Journal Entry from the Space Between Worlds

PreTSD in Cache Valley

The eerie sensation of living in the liminal space between worlds is no longer occasional—it’s a constant background hum.
P(re-)TSD here at home in happy Cache Valley.
TSD—terror stress disorder—in Minneapolis/St. Paul.

Today was tough.

A close family friend—my sister’s best friend’s son, someone we’ve known since his birth—was arrested for protesting at the Whipple detention center in Minneapolis on Friday. This is where detainees are held in horrifying conditions: left on freezing cement floors, given no blankets, suffering food deprivation, all while shackled in ankle chains. He’s right to be there protesting.

He was outside the center with many other protestors when he was arrested and charged with “rioting with probable cause”—potentially a felony—and thrown in jail on Saturday. He was released today. That’s all I know.

Not true. I know one more thing: I know that my sister is breathing again.

Things are worse in Minnesota, not better. ICE is pushing to meet arrest and deportation quotas with stunning brutality and increased efficiency, now fanning out into the suburbs and north to St. Cloud. In the burbs and in St. Cloud there are fewer cameras, weaker resistance efforts—easier places to make quotas.

My sister couldn’t get details over the phone about X’s arrest. The word is that phones are now being monitored or bugged, and his mom was terrified to share anything that might endanger his release.

A new level of surveillance has taken hold.
ICE agents using tech that reads biometric data.
Data mining on all of us likely underway.

State terror has arrived and is settling in.

I want to scream.

Meanwhile: a scholarship meeting. Then rehearsal. Then teaching. Work that requires attention, presence, doing, care.
How to partition off this news? This grief and anger coursing through me?

In rehearsal I notice I’m holding: my breath, my shoulders. My bow strokes aren’t fluid. With deliberate release, they improve. A reminder that the body tells the truth before the mind catches up.

Then home. Wrung out.

Remembering advice from examples shared in a meeting I was a part of the previous night: lean into the senses; listen to the state of one’s physical self.

I’m tight as a drum. I skip the ambitious workout and opt instead for thirty minutes of gentle Yoga with Adriene. And Benji, her dog. I love the dog.

Down a gear now.

Dinner time. And dinner is why I’m turning a journal entry into a share.

It was the produce from our local Steep Mountain Farm that worked some humble magic—the greens, the roasted beets, the crisp carrots. Meal prep in unhurried silence pulled me back into presence. Gratitude for the space and time for this simple act.

Lentil soup over charred cabbage + a salad.
Nourishing. Miraculous. Yummy.

Enough. For today.