Paradise Lost

I visited Minnesota for the first time in late April 1982. Spring was early that year, and I awoke to the sound of birds chirping enthusiastically in the Highland neighborhood of St. Paul. I had to go out for a walk in this idyllic place: the air was fresh and clean, trees were already in full bloom, and I ambled safely a few blocks to Highland Village, crossed Ford Parkway and continued along Cleveland Avenue to the campus of then College of St. Catherine. A few students were on campus, but I was mostly alone with rabbits, squirrels, nesting mallards, and a few geese. I saw my first cardinal ever, singing his heart out with what is now a familiar mating call.

I thought I had arrived in paradise, nestled away in this previously unknown center of the country. A little over a year later I moved here after Bob and I were married, and every day I seemed to discover some new idyllic spot. As the years passed, I fell in love with the land, water and people of Minnesota. I could not imagine a more perfect place on earth, no matter how many lovely places I visited.

I saw the hint of a crack in my rose-colored image one noon hour around 2011 or so. I had gone for a walk in the St. Paul skyways over the noon hour when excessive heat precluded my usual outdoor noon walk. By then, many businesses had already left the downtown area and the skyway was empty.  I felt uneasy when I heard footsteps behind me, stopped when I stopped, and beginning again, getting a little closer with every step. I moved as fast as I could to get to an stairwell leading to the street below, and hoped that the door at the bottom would be unlocked. Fortunately, it was, and the person who seemed to be following me did not emerge behind me. I wondered if the experience had perhaps been the result of an overactive imagination, but from then on I avoided all but the populated skyway near my work. Around the same time, after incidents not far from home, I stopped walking after sunset on the nearby ampus of St. Thomas University.

Fast forward to the COVID year of 2020. George Floyd was murdered in Minneapolis, just across the Mississippi River from home. The world suddently became aware of Minnesota, and not in a good away. Last June, on Flag Day, the assassination and attempted assassination of two Minnesota legislators and their spouses was a stark confirmation that violence and extremism had invaded our beautiful heartland; thereby forever robbing me of my innocent belief in paradise on earth.