The yard ducklings were born on Friday. I went out in the morning to check on the nest and saw two broken shells tossed to the side. The mama duck was still sitting, and got agitated when I got too close, puffing her feathers and … growling, if it is possible that a duck can do such a thing. From beneath her body there was audible peeping.
Two hours later my neighbor texted me—we’re all on duck watch at this point—“I’m seeing three baby chicks.” By the time I got outside they were all out of the nest, all nine of them, perfect fluffy brown balls floating in our little pond, sticking tight to mama duck as they figured out how to navigate this new, shell-less world. They paddled and drifted and abruptly fell asleep, over and over. The mama duck seemed liberated. At one point she took an exuberant splashy bath, dipping her neck over and over into the pond and tossing water up over her back, flapping her wings and shaking her tail feathers. Then she went back to menacing the curious koi whenever they got too close to her babies.
I spent a fair amount of time that day watching this action. But I also had a lot of work to do, as there is, obviously, a lot of news happening in Chicago and in the world. It’s overwhelming. I’m overwhelmed. And when I am, the only thing I know how to do is put my own neck down, stay in my lane, and do the work.
All day I slammed back and forth between two realities. I interviewed a woman who had been assaulted and arrested at the downtown protest May 30, taking down her account of being thrown to the ground by CPD, bruising a rib, losing her glasses, watching her roommate get hit with batons. I watched the ducklings try to scramble over a 3” barrier separating one part of their pond from another, the hardest thing they’d ever done in their very short lives.
I transcribed an interview with Asiaha Butler, a community leader in Englewood who watched in despair as her neighborhood burned Sunday night.
“I know for me that was the first time,” she said, “that I have seen an intense level of desperation, and an intense level of destruction. I have never witnessed something like that before. Was that energy probably already boiling over? And a lot of it, sure it’s been like 400 years like this. It is not a secret that we are all oppressed…. So many of us who understand that and with our neighbors know this pain, and have been slowly and steadily trying to turn that curve, and to kind of like slowly but steadily turn that curve and then to be knocked down so quickly, in a matter of twenty-four hours …
“There’s no words to describe how most of us are feeling.”
I went out and watched a duckling dive deep under water—which was probably maybe six inches—and torpedo around the pond, testing the limits of its tiny lungs.
I took a conference call with other editors: What can we get done by Monday? How much can we fit in the paper? What are our priorities? How can we do our work in way that is thoughtful and forward-looking, not reactive? Is everyone doing ok?
My friend C brought her son over for a play date with the little boy downstairs and they ran squealing around the yard with squirt guns, two Black boys being seven, untroubled and free—though they both complained bitterly about having to wear their dumb masks, especially when they got drenched with water.
It was utopic: neighbors, children, parents, themselves white, Latinx, Asian; the lush green grass, the birdsong, the peonies in such extravagant floofy bloom that they’d fallen over, unable to bear their own beauty. And the ducklings, discovering life.
It is an exquisite privilege to be able to hide. To sit in a walled garden and wonder at the helicopters overhead, the sirens screaming down the street. To compare notes on the car that had several nights earlier been torched in the alley, sending the thick stench of explosives and burned rubber across the block.
The day before I had driven to Bronzeville, ostensibly to report on a community food giveaway. It was over by the time I got there so instead I drove aimlessly around Washington Park and Englewood, looking at places I have loved, trying to understand my own aching heart, until I came upon another food giveaway (they’re everywhere), this one in the parking lot of a strip mall at 54thand Wentworth. Bags of carrots, squash, and onions lay on the bare pavement; Michael Jackson streamed from the PA. They’d already given away 500 chickens, Ta’Rhonda Jones, one of the organizers told me. She’s an actor on Empire, which I’ve never watched. I was embarrassed that I didn’t know who she was, but I knew who her partner was, Bobby Rush’s daughter Kacy. (The big Bobby Rush signs all over the place kind of gave it away.) I was going to write a story on all this, I interviewed some folks and took pictures and went home and wrote a few paragraphs, but then I saw that it got covered in the Trib, and I got distracted by the ducklings, and I had to watch a bunch of videos of people being beaten by the police, and I had a beer with my neighbor, and someone else wrote a better story about another food giveaway that we might publish this week anyhow, so.
Am I hiding? I can’t tell anymore. I went out yesterday to a march in Hermosa; a small, manageable march organized by the Puerto Rican cultural center I’ve worked with in the past. I didn’t go to Union Park Friday night, or Saturday morning. I did not march with 20,000 others through my old neighborhood, where I lived for twelve years. I saw video of people dancing at the corner of Erie and Noble. That whole march, on the north side, attended mostly by white people, was nonviolent. There’s another march happening right now in Chatham, and I really want to be there, but I’m not going to that either, because I’m here at home writing this, on a quiet Sunday morning. Later I’m going to incorporate some fact-checking notes on the Butler interview and then I’m going to research the use of kettling, the police practice of cutting off egress for protesters, containing them in a small area so that they may better be detained, pepper sprayed, assaulted, arrested. I will pull together some guidelines for young reporters on ethics and what to do in the event you get arrested while out reporting. Later I should probably go weed the vegetable garden; I haven’t been over there all week.
The ducklings left Friday night, but I missed the parade. I was in my office transcribing another police brutality narrative. My landlord and his girlfriend saw them go and followed them down the alley and around the block and across North Avenue for fuck’s sake, all the way to the park.
The ducklings have set off into their own unknown future. I miss them so much. For more than a month they gave me a tiny anchor for my own future, something to look forward to—something to count on, and by which to count the days. I wish them strength on their great adventure. I wish it for us all.
I started a Soup & Bread TV show this week (ridiculous timing). You can watch the first episode here, in which I interview Hideout bartender Jessica Romanowski about her Care Kitchen Chicago project. What I’m listening to: this hourlong audio of a City Council conference call with the mayor; it is staggering on many levels, and well worth your time. Listening to 10thWard alderman Susan Garza break down and cry describing the devastation in South Chicago is heartbreaking; listening to the mayor and 15thWard alderman Ray Lopez curse each other out is just depressing (like, get it together you two); listening to the mayor fawn over indicted 14thWard alderman and former cop Ed Burke is gross; listening to her describe with awe how CPD had to use two (!) different kinds of pepper spray to subdue people on the West side is absolutely horrifying.
Here's where I'm putting my money: Chicago Community Bond Fund.
Peace my friends.
Xoxo