Minneapolis

I’ve been on the road this weekend, heading back home tomorrow. The destination is Minneapolis, a place I’ve never been before. I don’t know what I was expecting, but the city has both a warm and utterly grey energy. There is something I love about a city on a river, and this one has that.

It also has the long history of police brutality. The murder of George Floyd and the uprising of 2020 that sparked so much of what seemed at the time like the possibility of some other way of imagining life.

And the history of Indigenous displacement. And the history of AIM and the birth of the Red Power movement. And the history of the trade and interchange that took place here centuries before settlers started to lay granite stones for an enormous rose-colored city hall. The home of Dakota people for centuries, those centuries that endure in the ongoing presence of Indigenous people here.

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But gurl, let me tell you what I did. I landed in MSP, let the person next to me pass first so she could make a connection. Walked down to the taxis and took one to my hotel. Checked in. Up the elevator. Walked into my room. Took off my coat. And then I realized I didn’t have my backpack.

I retraced my steps, back to the front desk (not there). Fuck. So I tried to see if I had the taxi’s number—there was a receipt in my email because I paid using an app (square), and that receipt had a number. I called—no answer. I leave a message. I call again. No answer. OK, change tactics.

I look up the number for the airport lost and found. Call. They tell me to file a report. OK. I file a report. I look up the number for Delta’s lost and found, call. They tell me to file a report. OK FAAAACCCCKKKKK. I file another report. They tell me they will look into it.

But then I realize! I have the “Find My” app on my phone, and my laptop was in my backpack, so it can tell me where it is! So I look it up and the computer is at the airport. So I now know the bag is not in a cab.

So I call the airport again. They tell me I can go there in person and try.

Next day: I get myself together and get a car out to the airport, go to Delta baggage services, and a nice man says he will check with his colleagues upstairs. OK. But it’s busy. He tells me to wait, and remind him in 15 minutes. 30 minutes go by, and then he comes and says someone is coming and they will help me. OK.

Finally, a guy in a red coat (“the red coats” will help you), comes and takes me upstairs and prints out a sort of pass so I can go to the gate. I have to go through security. I go through security. Then get to the gate where I know my bag is, and lo and behold…there is no-one there. But I can see my bag. Gleaming in the airport fluorescence. And there is a note on top of it with my name. So I stand around and look for someone, but there is no one. OK fine. I take the note and write: “Joseph picked up. Thank you”. Take the bag, head back downstairs, down to the taxi stand again, back to the hotel, and Plop. Plop on the bed.

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I wasn’t tired, but I had my stuff—meds, computer, moisturizer. (Why is it so dry here?) And I wanted to go to the Walker. So I went. And that will be another post I think. But I was able to see some very cool things. And then I wanted to go to Birchbark Books—Louise Erdrich’s store—and I walked there from the Walker, through a neighborhood of very very large houses. And then the bookstore. What a beautiful thing. I go inside and there are several people. Mostly non-Native. But they are interested in NDN things. I can hear their conversations. “Have you heard of the book about the earth and the directions,” one of them asks the cashier. He tries to help. But it’s not much to go on.

But I got emotional at the wall of children’s books. An entire wall of picture books featuring Native characters. Mostly by Native authors. I saw “Chooch Helped,” by the amazing Cherokee author Andrea Rogers, which (I’m not sure if I can say, but I’ll say: I’m translating to Spanish for the LatAm market). The book is a touching story about how a young brother always gets in the way (but his family always calls it ‘helping’) and his sister getting frustrated with it all. I’m really glad I can be of service in this way. Increasing the accessibility of our stories, via translations, is something I have advocated for in the past, so now I get to help put that advocacy to practice as well.

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A little bit of a random post. But I’m off to do some more art things. I’ll try to do a summary of some of the Walker exhibitions I saw later.