2020 Hindsight

“They tell me everything’s gonna be alright, but I don’t know what alright even means...”

For 11 years I scooted every scootable day from April through October from my house to the Minnetonka City Hall, a 42 mile round trip. Near the Lake Street Bridge where Marshall Avenue in St. Paul becomes Lake Street in Minneapolis, there’s a building that houses an eye clinic and a psychology clinic. Every time I scooted by the building I thought to myself there’s a joke in there somewhere- how it was a one stop shop for those with a variety of vision problems (eyes and long and short term). 

At the beginning, perhaps the thing I missed most when I switched jobs was that long daily scoot. The scoot to my new job is less than five miles. Now I’m missing a world where I could safely leave my house, where everyday didn’t feel like the world is coming apart at the seams and the dread that seems around every corner.

2020 was always going to be difficult because for the first time in my time in elections there was going to be three statewide elections with the addition of the Presidential Nomination Primary (PNP) in March. I know there was a lot of angst amongst election officials throughout the state about running another election during a presidential election year, one which for the first time, the voter would need to disclose their political party in order to get a ballot. I spent much of the fall of 2019 traveling to all corners of the state speaking with county, city and township election administrators. 

The PNP went surprisingly smoothly statewide. Internally we made a horrible mistake directing voters for a short period of time to a partisan website when our poll finder application was having issues. Perhaps that was a harbinger for what was to follow. The state canvassing board certified the PNP results in mid-March. A few weeks later the pandemic caused everyone who could to work from home. There were horrible scenes of emergency rooms overflowing from people dying, trying to gasp for their last breath. The numbers were staggering. A friend joked that I should be good to go because I’d been practicing social distancing and isolation my entire life.

Then the Minneapolis police killed George Floyd by kneeling on his neck. This led to protests which led to riots and looting as parts of Minneapolis and St. Paul burned down. My scooter route down Lake Street was the epicenter of the worst damage. I sat there watching the news coverage as our city burned with anger and fire. 

A small group of us returned back to the office wearing face masks during the two week candidate filing period for the fall’s elections. One day, we were told by Capitol Security to evacuate the building and go home because a mob of looters was in the area and our safety was potentially in harms way. When the filing period was over we all returned to working from home. 

Over time Diego-San, Theo and I figured out a workable rhythm to this new normal of me being home all the time. Diego-San was particularly skilled at doing everything he could to get me away from working on my laptop so he could sit on my lap. He’d sit on my computer’s mouse, or my hand trying to use the mouse or sit right in front of my laptop. He made appearance in most of my online meetings and made himself heard during phone calls.

And then he died. Just when it seemed 2020 couldn’t get any worse, it did. The days after I fell into a catatonic state. It was all too much. The only thing I could to do to distract my mind and my heart was try to remember all the baseball players I’ve seen play. Who was on the 1973 St. Louis Cardinals? Who was in the 1984 Detroit Tigers bullpen? Who was the third baseman for the 1995 Minnesota Twin? That and imagining the comfort of Marisa’s touch. And there have been days since where I returned to that overwhelming state. The world also became a profoundly sadder place losing two giants of the civil rights movement, John Lewis and Ruth Bader Ginsberg not to mention the over 200,000 Americans who have died from COVID19. The anger in the country and the divide seem insurmountable at this point. What’s next?

I’ve made it a point the past month to take a ride on my scooter to get out of the house. The rides usually take me back to the neighborhood I grew up in, the streets I used to ride my bike during summer days growing up. This wasn’t a conscious decision, I just needed to ride my scooter somewhere. But I can’t help but wonder somewhere in my subconscious I wasn’t looking for a way to get back home again, back to a time when the primary thing on my mind was love and how my whole life and the whole wide world seemed in front of me.

“Once there was a way to get back home again. Once there was a way to get back home, sleep pretty darling do not cry. And I’ll sing you a lullaby...”

Theo misses his feline housemate(s). He cries out a meow every time I pass nearby. We both wonder what’s next and where we go from here.