed him the quarter I had gotten back from my cart.

He grunted. “That’s not enough.”

If you hit up enough people for their cart money, it adds up, I felt like saying. Instead, I shrugged and dropped the quarter into my coat pocket. The man shuffled away.

One day, I hopped out of the car and headed toward Aldi’s doors. A young woman approached me.

“Can I just get a few dollars?” she said, her face contorting. “I’m so hungry.”

“I could buy you some groceries,” I said.

Her eyes lit up. “Really?” She clicked into business mode. “So, what’s my budget?”

“Hm. Six dollars.”

She nodded and followed me inside the store. First, she snapped up a package of sandwich cookies. Sweets aren’t a good choice on an empty stomach, the mom in me felt like saying, but I sealed my mouth shut. 

“My girl is in private school in Edina,” she said, pulling a gallon of milk from the cooler. “It’s so expensive I can hardly make it.”

I frowned. “I can imagine.”

She filled her arms with a box of crackers, a loaf of bread, a bag of chips. We stepped in line to pay. The young woman dropped her items onto the conveyor belt.

“Will you be okay carrying all of this home?” I said as the cashier rang up her items.

She nodded. “My house is just a block away.”

An older woman behind me in line tapped my shoulder and leaned in, her voice low. “Are you buying those groceries for her?”

“Yeah, why?”

“She already asked me to buy these for her.” She indicated eight items on the belt behind my order. She cleared her throat, and her eyes turned to slits. “Excuse me,” she said to the young woman. “You just said you live a block away, but you told me you were homeless.”

The young woman raised her shoulders and eyebrows. “By homeless I meant I don’t own the house I live at.”

The older woman snorted. “Right.”

The cashier and I exchanged a look. And the young woman scurried away that day with a bag full of food because no matter what, she needed it.

On another shopping trip, I strode across the parking lot to Aldi’s sliding glass doors. Icy winds sliced me. I quickened my pace.

A man’s voice coming from thirty yards behind me cut through the frozen air. Something, something “—black backpack!”

What was he shouting?

The late-afternoon crowd zipped into the store, and I darted for the doors too. After a long day, I would make this one fast. Ciabatta rolls, almonds, avocados, eggs. I could be in and out in ten minutes.

Something, something “—black backpack!” the man yelled again.

Wait. I carried a black backpack purse. Was he hollering at me? I entered the store and encountered the chips section. My interest in Holler Guy’s incoherent communication style disappeared as fast as the Pringles would if I brought some home.

Something, something “—black backpack!” the man bellowed again from just outside the doors.

He entered the store and caught up with me in the trail mix area.

“That was me calling you,” Holler Guy said, his tone cheery. He tilted his head, assessing me. “From back there, you looked much younger.”

I bunched my lips to one side, harrumphed, and returned to my browsing.

Much younger? He appeared to be in his late fifties. Did he make a lot of connections shouting at much younger women in grocery store parking lots? I wrinkled my nose.

“I wanna dance with somebody,” he sang as he poked through the condiments at the end of the aisle. “I wanna feel the heat with somebody.” He plucked a bottle of ketchup from the shelf. “With somebody who loves me.”

I smiled, shaking my head. Only Whitney Houston sang the song better than Holler Guy. Maybe he’d have more success with the ladies if he stopped yelling and serenaded them instead. But I didn’t tell him that. I still had to find the ciabatta rolls.

Over the years, I came to enjoy the adventure that was food shopping in our neighborhood. It called for a roving gaze over the parking lot whenever I climbed from my vehicle. On most trips, someone asked me for money or blurted out unseemly comments for the world to hear. Different grocery stores in other neighborhoods made me yawn, however. While pretty and predictable, they were bland excursions with only one outcome: groceries.

But not our Aldi. With delicious eats and built-in entertainment, we came home each time with so much more than food.

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

Jo

Darkness lived a block away at Doris’ old place.

After she died a few years ago, it moved in. I only thought about it when my connections on a neighborhood Facebook page talked about what was going on over there.

The darkness came in the form of people—zombies, as some neighbors called them—who weaved through the alley night and day, carrying backpacks. These were otherworldly ones, meth pulsing through their veins and transforming them into creatures of the night.

The zombies covered up the home’s windows, darkening their world even more, so not even a pinprick of light could pierce their abyss. I tried to fashion the truth from the scraps of information floating around me. This nuisance house wasn’t a rental situation, my neighbors said; the owner of the place lived there too, so not only did he know what was going on, he was running it all. 

“He’s a dealer,” one man said at a neighborhood crime watch meeting, “so there’s no point reporting the drug use on his property to him. He’s part of it.”

“How do you know he’s selling?” a police officer asked. “Do you have any proof?”

“Some kid rode to the house on his bike not too long ago,” he said. “He had a roll of dollar bills in his hand.”

The meeting’s attendees doled out various scant pieces of information. The property looked like it belonged to a hoarder, aluminum foil and boards covered the windows, and although the place was quieter during daylight hours, the night brought out the hordes, the garbage, and sometimes the screaming.

“There’s a steady stream of traffic going to and from the house,” another neighbor said. “And they all carry backpacks.”

I envisioned termites nibbling at the wood of a home, slowly bringing it down. And maybe this pestilence would take down this particular house too—and the neighborhood with it. The alley running by the property was sprinkled with needles, evidence of the activities inside. And users littered them around the park two blocks down too, another neighbor said.

I thought of my life in our home.

While I carried in grocery bags from the car, someone was making a beeline to the drug house for a fix.

While I poured myself a second cup of coffee in the morning, someone over there was passed out from their partying the previous night.

While I snuggled with a book before falling asleep each night, someone was shooting up only a block away.

Unlike some of our neighbors, our house didn’t have a front-row seat to the activities. My ignorance insulated me. And I liked it that way.

In early August 2019, we set up for our National Night Out gathering, the event created by the police to foster a sense of community and safety among neighbors. Like every year, we pushed folding tables together in the middle of the blocked off street. And like every year, residents of four blocks came together to celebrate each other, bringing salads, chicken, fruit, beans, tacos, cookies—and more. Camp chairs circled the food tables, and more than twenty of us neighbors got comfortable with paper plates of food from our shared bounty. We updated each another on our lives. I hadn’t seen some of them in a year, our worlds running by different calendars in separate houses.  

“I think about this dish all the time,” I said to the neighbor who brought his Thai noodles again, pointing the tines of my fork at the generous helping on my plate. “So delicious.”

He smiled. “It’s easy to make.”

Trees twisted over our view of the cemetery a half block away, and late afternoon sunlight streaked through them. A rosy hue colored our talk, cheering us as we went around the circle, each of us sharing one new thing that had happened in the past year. Two new grandbabies were born to one couple, one man walked twelve-hundred miles outside over the harsh Minnesota winter, one couple drove their MINI Cooper to Mackinac Island, Michigan, for the annual parade of MINIs. And the highlights continued.

Our activity over, we munched on dessert—or seconds of the main dishes—and daylight softened to dusk, the sun dipping inch by inch back into the earth. I sucked on a black cherry popsicle, remembering why I loved my neighbors. The peace. The stability. The kindness.

And then I saw her.

A young woman meandered toward our group, the silhouette of her body like another tree branch against the rosy-orange of the waning day. She looked lost, a backpack slung over one shoulder. Uneasiness trickled down my spine.

The early twenty-something halted outside our circle. She wore a thick black leather jacket and jean shorts; her bony legs were marked with bruises. She pulled her pack onto her back.

I flicked a look at Marta, always a welcoming force in the group and the one who had led us in our sharing time around the circle minutes earlier. Her gaze rested on the young woman.

“Hi,” Marta called to her, motioning her toward a seat by us. The young woman shot looks around, one eyebrow arched, and edged nearer. She eased onto the edge of a folding chair, making room for the pack which stayed on her back. “What’s your name?”

“Jo,” the young woman said, her face blank.

The word zombie flashed into my brain. Robotic movements. Lack of emotion. The undead, as they were called in movies and TV shows.

Did the others in our circle see it too? Did they guess, like I did, that this woman spent time in that house—the one we had discussed with each other and the police too many times to count?

“Where do you live?” another neighbor asked her.

Jo paused, then blurted a house number, adding, “I think.”

She thought? Was she sorry she had given that much information? Was she headed there after this? And what was in that backpack?

I lengthened my exhales. Someone had kicked in our door while we were away one afternoon. Someone else had crawled through our unlocked kitchen window while we slept one night. Those things rattled me. But the unpredictability of a person strung out on drugs jolted electricity through my fingertips, surpassing all my previous fears.

And some of you were once like that…

Unbidden, the snippet of Truth struck me to my core, bringing more with it.

But you were cleansed; you were made holy; you were made right with God…

I eyed Jo—her shifty gaze, her flat affect, her bare skinny legs sticking out of biker boots.

“Help yourself to something to eat,” I said. She looked at me, her eyes vacant. A few more encouragements like mine, and she stood and sauntered to the table. She lifted a chicken drumstick and stared at all of us like she still needed permission. “Seriously. We don’t want to take it home with us. Please eat.”

She peeled a paper plate off the stack and filled it. And then I saw the space around us on the street that night.

There was room at the table for her too.

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

The bathtub

With the state of the world these days, life can become clearer during a good soak. And sometimes fun memories flow back to me too.

*****

We learned it was only cheap steel—and not cast iron, after all—the day we tore out the old tub in the summer of 2016. I gazed at its marred surface, wounded by love and use. The previous homeowners had applied adhesive anti-slip treads in the shape of flowers to its bottom and ripped them off, damaging the tub’s finish. I could never scrub away those blemishes in the enamel, and the sight of them had irritated me over the years. But now the tub was going away and taking its scars with it.

“Are you ready?” Husband said, handing me a pair of work gloves.

“Yep.” I pulled them on. “Let’s do this.”

He and I muscled out the old tub, much lighter than it had appeared when it was larger than life, occupying so much space in our bathroom.

He led the way as we inched the beast through the door and out of the house for good. This tub—never a thing of beauty but one of function—was not only a cleaning vessel but also a time capsule.

As we hefted the tub down the backyard sidewalk, I heard three-year-old Flicka’s wails again, her skin screaming from the stinging nettles, and my next door neighbor Glenda who had witnessed it too, advising from over the fence, “Rinse her off in the tub!” The bathtub had washed the nettle hairs from my girl’s skin that day before the baking soda paste did its work.

I recalled the weeks I had washed dishes in the bathtub during our kitchen renovation of 2004. I had been pregnant out to there with Dicka at the time, and my low back had never been so happy to see a working kitchen sink again.

I saw the girls’ communal bath times, the water tinted by food coloring. Sometimes miniature Dachshund Dexter joined the party of three for a swim; the flapping kids didn’t scare him one bit. But once, when he was only a spectator, the water became too warm for preschooler Flicka, and she leaned over the edge and threw up on him.

The bathing hours were often teachable times too.

“Jry me off, Mama,” four-year-old Flicka said one day.

“Actually, the word starts with a ‘d’,” I said. “It’s ‘Dry me off’.”

“Mama,” said two-year-old Ricka. “I go potty in the tub.”

I grimaced. “Oh no. Don’t do that, honey.”

“No, it’s okay. I do it.” Her tone was lilting, accommodating.

“Everyone out!” I said a little too late. Thanks to Ricka’s generous donation to bath time, I was forced to do the vilest fishing of all and afterward, to spritz the tub with a good dose of bleach.

Deep into their elementary school years, Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka entered their hair dyeing stage, and the bathtub took on a new job title: Salon Assistant. Of all the possible colors, the girls chose only reds: Vampire Red, Pillarbox Red, Rock ’N’ Roll Red, and Infra Red. Maybe the brand name of the semi-permanent hair dye—Manic Panic—got its inspiration from how mothers felt when they saw their kids’ heads dangling over the edges of their bathtubs, the dye—like blood—dripping off them in viscous strands, circling their drains.

The tub had also hosted the dozens of small houseguests we had entertained over the years. They were burgeoning archaeologists, those little ones, their skin collecting dirt samples from Folwell Park, Webber Park, and other parks in the city. And when they had finished their bathtime routines, they clung to their memories but left a coating of grit behind.

My dad had sat, contented, in our bathtub too, like one of my babies, his head drooping. The bone marrow transplant had given him something, but taken away more, including his sense of modesty.

“Dad, I hope this doesn’t embarrass you, me bathing you.” I squeezed a sponge full of warm water onto his back, taking care not to scrub his skin too hard.  

“Nah.” He closed his eyes. “If I were a thirty-year-old man, sure. But not now. Not anymore.”

Husband and I lugged the tub to the end of the back yard and lowered it to the ground by the chain-link fence. We had an errand to run, but later we’d haul it to the alley for removal. We climbed into the car.

“Let’s take some pictures of the tub when we get back,” I said as we drove down Dowling Avenue North. “No, in the tub. Wouldn’t that be hilarious? With the caption: ‘Our yearly bath’. Or something.”

Husband grinned. “It can be our Christmas card this year.”

We returned to the house forty minutes later, but the area by the chain-link fence was bare. The bathtub was gone.

“Seriously?” Husband shook his head.

I wrinkled my nose. “Who would steal an old bathtub?”

But it didn’t matter. We didn’t need a sentimental send-off or funny snapshots to memorialize our once loyal roommate. We could just be thankful we had had the tub at all and let the memories wash over us.

I wish this were an actual photo of our tub, but no.

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

Firsts

The story you’re about to read was one I wrote in the summer of 2016—a bloody summer in our neighborhood and city. The details of it still knife me in the heart, but there’s always hope.

Isn’t there?

*****

North Minneapolis. Friday, July 8, 2016, 11:27 a.m.

A black Chevy Impala pulled up to the intersection of Penn and Lowry. Just then, Melvonte Peterson rolled up in his minivan, two kids inside. The driver of the Impala fired two shots at Peterson’s vehicle—one bullet grazing fifteen-month-old Melia’s leg and the other striking two-year-old Le’Vonte in the chest. Peterson returned fire, hitting the nearby hardware store before he sped off to North Memorial Medical Center.

As I drove east on I-94 on Friday morning, July 15, I remembered the chilling details from the news the week before and gripped the steering wheel like it was one more life slipping away. I watched for the Snelling exit, tension claiming the space between my eyes. It would be a day of firsts for me: the first funeral I would attend for a stranger; the first for someone who had been murdered; the first for a child.

I arrived at Bethel Christian Fellowship in Saint Paul too easily. I should have circled the block numerous times, at last snagging a parking spot a mile away. Instead, I parked only feet from the front door. A packed sanctuary should have forced me to stand in the back, straining to hear the preacher’s words about the little one. Instead, I had my choice of any seat in the house.

The previous day, three-thousand people had attended the funeral for Philando Castile, a man killed by a police officer on July 6 at a traffic stop in Falcon Heights. But at the service I attended on Friday for Le’Vonte Jones, the two-year-old gunned down on July 8 in north Minneapolis, not even three-hundred mourners made an appearance. I gritted my teeth at the unequal treatment of two humans, now gone.

Did the public consider this an issue of age? Was Le’Vonte worth less because he had enjoyed fewer trips around the sun than Philando? Or did the credentials of a shooter determine the value of a victim’s life? I frowned and clung to my belief that all black lives equally matter.

I made my way down the aisle to the front of the church. A tiny white casket cradled the toddler, stuffed toys propped at his feet. I gazed at the child’s body—so similar to the little boys who had stayed in our home—and wept at violence snatching yet another life from my neighborhood.

To the right of the coffin stood a woman holding a box of tissues. She looked at me, her mouth curving up at the corners. A question mark lit her eyes.

I’m no one, I felt like saying. I’m just here to cry too.

“Bless you,” she whispered as she wrapped me in a hug. “Bless you. Bless you.”

Then I turned toward LeShae, the boy’s mother, who toted fifteen-month-old Melia on her hip. Serene and thin, she spoke to the person ahead of me, her voice a gentle breeze. My gaze drifted to a wound on the baby’s leg—evidence of the other bullet that had ripped through the minivan that day.

“I’m from north Minneapolis,” I said when it was my turn. “I’m so sorry.” My words, backed by gold, sounded like tin.

“Thank you.” She circled an arm around me, and I hugged her back, taking care not to crush her. 

I left the grieving mother to the next mourner and strode toward the back of the church to find a seat. A woman I had met at Birdell Beeks’ vigil a month earlier settled into the chair next to mine.

She pointed her chin toward LeShae. “She had another baby—a girl—just one week before Le’Vonte died.”

I blew out a breath. One week, life; the next week, death. “Where’s the dad?” I asked.

The woman extracted a tissue from her purse. “He was arrested this morning in connection with the shooting.”

The sun shone through the church windows, and I shivered. Instead of filling the sanctuary with warmth, the light exposed everything: dead toddler, injured baby, arrested father, hurting mother.

Hopelessness crept up my throat.

The service began. A soloist sang “Soon and Very Soon”, and I clapped along with the congregation, because I wanted to feel it too. Two women circulated the sanctuary with boxes of tissues. Then the preacher stood and delivered a message. He spoke of the boy, stolen away by the violence that too often raged through the streets of north Minneapolis.

Then he held out his own past for all of us to see.

“I was a shooter too. But God transformed me.” The pastor thumped his chest with a fist. “You see, He gave me a new heart.”

My friend leaned toward me. “He shot a cop,” she whispered. Then she clutched my arm, her eyes shining. “But the cop forgave him.”

In the days following Le’Vonte’s funeral, I sifted through the details, recalling the meager number of mourners gathered for a horrid reason. Was there any good in any of it? But then I remembered the story of a man—once a shooter—now forgiven, redeemed, transformed.

And a stream of light pierced the darkness of our times. Hope had broken through again.

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

Small lights

These are dark days.

But sometimes small lights break through to cheer us.

Like on Monday when we entertained four of them for the day. While their mama scurried to move their belongings into their new place, we soaked them with the garden hose in the 97-degree heat. They shrieked in delight. Everybody ate cheese quesadillas and clementines (and a bunch of other things), snoozed on the couch in Flicka’s arms, and created chalk masterpieces on the brick sidewalk in the back yard. (One even imitated Jackson Pollock’s technique, so he’s a prodigy, it turns out.)

These are dark days.

But sometimes small lights break through to cheer us.

*****

*Note: the mother of “the small lights” gave her approval for me to post these pics showing their faces.

So many bricks to color, so little time.

Fun in the sun. Swimwear optional.

The (staying awake) struggle is real. So they didn't.

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

Quietness

“My quietness right now is not inaction,” a friend of color posted on Facebook a few days ago.

She had been working behind the scenes, she stated, grace and beauty flowing from her simple words. No specifics to gain applause, no details to garner praise.

This woman is tireless in her work in the inner city, storming the streets for change and the gates of heaven for transformed hearts. Knowing how it feels to carry racial wounds, the entirety of her job is to fight for equity and reform.

Had someone called my friend to account for her silence on social media? Anger burned in my throat. This woman was working too hard to stop and publish her good deeds online. How could anyone demand an accounting of her time?

I think of another friend—a white one this time—with a similar story. Her job is in social work in North Minneapolis, acting as a voice for the voiceless, always moving for the equality and promotion of the unprivileged. Because she is quiet on social media, does she also encounter pressure to post the good she’s doing? How could anyone exact a list of her activities?

Do we post online for approval? From whom? For justification of what we do? For what reason?

But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.  

Neither woman is new on the scene, freshly moved to action because of the tragedy of George Floyd’s death. No, for decades they have traveled the depth of heartache with others and toiled for them with few words online to showcase their sacrifices off.

Another friend of color posted this on Instagram yesterday, and of course she would; her grace is boundless:

“Some are posting on social media. Some are protesting in the streets. Some are donating silently. Some are educating themselves. Some are having tough conversations with friends and family.

A revolution has many lanes—be kind to yourself and to others who are traveling in the same direction.

Just keep your foot on the gas.”

Words online or lack thereof, I promise to keep my foot on the gas.

You too?

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

Remember

The neighborhood kids grew up shooting baskets on the slab of cement by our garage. They gained inches—in height and in their verticals—over those six or seven years. It was easy to love them—and I did—from the get-go. Sometimes I stood by the chain-link fence, witnessing their game improve. I kept my exuberance to a minimum. I didn’t want to embarrass them in case they’d bolt. But my chest puffed with pride for those almost-kids-of-mine, and as I watched them play, sometimes my affection slipped out in words. Coolly, they eyed me back.

One day, the group—Keyondra, Antoine, Armani, Peanut, and Aisha, their ages spanning thirteen to sixteen years—clustered in our yard to ask me a question. It was an unusual occurrence, their coming that close to the house; their proximity to our back door said more than they did. I nibbled away a grin and sat on a lawn chair to talk with them. The girls plopped onto the grass next to me. The boys stood nearby. No one should pick favorites, but along with the three blondies I had birthed, these five were mine.

We chatted about life, school, and basketball. I wasn’t great at the game, but I knew a little something about the other two subjects.

Whatever they’ve seen of white people, God, make their brush with me good.

Husband came out of the house.

“What’s going on?” he beamed at our visiting kids. “Anything new?”

They invited him into their day too, Aisha bubbling between topics.

“What’s new with you?” she said back to him.

Husband patted the dog’s flanks. “I just got home from work.”

She plucked a blade of grass but kept her focus on him. “What do you do?”

“I’m a Federal Air Marshal.”

“What’s that?” She tossed aside the piece of grass.

“He’s a cop,” Keyondra said. “On airplanes.” I had forgotten she knew.

Aisha’s eyes went round. “A cop?”

Armani sprinted down our brick path, flew through the gate, skidded around the garage, and tore down the alley.

“What just happened?” I said, frowning at the boy’s sudden exit.

Keyondra shrugged. “He heard ‘cop’.”

The kids drifted home, but our basketball hoop was a magnet. Soon, they were sucked back and into a game—Armani too.

“Hey,” Husband said to the kid who had fled our yard earlier. “Why did you run?”

Armani shrugged, his gaze down.

“You’re welcome here,” my man said, his tone soft. “You don’t need to run, you know.”

But my heart deflated. Easy for us to say.

On the evening of Monday, May 25, 2020, at 38th Street and Chicago Avenue in Minneapolis, a white police officer kneed the life out of a black man, George Floyd, an image-bearer of God who lay handcuffed on the ground. Someone captured video footage for the world to see—and I wish I hadn’t.

The violence made me queasy, the injustice irate.

And God’s anger burned too.

Faces of my neighborhood family streaked through my mind. Could this happen to those kids of ours? Would this happen to them one day too?

Please, God, no!

In my mind, I flipped my life around to different angles to see it better. All I had done seemed like a whole lot of toos: too little, too late, too insignificant. My love? Definitely not enough to fix anything.

So, what could I do now?

Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves; ensure justice for those being crushed. Yes, speak up for the poor and helpless, and see that they get justice.

It wouldn’t be easy, but it was simple: I’d remember Mr. Floyd and our neighbor kids.

And I’d come up with something.

(This is just a free stock photo and in no way connected with Monday’s murder.)

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

Travel stories: Greece (part 4)

The emptiness of our hotel blared in my ears. A few other guests occupied the place with us, their presence ghostlike. We might have heard their movements at times, but it was probably okay—with the virus hovering like it was—if we didn’t run into them.

The restaurants of Athens shuttered, we stood in line for takeout from Savvas kebab shop for our first dinner in the city. Nearby customers took drags from cigarettes, their smoke drifting our way, but the savory aromas floating from the shop’s grill won out. Up at the window, the choosing was easy. We only had a few options: grilled chicken or beef—alongside vegetables, French fries, and a sauce of our choice—tucked into a cone-shaped pita for 2.9 Euro ($3.20.) Food portions in Greece were large, their prices small. And costs were small for everything else too—except gas, which set us back 5 Euro/liter ($5.65/quarter gallon.) We ate dinner in our hotel room that night, our open window overlooking Monastiraki square, the hubbub of humanity wafting in on the evening breeze.

In the morning, we hopped the Athens Open Tour’s Gray Line and explored the city by bus. Disease might have bullied the metropolis into closures, but it wouldn’t shut down our sense of adventure—or that of the tourists around us. The route showed us City Hall, the War Museum, and the Temple of Zeus, and we disembarked for photos at the Acropolis and Parthenon. I gazed in the direction of the Areopagus, a hill where the Apostle Paul once spoke to the people of Athens about their altar to the Unknown God—that God, now known, and traveling with us down the streets of Athens, its alleys scattered with litter and its buildings tattooed with art.

The next day, we boarded the Riviera Beaches bus line, down Poseidonos Avenue, and along the seaside. Marinas, beaches, and a war cemetery memorial lined our path. Never in any European country had I witnessed more runners out for exercise, and I thought of a young Greek in 1936, Konstantin Kondylis, the first runner in the history of the Olympic Torch Relay who launched the tradition for the opening of the Olympic Games. But we weren’t runners as much as consumers on this trip, and as we approached Marina Glyfada, our stomachs growled. We spied a familiar fast-food restaurant. All tourists should probably try McDonald’s when abroad, shouldn’t they?

Only a few of us were allowed inside the Golden Arches at once, so we waited in the sunshine outside. When it was our turn, Husband and I entered. We placed our order with a masked employee. The menu on the wall listed new-to-us items, a Greek Mac (two beef patties in a pita) and a shrimp salad. I raised my phone to capture the sign.

“No photos!” a worker said, waving gloved hands in the air. “No photos!”

“Oh, sorry.” I slid my cell back into my bag.

And that scolding wouldn’t be my last. Murphy and I strode into a grocery store on Athinas, and an employee standing at the door instructed us to back off. A queue curved outside the store—something I hadn’t noticed—and our presence inside would have violated the number allowed in at one time too. Again, we awaited our turn. What was it like in Greece, minus pandemic rules? Would we ever have a chance to find out?

We strolled through Athens on foot, vivid graffiti illustrating our wanderings; artists had scrawled on every surface of the ancient city. We found shops specializing in only one thing: sausage or feta or eggs, but then came the Varvakios Agora, the iconic fish and meat market in central Athens with its endless options. Coronavirus restrictions had not yet reached the vendors there; no protective glass separated us from the merchants who called out prices of beef, pork, lamb, goat, chickens, and rabbit. Entire tables were devoted to organ meats like liver, kidneys, and intestines, and the place sold every kind of fish in the Aegean and even some from China, North Africa, and Portugal. And if the indoor bounty wasn’t enough, outside we passed shops with spices spilling from baskets and stands heaped with colorful fruits.

On our last day, the four of us took a break from racking up steps on our pedometer apps to gather in Husband’s and my hotel room. The idea of returning home pulled at my thoughts—an unseen weight over the trip’s ending. During our time on the island of Crete, we discovered our return flights had been cancelled. We lingered on the phone one day while an agent on the other end of the line tweaked our futures, changing our tickets home to March 17, a day earlier than our original reservations. Now, with our hours in Greece dwindling, it was time to confirm our flights.

I set out snacks for our friends: oregano chips, orange-stuffed olives, fresh-cut fruit. After a few contacts with the airlines, Murphy’s and Adonis’ check-ins were complete. Husband and I, however, begged KLM by voice message, email, and WhatsApp to please respond to us. No word. And while we waited, the kiwi, apple, and pear I had cut up browned in its dish on the coffee table.

Would we still have seats on a flight home? And what about our shuttle driver who promised to pick us up a block away when the time came? Did he know we needed him at 3:00 a.m. the next morning to bring us to the airport? We couldn’t reach him. Adonis even tried to find the website connected with his transport service, but it had vanished. What would happen now?

True to his word, our shuttle driver pulled up at 3:00 a.m. on the desolate street a block away from our hotel and greeted us, his tone chipper for the early hour. The man had remembered us after all.

Our luggage loaded in the van, I stared once more at the Acropolis, standing guard on its rocky hill; it watched me back. “Beauty and the flame of life,” actress Eleanora Duse had called the glorious site. We drove off, and I focused my gaze back to reality and away from the ancient citadel—because it was easier leaving beauty that way.

Tension tightened my chest as we stepped inside Athens International Airport. Even though we were unable to confirm our flights, would Husband and I still get boarding passes today? The kiosk answered in the affirmative by spitting out the paperwork we needed, and soon our luggage was taken from us.

As we waited in line at Customs, COVID-19 turned the strangers around us—some of them with masks, many not—into suspects. I frowned at my slit-eyed assessment of the citizens of the world waiting in line with me. Would this be my new life, distrusting others for what they may or may not carry?

I shook off my worries. All may look dark—like the shops and restaurants in the airport, closed for now—but maybe everything and everyone would be better soon. Husband popped a cough drop to quell the tickle in his throat. His cough, due to a cold during the trip, would no doubt sound sinister to the other travelers.

After our last breakfast of the trip, we split ways with Adonis and Murphy. Different flights through different cities at different times. If not together, at least we would all be home today.

On our flight from Athens to Amsterdam, a flight attendant chatted with a passenger behind us.

“Soon, two-thirds of all flights will be cut,” she said. “Right now, we’re just working to bring everyone home.”

And from the looks of the busy airport and packed flight, many were in a hurry to get there. Nothing makes one pick up one’s step quite like a global pandemic licking at one’s heels.

In my seat, I tapped through in-flight movie choices, imagining our amended future. Husband coughed.

“Cover that thing up,” a guy across the aisle said to him, grimacing. It didn’t matter that Husband already had.

It would be a long flight.

As we checked off each leg of our trip, my breathing eased. Before landing in Atlanta, flight attendants distributed forms, all of their questions concerning the Coronavirus. We checked boxes and filled blanks. Husband sucked on more lozenges. The wheels touched down and screeched to a halt, but the flight crew told us to remain seated. Two agents from the CDC—wearing plastic face shields, masks, and gloves—boarded and worked their way down the aisles, collecting paperwork.

One stopped at us and skimmed our forms. He zeroed in on Husband. “You have a cough?”

“Yeah.”

He took Husband’s temperature and moved on without a word.

One more flight to go.

We landed in the Twin Cities at 8:00 p.m. on March 17, 2020. The worldwide virus now lapping at every shore, we had left Greece just in time. We gathered our luggage—and our girls—and hurried into quarantine for fourteen days, per the CDC’s recommendation.

I flipped through trip photos in the quiet of lockdown. The Greece we had sampled didn’t taste like enough, and like Odysseus, we returned home in a different way and time, blown by winds we hadn’t expected.

“We must free ourselves of the hope that the sea will ever rest,” another Greek, Aristotle Onassis, once said. “We must learn to sail in the high winds.”

And maybe one day, those winds would bring us back.

Husband and me at the Acropolis, Athens.

The Acropolis photobombing Adonis and Murphy.

Milling around at the Parthenon, Athens.

Delivery driver in Athens.

Husband at the fish market.

The meat market in central Athens.

A man peeling beets outside the market.

Trying on shoes at the Amsterdam airport.

*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.