Back in 1990, when I first set foot in Duluth and decided to spend the winter here, I called my parents to tell them, and there was a stunned silence. "Can you get the New York Times there?", my mother asked with a tremor in her voice. And of course, back then, the answer was, "no." It was the very fact that the city was so far from all that seemed "civilized" -- New York City, the U.K., the northeast, the world of private schools and high-powered careers -- that attracted me. I didn't become a wild nature woman, a fact that drives a few people crazy. "How can you be aligned with the Goddess and not love gardening or trekking in the woods?" But there are different ways of losing your worldly veneer; being perched on the edge of earth's largest lake started a radical shift in perspective that continues to this day. Last week, I did a visualization where I saw my heart strings tied around Lake Superior, like a bow. These days, the word "civilized" is highly problematic in so many ways, and rightly so; whatever it did or does still mean, I'm proud to have become less so.
There's a paradox in play right now, however. Where northern Minnesota used to feel like the back of beyond, in this strange new era, we're almost on the cutting edge. Definitely "in on the action". Last night, there was a completely strange storm, with thunder and lightning, rain and sleet, and wailing winds. A front has come through and now it's snowing hard. But the southern part of the state seems to have had a tornado, the first ever in December. I saw a map of the country the other day with various shades of red indicating warming temperatures across the U.S. The one swath of extremely dark red/burgundy spanned, you betcha, northwestern Wisconsin and across Duluth, into the Iron Range. Summers are much hotter here (gone are the days of wearing your winter coat in July!) and winters are brutal, but not anywhere near as much so as in the 1990's.
And Minnesota was the second state to discover the Omicron variant. We aren't in some far-off eden, we "are" New York and London and LA. We are in on the action. It's not a kind of action any of us wanted, but I actually embrace how this new era is leveling the proverbial playing field. The impulse to cut and run, to find a safe haven, will be sorely challenged as we move forward. Same with the impulse to fight and destroy. The only option, wherever we are on earth, will be to face those gale force winds lovingly, fearlessly, openly, and with curiosity. History is being made. All of us chose an amazing time to live...we are all in on the action.
