Quarantine Diary #7 3/20/2020

William Kent Krueger wrote (and is still writing) mystery novels about a guy who was once a cop, then a northern Minnesota county sheriff, and is now a private investigator.  There are (so far) 17 Cork O’Connor books. I first heard about them in January and right now I am reading the 17th.  I’ve spent a lot of time this winter canoeing the Boundary Waters looking for bad guys.

Every book is populated by the regular panoply of white people and as well by folks who are wholly or partly Ojibwe/Anishinaabe. The dynamic of white culture encountering Ojibwe culture is a huge part of why I love these books.

In each novel Cork (or some other character) will come to a point where they can’t figure out what to do next. Cork thinks Henry Meloux might have helpful clues since Henry is a nearly 100-year old Ojibwe ‘mide’ (healer) who knows everyone - and knew their parents - and knew their grandparents.  Cork will drive and hike out to Meloux’ isolated cabin. Cork asks Meloux pertinent questions. Cork needs to understand something right now. Henry inevitably answers deep doodoo answers such as, ‘The answer is already inside you” or “The woods know more than we can ever know” or “We will prepare a sweat for you.”  And then Cork or whomever has to spend hours in a sweat lodge with Henry singing Anishinaabe prayers and songs.

Like Cork, I want to get past this mystical obfuscation and hear (because generally we will hear towards the end of the novel) the actual story of what’s going on and why those people acted that way.

Just last night, reading yet again about a sweat that didn’t go well (the drunk guy threw up), suddenly I got it. Western culture says, “There’s this huge problem so lets’ put on our thinking caps and THINK! Let’s share information, work together, give it our all, figure this out. Let’s risk ourselves to save others. Let’s not hold back, let’s move ahead in this crisis.”

And fictional Henry is replying, “You need to close down your rattletrap mind. You need to put down what you think you know. You need to breathe and let go of your panic and ego. When done that, think again to see what’s what.”

This is, of course, impossible to write about. We are all so damn enculturated that we have categories in our brain for “Oh yeah, breathe deep; turn off our monkey brain; let the spirit move into us.” We know how to SAY this. We know people who DO this.  We are all about being Open to the Mystery and Spiritual Healing.

But few of us can pull off an empty mind for three minutes in a row before we are off and running with our solutions, anger, grief, cool ideas, and the latest idea we read or heard. (Raising my hand here.)

The coronavirus pandemic is pushing huge problems at us. Yes, we need N95-masks and ventilators and politicians who think about their constituents instead of their stock portfolios.

All of us are already living with dread, worry, and isolation. Some of us are living with symptoms or people we love are having symptoms. Some of us have lost people or we will. This is all true.

I am going to keep thinking about Henry Meloux, a fictional character who says what I might need to know and the strength I might need to have are already somewhere in the woods, the sky, the desert, the river, the lake, in me.

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My niece Susan works as a speech therapist in the Los Angeles public school.  She is also a person who sometimes pushes things apart or, other times, pulls them back together. Hmmm, I’ve never described her this way before, but I know I am right.

In the past week she’s been making beautiful circles of flowers and petals. She posts them on Instagram; you are welcome to follow her at: Susanlawrence954

The violet-edged hankie on which Susan made one of the arrangements was “tatted” by my grandma who was Susan’s great-grandmother. (I never heard the word crochet until after Grandma passed away.)  

Esther Anderson would have laughed and shook her head to see her hankie honored this way. “I’ve heard you are running out of bathroom tissue.” (She would NEVER have said toilet paper aloud.) “Why aren’t you using all those hankies I made for your noses?”

(I just realized if one says, “the Los Angeles area” one has said “the The Angels’ area.”  Cute.)

…

We did our census today. What a pile of hooey.

It asks if we are male or female - with no other options. It asks what our ethnic background is. Our people arrived BEFORE 1900, what on earth can possibly be relevant about asking that now?

You know what it doesn’t ask? Our income or what government services we utilize. 

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How are you doing?