This Was 2020: Minnesotans Write About Pandemics and Social Justice in a Historic Year: Minnesotans: Minnesotans Write About Pandemics and Social Justice in a Historic Year

By Friends of the Ramsey County Libraries

This Was 2020 is a collection of writing by Minnesotans about living through the upheavals of a historic year. The short prose and poetry pieces address the COVID-19 pandemic and the justice for George Floyd movement along with the general political climate in the United States. The writers offer heartfelt reflections on the difficultie

• Language: English
• Publisher: Friends of the Ramsey County Libraries
• Release date: Aug 16, 2021
• ISBN: 9781087970158

Book preview

The Bear in the Window

Brad McNutt

He wears a surgical mask, although not enough research has been done to know if cardboard bears can contract Covid or spread it. He mostly wears it to protect others, and so he is a noble, caring bear. The window, against which he presses his face tirelessly, faces the parking lot of a townhouse. Cars come and go, people walk by, and children wave back at his two dimensional hand, and I think I hear him sigh.

He misses the hugs and living room gatherings with friends and family. That all seems distant to the bear now. The murmur of voices that mean other souls are near when you went in a restaurant, or bookstore, or museum. It was the communal background of sound that we never knew was so beautiful until now, he thinks. The bear waves to remind others and himself that we are still all a part of the larger whole.

Brown acrylic paint had been slathered, mud-like, onto a shape that was cut in the image of a bear. It was cut from a cardboard box that had once held a product made on the other side of the world. Those people too, who are as far away as you can get, are now wearing masks similar to the bear’s. He waves for them too from his window.

Thank heaven, the bear thinks, for our technology that allows us to maintain our relationships. However, talking on computers and phones is too much like pressing against the cold hard window to see others. It is better than being a solitary cardboard box, but not as nice as being closer to others.

On Halloween, in respect for the occasion, he wore an extra mask. Like Batman’s cowl. That mask covered what the surgical mask had not. He knew that no gypsies, goblins, princesses, or superheroes would visit with open bags in small hands and declare the time honored ultimatum of Trick or treat. He waved anyway.

During Thanksgiving, he held a turkey leg up high like the lantern on the Statue Of Liberty. He was guiding the faithful to enjoy what repast they may have. Give us your isolated, your masses, yearning to be huddled once again. There was not be a table full of adults and children making noise and eyeing the whipped cream surface of a pumpkin pie. He waved anyway.

A Santa Claus hat perched on the little bear’s head as snow fell and trees were tied to cars. Lap sitting on Santa would be rarer that year. Static sounds made by the happy tearing of wrapping paper would be briefer than other years in memory. The bear hoped others would see him and smile. A small thing he knew it was, but it was all he could do nonetheless.

Groundhog Day came and went with not enough imagination on the part of the painter to decorate the bear. The little cardboard figure smiled under his mask and waved on anyway. Winter would turn very cold soon, and it was important he keep up his vigil.

Red glitter decorated his chest, like a giant heart medal, on Valentine’s Day. Love to all because all need love, it seemed to say, at least it seemed to me. That window was frigid and fogged up with his breath, but his acrylic fur kept him warm in his duties.

He knows other holidays are coming that will require him to don a hat or wear a flower. These are not really his style, and sometimes he feels foolish and silly. Blushing under the mask, he thinks of hugs and the closeness of others, of small ones sitting in laps, and of hands being held once more. So he wears those changing adornments with courage and sacrifice.

Leaning his forehead against the glass, he sees his small world drift, crash, and navigate across tragedies, elections, anger, the homeless poor, fear, hunger, loneliness, lawlessness, and many Holidays. Still, he waves. I like that about the bear, about us. We still greet each other, smile under masks, and recognize each others’ humanity. How alike we all are really, in our needs and the bear’s.

The painter may have to make the bear a bandaid for his furry arm when he gets his vaccinations. Bravely, he will show it to his limited world of friends. The little bear can hardly wait.

Early October

Donna Isaac

An orange-tinged finch brings friends

to the feeder, four others like bright candles

alighting near potted herbs and green onions.

They are my only guests lately.

I’ve boxed up the good china, candlesticks,

given away an ice cream maker, a bread machine,

thumbed through myriad cookbooks.

Tonight it’s catfish fingers and fried green tomatoes,

what’s in the freezer, what needs to be used.

Sometimes we gather in parks, weather permitting,

by the Mississippi, in backyards, distancing,

masks at the ready. We reminisce about wood-paneled

steakhouses, dinner parties with cloth napkins,

Barolos, something flambéed

We miss greetings, hugs, full-out guffaws.

We miss poetry readings, the theater, live music.

We settle for PBS, Kraft mac and cheese,

Zoom screens like Brady Bunch boxes.

In the sky, finches fly.

Sugar maples are shockingly red.

We can’t speculate about what’s next on our doorstep.

when the world became quiet

Wendy Brown-Báez

the animals entered the towns and walked the beaches

the birds sang loudly, braver than when forests and parks

were occupied by humans

the sea turned phosphorescent with life

the downtowns were silent, empty of cars, empty of shoppers

you could hear the bus going by two blocks away

the delivery person rang the doorbell and fled

the food banks had thousands of cars lined up

to receive a reprieve from hunger

the theater put on a virtual play and

the actors played to an invisible audience

dancers pirouetted in their kitchens and poets recited in their studies

and musicians in their living rooms performed with hearts afire

I saw more people creating online than I saw in a year’s time

I saw kindness blooming and taking over the Facebook feed

I saw corruption and power hammered on by the absence

of those who will not come home to us

I learned to be content in two small rooms

and my prayers, like the songs of the birds,

rang out more loudly and bowed in grief

A Week of Gratitude in the Time of Coronavirus

Sieglinde Gassman

I’m grateful for:

Monday

My middle daughter’s partner Mark who brought homemade chicken soup with noodles when he came to move a shepherd’s crook. Dropped it off in the garage to maintain social distancing; he’d heard I was feeling slightly under the weather.

Minnesota Health Commissioner Malcolm and all of those who present new information about the pandemic thrice weekly on public radio.

My daughter Gudrun who responded to a new chapter in my manuscript by recommending Ketchup instead of catsup. I replied that a fellow Detroiter in my writing group had affirmed that catsup is what we Detroiters call it. This daughter-who-amuses me then forwarded an on-line ad from a Detroit Walmart for Heinz Ketchup. Case closed.

The sun bursting out!

Tuesday

The breathtaking view of the stars and planets and moon that I see when I let my neighbor’s elderly lab out for a break at 10 p.m., leaning against the garage wall to keep from falling over as I bend back to look up.

Rodgers’ and Hammerstein’s words and music.

Ease of getting tested for coronavirus at Park Nicollet’s Lakeville drive through site.

My Apple Watch that reminds me to breathe and to stand—at which time I walk around and do a few exercises.

Charlie the Dog for wanting to sleep close to me on sofa and bed.

My house and my car.

Wednesday

Peanut butter for when I don’t know what else to eat.

WoofDah – the place where Charlie the Dog can romp with his friends for half a day when weather’s too hot or cold or he’s just plain antsy!

My Peace Corps (1991-1993) friend Martha who gifted me a subscription to a favorite magazine—Dwell—wherein I find a satisfying intersection of architecture and hygge.

The birds who come to my feeder outside the kitchen window.

My two German clocks that ring the hours and half hours. One aged 200+. The second more than 60 years old. Worth the winding.

Being in touch by Facebook with Apikanya, one of my Peace Corps trainers, who messaged me the recipe for the 4-ingredient pecan sandies she’d baked.

Thursday

Governor Walz who strives to protect us from coronavirus.

My sourdough starter that prompts me to produce bread, waffles, or pancakes, the making of which requires planning ahead.

The quiet in the time before dawn, watching for streaks of the golden light of the rising sun to reach the western sky.

My youngest college student grandchildren’s virtual xmas lists with a small number of gifts priced big and small, allowing me a peek into their lives.

The super-hot morning shower that washes away overnight aches, freshens my body, and clears my mind.

Friday

Nights like last night when I slept like a baby!

Greta Thunberg for waking us, shaking us, up!

For having something to do that I want to do.

The beautifully intricate patterns of the trees revealed now the leaves are gone.

The news coming to me by various means, providing a glimpse into the lives of people and places around the world.

My neighbor Lynae who just dropped off gifts for me and Charlie the Dog. A grand, new bed for Charlie with a note thanking him for taking care of me. A glorious poinsettia plant and lasagna ready-to-eat for me!

Saturday

The wit, wisdom, and spunk of my three daughters, Heide, Gudrun, and Lindi.

Suthida, my former student in Thailand who shares her 5 and 10-year-old daughters’ creativity and diligence via Facebook.

FaceTime, Zoom, Facebook, the Internet, phone service, postal service—that keep me connected.

Eldest grandchild Theresa whose birthday/xmas wishes are donations to organizations that support caregivers and artists in this time of coronavirus.

For those who protest injustice.

Sunday

My furnace.

The Sunday paper that lasts in the reading, at least until Tuesday.

The fresh snow!

The members of the St Paul JCC Writers’ Workshop and our host Barbie Levine for the encouragement and support they give me and my writing.

Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter who ever so quietly and peacefully work to improve the health, the right to fair elections, as well as the comforts of a  home, for people around the globe.

The Dakota County Library system that sanitizes and mails me the books I’ve reserved during the pandemic.

Being alive!

For all the above and more…

Politics in the Time of Covid

Betsy Leach

We were in the midst of a pandemic that was killing thousands, was denied by many, and was apparently endless. Despite this, life and politics must go on, albeit in ways that are constricted and confusing. It was, after all, the year of a presidential election and the decennial census. Plus, of course, let us not forget that people still need to feed, clothe and house themselves. Businesses need to make money. Things need to be built, torn down and rebuilt. The sun will continue to rise and set. Water will still flow downhill and seasons will change as if everything were normal.

It wasn’t, but we carried on.

My way of carrying on was to be in strategic confinement that included not seeing my grandchildren who are growing up faster than I can catch my breath. It also included strategic involvement in things that I believe will provide a brighter future for those rapidly aging members of the twice-next generation.

This was the year I had been both an election judge and a census taker.

Prior to all this chaos, I was semi-retired, or purportedly self-employed, without a regular paycheck but living a comfortable enough life as the dependent of an actually-retired person. And I was spending much of my time researching family history. I was scouring old census records to trace the movement of my mother’s people across the south, uncovering forgotten stories, realizing ancestors’ links to enslaved people who are probably also my relatives. And I was filling in gaps in my knowledge of who I am and what it means in today’s world to be a white American of colonial background with brown grandchildren.

So working the census was personal as well as political for me. It was a matter of understanding the connections between the past—even the long past—and the future my grandchildren and their grandchildren would live to see.

Assuming we would all make it through the pandemic.

At first I was assigned cases in my neighborhood. I walked from location to location trying to get responses from households that hadn’t returned their original forms or replied online. It took me a while to become comfortable with what I would have considered an intrusion into my personal space, if some stranger (or known neighbor) would have appeared at my door asking questions. I understood the lack of trust people had in responding, or even in answering the door.

But I soon got the hang of knowing what to say to reassure those who were simply reluctant, and in figuring out how to get around the locked doors of apartment buildings by tracking down landlords or property managers. I was surprised at the openness of many new immigrants to provide information and even to invite me into their homes, despite my white skin, my semi-official demeanor, and the raging pandemic. They either understood the importance of being counted or were fearful and hesitant to disobey the government that had granted them access to this country. Or both. I worked at being friendly and worthy of their trust.

But where I had more difficulty was with African American neighbors—those descendants of enslaved persons whose history in this country is as long as mine, but entirely different. In some cases, I connected with African American women who embraced my potential as a trustworthy person, who wanted to assure that their community was represented in the count, and who lived with hope that such representation would ultimately mean something positive for their children and grandchildren. We connected as sister-mothers in our concerns.

It was with young African American men that the refusals stuck. And time and again, the reason given was that they did not want the government to know where they lived because that information would be used to hunt them down. Not track them down. But HUNT them down. They didn’t mean by these statements that they had done something wrong and they were hiding from its punishing repercussions. They meant that the government intended to kill them.

They were open and honest with me about this. They didn’t say to me that they saw me as an instrument of this horror, only that they didn’t trust that the information they would provide to me would be used as I claimed it would be, as the Census Bureau insisted it would be. Several of them even told me that they wished me well in my efforts—that my job was difficult, and that I should take care as I went about it. But they were insistent that they would provide no information.

This was the hardest, most heart-breaking, most shaming part of the work.

I thought about the early census records preceding Emancipation. About how the Slave Schedules were separate listings from the Regular Schedules in which white people were counted. That the Slave Schedules, like the agricultural schedules that listed the livestock under the landowner’s name, listed enslaved persons only by age, degree of Blackness, and sex under the name of those who enslaved them, held them as property.

The Census had, in those days, erased the written history of individual Black people so that today’s descendants would have a much harder, if not impossible, task than I did of finding their ancestors and uncovering forgotten stories, of knowing more about who they are.

It seemed as if the young Black men of today were carrying out the wishes of white supremacists by removing their presence in the records of our community.  In my aching heart, I felt these young men were erasing their own historical record. They are somebody’s ancestors—I know this with certainty—and their descendants will want to find them—I know this with certainty,