I pay attention to the news; too much attention, some would say.
We have digital subscriptions to the New York Times, Washington Post, and our local paper, the Star Tribune. We’re members of Minnesota Public Radio and the local public television station. My long list of online news sources includes Politico, BBC, NHK (Japan, in English), and Britain’s Guardian newspaper.
Definitely, a bit much.
My morning routine is simple. My partner invariably gets up first and makes a pot of coffee. When I finally flee the arms of Morpheus, I get to sit in bed consuming the news, sipping coffee.
During our recent protests, my morning routine included one additional news source. I would get out of bed and wander around our apartment in my bathrobe. We get a 270° view of Minneapolis, so I would look out to the horizon to see smoke rising from burning buildings. In the evenings we sometimes saw military-style vehicles and police formations. Once, we saw protestors below us, fleeing a large tanker truck that had spun into their path.
There comes a point where news consumption only compounds feelings of powerlessness. We give money to a food shelf, and one morning we took a broom and dustpan down to Lake Street to help with cleanup after the previous night’s riot. Small tokens.
By last weekend we decided we needed a break from protests, Covid-19, and a President bent on breaking us apart. Monday would be a day without news media. I would go further, and turn off my tablet and phone.
Monday morning, I woke up to a cup of coffee and a novel, an actual paperback novel. A good friend and bicycle buddy had passed the book on to me last week. It was a page-turner; there would be no Kindle today.
We cycled over to Emily for haircuts, yes haircuts in this time of Covid-19. We’ve been going to her for thirty years, but had not seen her since early February.
It was then time for a bar lunch sitting outside, next to St. Paul’s Lake Como. Attempts at normality.
Back home we avoided news media for the rest of the day. We fantasized about the news we were missing. We’d wonder why fireworks were being shot into the air, rather than at police. Why were church bells ringing? We would resist turning on the radio, we’d wait until the following morning. Next morning I would turn on my tablet, open the New York Times app, and be presented with a photograph of President Pelosi, stepping out of Air Force One, having flown overnight from California. The former prez had choked on a particularly tough piece of steak while dining in his private quarters, having asked not to be disturbed. His next-in-line had a heart attack while performing the Heimlich. Or maybe the veep’s heart had given out while in flagrante with two male sex workers. They died doing what they loved.
Next morning, the world was still there.