Field of Yellow Flowers at Druid Hill Park

Field of Yellow Flowers at Druid Hill ParkI’ve been riding my bike all over the place over the past week or so. The weather’s been perfect for it, and we’ve even had some days where I’ve gotten to get a good sweat on. It’s awesome. I haven’t felt much like writing about it, though. The uprising took all my words right out of me. I found myself writing and writing, as fast as I could, as if narrative could somehow make the very complicated things that are happening here–have been happening–make sense. Sure, we can make sense of bits and pieces, but there’s no way to see all of it from every angle, and words fail. And then there are also really nice bike rides where things feel “back to normal,” but it seems almost grotesque to be back to normal–to feel the simple joy of riding through the park with your ladyfriend–when you know your joy is subsidized by the pain of others. And yet. And yet, what are we to do? This stuff is too complicated for words, and there isn’t “a” solution–if there were, we’d have used it. Resistance has been here, will be here, is a condition of power relations. It’s not going anywhere, even as it might revitalize, move, shift, make new plans. It’s all moving, that’s how power works, and it’ll keep moving. So there has been much riding and little writing, because I don’t have any words, just the need for some space between narratives, but here’s one: on Wednesday I rode over to the zoo in Druid Hill Park to join A. and her sweet baby girl for a trip to see the goats, and on the way I pedaled through this field of yellow flowers in the lush grass of the park. Last time I was here I was heading back from Mondawmin Mall it was flowers in the trees instead of on the ground, a different stage in the cycle of park life. It’s still bright spring greens, though, the real heat around the corner.

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