Next Year In Jerusalem

Delivering petitions, and from bondage

I’m writing this from Milwaukee, on a glorious morning that defines “cold sun,” my adored weather. I grew up near here, in Madison, and my memory of winter is of brightness: the coldest days were the sunniest, and the snow, packed high on the curbs and lawns, was always as white as….[snow]; we wore sunglasses in the winter. The chest-clearing air made your thoughts cohere. Cold sun makes you feel smart, makes you want to take action, maybe ice skate— I taught myself how to twirl and do figure eights. Cleveland’s winters are milder, browner; they make your head fuzzy; they make you watch Netflix, be cynical, throw up hands, and resign yourself to the comforting sludge of cynicism and apathy.

Or maybe just: I was younger then; I am older than that now.

My son, son of NEO, finds the phrase “cold sun” hilarious and wrong. “Mom: it can’t be both cold and sunny!” Me: “I have failed you my child who has never experienced a glimpse of blue between November and April.”

I am not complaining, not from here in mid-April; the forsythia on my teeny tiny brick-paved Tremont street is budding. But I am feeling awake and alive here in colder, bluer Milwaukee.

Weather is a topic I keep chronicling; so is local news, and ruin. But lead poisoning is probably what undergirds this entire project. Can we get to December 31 and have achieved some change? Can there be anything other than steps forwards and steps backs?

As I wrote in a post here on January 27:

Can we find a narrative about Cleveland’s lead problem that will enrage people enough to act? Can we pitch this tragedy so to unleash the power of liberal white women with time at their disposal? How cynical this sounds, but I am entirely sincere: we need a narrative that gets people angry, and headed to the ramparts.

I don’t think we’ve found that story yet.

I provided some updates on Feb 22 about efforts to redress the poisoning of children in this city, in a post a friend on FB said was just a ‘litany of complaints’ and if I felt this way I should just leave Cleveland.

And I updated—optimism! —- a bit in my last post.

But oh my god the last few days.

Look: I am not one to metaphorize this city with an interception or a strike or a rim. That’s too easy (and also, when you look at what happened in the waning minutes of all those games, the narrative doesn’t even make hold. The defeats could have been predicted long before the last-minute-bad-luck-screw-up-can-you-believe-it.) But it does seem like here, “victory snatched” would not be wrong. Or, to switch from passive to active: “City official snatches victory from citizens.”

To back up for those not following at home:

CLASH got the 10,000 signatures necessary to introduce a ballot initiative about lead poisoning ; it got them in six weeks. It got them by organizing folks, who went freezing in the cloudy gray knocking on doors. They acted and succeeded.

And look at the exhilaration of success. Look at this these proud actors:

But then. A few hours later. “Oops our bad you did not successfully deliver us petitions that we can put on a ballot:”

There was a line missing from the petitions (apparently; maybe; maybe not; it’s confusing.) Anyway, the clerk did a take-back on her authorization of these petitions.

The temptation is the citation of Red Right 88, throwing up of hands, the “Cleveland amirite?”

Well fuck that, is the way I am feeling. That’s not the narrative to tell.

The question I want answered is: how does one continue to act in the face of arbitrary (or perhaps proscribed, intended) cruelty? How does one bother to keep bothering?

These guys: CLASH sends out a press release yesterday:

Read more here.

You can helps, too: CLASH has asked folks to join them on the Rotunda of City Hall on Monday at 6:15 while that happens.

Bodies in a room make a difference. And hey: righteous indignation is like cold sun: it feels good. It is energizing.

At the Sedar we conclude by saying “Next Year in Jerusalem,” l'shanah haba'ah biyerushalayim. It is the most emotional part of the evening, for me—and, for me, it is metaphoric—of hope, of possibility, or an intention to act, move forward, try harder, keep trying. In Cleveland we say There’s Always Next Year.

It’s all in the emphasis.