Journeys 3.1

It’s Sunday, but this was delivered today. Our home was a new build when we moved in nearly eight years ago, and now things are starting to fail. Still, this light bulb replaces the only LED light to give out; I special-ordered it to exactly match the light output and quality of nearby light bulbs.

As I was cycling down this path today, I remembered it was supposed to be a freeway. In the 1970s, a huge swath was cut through Northeast Minneapolis, leveling hundreds of homes and businesses and splitting the historic neighborhood in two. Outraged residents organized and fought back, successfully getting the project canceled. While the homes built in its place lack the character of the originals, they help heal the wound and reconnect the neighborhood.

Walked across this hellscape, as I do every time I walk to tutor an adult learner. There’s about 17 traffic lanes at this point where two Interstates run in parallel for three-quarters of a mile. I think of the neighborhoods that were torn apart and destroyed to create this. It’s a relief to be warmly welcomed at the Minneapolis American Indian Center, enjoy a cuppa and a fresh blueberry muffin in the cafe, then settle down to tutor in a nearby, lovely old library.

The U’s Weisman Art Museum was on my walk home, so I popped in to preview new exhibitions that just opened. In the center of this gallery, Vietnamese American artist Tiffany Chung proposes a floating town designed to survive floods. Along the walls, embroidered and drawn maps explore the upheavals of war, displacement, and disaster. I’ll be back for a deeper dive.

Existential angst on stage at the Guthrie tonight; existential choices at the oncologist’s office this morning, with Dwight steady at my side through both. A drug will let us kick the can down the road to the next decision point, pretty much promising a normal life for a few more months. Meanwhile, Didi and Gogo remain trapped by inaction, going nowhere beneath that scrawny tree.

​I can’t go to Japan right now, but Japan can come to me. Lunch today was Japanese fast food: gyoza, Spam musubi, and chicken yakitori. You can find Spam musubi in just about any konbini (convenience store), a popular snack originating in Hawaii.

​A friend and I made up a route as we went on a cycle ride through Nordeast Minneapolis. At Casket Arts, a former factory that once mass-produced caskets and other funeralia (a word I made up), we stopped to check out current sculptures by the artists who work there. In one piece, “Joe’s Auto Parts,” salvaged car doors arranged in a grid, capped by three vintage roof ventilators, become a sculpture.