ice, fire, and the hands of strangers

Hey there. I know haven’t written anything for like three months. Right now it’s all so much, so much grief and anger - I know you can understand. And I hope you’ll read this.

But first, here is a link to some resources to help the people of Minnesota who are struggling with so much right now. Thank you. We are in this together.

You can also follow me over at Mastodon if the fediverse is your jam: https://mastodon.social/@deekayzee

Not quite a dozen years ago, my husband and I stood in front of the Mendenhall Glacier.

He was playing music on cruise ships at the time, and I went on one of his cruises to see what it was all about (spoiler alert: never again). In Juneau, we got up early and headed out with coffee to check out this giant pile of ice so close to a capital city. There we stood, in love, smiling as though the chilly morning proved the world was not on fire and that the ice field was not dwindling behind us.

This week, we were in Texas when a big winter storm rolled through, one of those rarities that freezes the whole state. Five years ago when the last such event happened, the state’s independent energy grid failed. Pipes burst in every large Texas city, collapsing ceilings from Dallas to Houston. I watched from Cincinnati where I was working as my husband shepherded our Texas land through the weather. We were making plans to move our lives there, but that winter storm gave me pause. Well before our country’s (official) slide toward fascism, I wondered what we were thinking, heading toward a place where the government had left so many people twisting in the frigid wind.

This time, the freeze was not so bad, not as cold or long-lasting as 2021. Our power never went out, thanks to the work of our rural electrical co-op. The neighbors in our little pockets off the county road checked in on who needed what. We ended up burning our wood for fun, not survival, and the merry fire in the fireplace added panache to a few days iced in from work and responsibilities.

Not quite two weeks earlier, I’d been visiting my family in Minnesota. My sister and I went to one of the many rallies in Minneapolis. The streets and sidewalks were covered in slush frozen solid, uneven and slick, and the thousands of people gathered in the brutal cold held on to one another, accepting support from the outstretched hands of strangers.

Back by our cozy Texas fire, I read the news of continued death and violence and slander coming out of Minnesota, the latest in a stream of death and violence and slander pouring through every available channel, so much easier to find than news about the people gathering in the cold to oppose it all. Well into the longest writing dry spell of my life, I think about what those people are sacrificing: their physical comfort and safety above all, but also the time and space and peace to create, to connect, to rest. People keeping away from the protests, whether from fear or denial, are losing these things as well.

We’re all frightened animals these days, sclera stretched wide, reaction times shaved to the bone. Even the masks of the most brazen posers are slipping as we choose between fight and flight. Even the glaciers are on the run.

A piano-centric newsletter at this particular moment feels crazy and sane all at once. Like they say in Chorus Line, “I’m a dancer, a dancer dances.” I write about being a pianist because I’m a pianist who writes. I publish this newsletter because we are neighbors in community together, and connections like this are all we’ve got.

Thank you for being here. Let’s hold on.