Everyone has Monday mornings. I climb the stairs, unlock the door, fish the steel thermos out of my pack and put it on the corner of my desk. I fold my gloves in my hat and set them on the file cabinet. Hang the coat on the hook behind the door. Stand there. . . Stand there. 

And I am numb or dumb or something empty and hollow.

Sunlight spills in, pristine and new, clear as it gets, unburdened by the otherwise damp Midwestern atmosphere. It was fifteen below overnight. Brittle and severe. As dry as it gets.

My desk was how I left it on Thursday afternoon, the chaos of little notes to myself. Papers I should have filed. Pens that have dried out. Computer keys worn into a pattern of my hands. Classes were canceled on Friday for a polar vortex that wobbled off the unstable arctic rotation so I worked at home. Thursday to Monday is a little longer for weekend absence. I should sit down, log in, and get on with it all. It’s just as I left it. Nothing’s changed.

Except, masked men in mishmashed pseudo-military kit shot him. On a severe January morning like this one. Two days ago. They wrestled him to the ground. Beat him. Pepper-sprayed him. And shot him 10 times. Anonymous men. A few of them clapped. They ripped open his shirt and counted the bullet holes. And then they left.

And I am numb or dumb or something. 

I could hop on I-94 and get there in a little over four hours. I know the route.

I pace when distracted or bored or out-of-sorts. I like the building in the early morning before most of the rest of us show up. I walked up the hall and into my classroom. There are glass-fronted cabinets on one wall and shelving on the other and they’re packed with skulls and specimens but prominently with taxidermy mounts of native animals. Wall space not given to storage is clustered with shoulder mounts of deer. A pronghorn. A display of birds. 

I am alone in the middle among the empty desks. For a moment, I could imagine a Disneyesque theater in the round with me at the middle of creation’s assembled creatures. But its silly and fleeting. The mounts are hollow too. Dried skins pulled over forms of excelsior and wire. Glass eyes and dust. Everything is off. Time pulls at the stitches and seams contort and predators’ snarls are artifice and distortion. My muted internal monologue, a soliloquy for the dead.

We have family and friends in Minneapolis. We checked in with a few of them. They said the same thing, nearly word for word: “As bad as it looks on the news, it’s worse for us and our neighbors living here.” The masks, the military-like costuming and posture, the show-me-your-papers violence. Sneering racism. Ghost cars in their wake, doors open, windows smashed, drivers abducted. The point is dominance and fear. There’s a word for it.

Hot fear in Minneapolis and Chicago (a few hours in the other direction) spills out in all directions cooling and coalescing into a boot-sucking mire of anxiety and slack-jaw disbelief at the cruelty and lies. I know I shouldn’t be doom scrolling this much. I pray, I write and call lawmakers, I send donations. I wonder if I could summon the courage of the good people of Minneapolis when I am called. I’m marching with my students this afternoon.

I watched the videos. Historian Heather Cox Richardson said last night that 80% of us did. I watched them as they emerged over the weekend and as reputable news sources caught up. I have a strong stomach, a damaged soul.

I can’t think. I can’t write. I can’t sleep. And it’s not just me. It’s a part of every conversation. A dread so heavy it has its own gravity. I work in an economy of creativity and concentration. It’s unsustainable. My student was there on Saturday. Was headed to the now-infamous donut shop. Was turned back by the chaotic aftermath. 

They’ll fill this room at 11 and I’ll be back. Today’s lecture is about how scientists work to understand systems of unknowable complexity with rigor. I will pour myself into it. For 50 minutes, I will dissociate and live the material. I like to teach and I think I am good at it. It’s little wonder that I wander into this room when I’m a little lost. I find purpose here. 

It’s early in the semester and we don’t know each other well but I will earn their trust. Most of them are seniors and this is the last class they take in the major. I’ve got fourteen weeks to tell them how this stuff works, to give them a language for it, and a bit about why it matters – and then I’ll take a final few minutes and tell them how they’re going to change the world. Corny as that sounds, I choose to believe it.

Hope is a slippery thing and I don’t much like the word. It’s prone to wobbling off into pietistic folderol, prone to be a linguistic sedative. So I cup my hands and hold it gingerly. 

But the good people of Minneapolis. Marching 50,000 strong at twenty below. The dignity in the face of occupation. The resolute defense of their vulnerable neighbors. Their righteous anger. The clerical stoles layered over layers of Minnesota winter clothing, praying on their knees before being arrested. The networks of support for food and rent for families too afraid to leave their homes. Those people are the best of us.

My niece (whom I love and admire) says to keep talking about it.