Five Things to Love about Saint Paul from Someone Who Moved Here from Somewhere Else
2015
I know this sounds ridiculous: to love the speed by which one can get across town. Big deal, right? Yes. It is. You have no idea. Prior to moving to Saint Paul in 2008, I lived in Seattle, a city with an enormous and ever-worsening traffic problem.
The Drive
2015
Not wanting to alarm my husband and infant son, in case they’ve fallen back asleep, I don’t call. I don’t even text. But I do take a picture with my camera-phone, because I need proof that I’ve done it, that I’m actually here: sitting in a 2005 toyota Matrix, outside the Saint anthony Park library. this is incredible.
In Praise of Aging
2015
In praise of buses rattling through the streets
In praise of passengers jostling for a seat
In praise of a transfer I didn’t need to buy
In praise of snow falling from the sky, and my down coat
Bought secondhand but warm
Silverheels
2015
It was my mom’s first marriage proposal. At eight, she was the older woman. George was only six. After hasty consideration, Mom turned him down. As she explained to her mother, she couldn’t marry George. He liked carrots. She didn’t.
Photograph
2015
The photo had sat on the windowsill for the last twenty years. It had borne the sun’s ultraviolet tentacles until they sucked the ink from each pore. The image was that of the first child, a promise of greatness and potential to be cultivated.
TWISP | This Week in Saint Paul: Monday, January 19 – Sunday, January 25, 2015
2015
Even though the Saint Paul Winter Carnival is creeping up on us, our atmosphere is making its march toward spring. How is this? The calendar still says “January."
January 28th 2015: Jessica Lopez Lyman presents “Crossing the Blue Wall” at the Lowertown Reading Jam
2015
The “blue wall” is the impervious police/military state that brings destruction and injustice. Recently, we have seen resistance to the violence of the blue wall in the United States through the Black Lives Matter movement springing forth in Ferguson, New York, Oakland, and other places across the country.
TWISP | This Week in Saint Paul: Monday, January 12, – Sunday, January 18, 2015
2015
I’m looking for a winter escape. I am not a snowbird, nor am I likely to find the space for a sunny vacation in an alternative climate. Alternative states of mind and heart are easily at hand.
Why We Love Our City
2015
New York? It’s nothing. Saint Paul is more stunning. No other city can compete.
Of Arthur “Chan” McWatt (March 10, 1926–April 3, 2012)
2015
Saint Paul recently lost one of its most sterling examples of what it means to be a responsible, useful, and compassionate citizen. That individual was Arthur Chandler McWatt.
Home Is Knowing the Path to Her Door
2015
I laughed out loud when Bobbie finally confided to me the thought that struck her when she first heard my voice on the phone: “Oh, Lord. Another white woman looking for a Black care provider for her Black child.”