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We always think of seasonal disorder as a winter thing that’s brought on by long nights and a winter sun that hangs much lower in the sky. The winter of 2023-2024 has given us a seasonal disorder of an altogether different flavor, with extraordinarily high temps and dull brown landscapes.
This stuff would have killed me as a kid. I grew up on the East Side of St. Paul where we lived, ate and breathed outdoor hockey. Every last practice and game was held outdoors until one got to high school, and even then practices were outdoors at the old Phalen Youth Club. All us kids who lived west of Arcade Street had to blaze our own trails a half mile across the golf course to get to the youth club, and often through knee-deep snow. It was a legacy we inherited from the hockey legends of the East Side, and I can’t imagine a life where I didn’t do that each and every winter.
Dale Jernberg, Minneapolis
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I don’t know if humans have noticed or not, but we need earth — earth doesn’t need us. Let imagination take us to a place with no planes, no cars, no factories, no asphalt, no smoky skies, no cement, no guns, no drones, no oversized houses, no rockets, no weapons, no war. Quiet, breezes and winds. Seeds sprouting where they fall. Trees are saved from the chain saw, water is clearing, air is cleaned, glaciers remain and oceans sift away plastics. Where animals are existing and wandering unimpeded.
The planet might miss our admiration. Our music, for sure. Our artistic interpretation on canvas and stage. Twirling dancers embodying the joy of living. The caring hands picking up raptors with injuries and healing them. The written word, our highest achievement. The emotion we bathe over each square inch we inhabit. The curiosity. The amazement, the striving, the discovery, the love. Surely it would miss the love we have for our home.