Barely Across the River
I am a Minnesota boy. I’ve spent nearly three decades living within fifteen minutes of downtown Minneapolis. Downtown St. Paul was just a quick drive further east on Interstate 94. Together known as the Twin Cities, Minneapolis and St. Paul reside on either side of the great Mississippi River, on which my wife, Jenna, and I got to live our first year of marriage.
I remember walking around St. Anthony Main and across the Stone Arch Bridge, going to Twins games; first at the Metrodome, and then Target Field. I remember visiting the Como Zoo and Conservatory, where my parents got engaged.
Minnesota is where I learned about the world, for good and ill.
I grew up in a multi-ethnic school dedicated to learning about each others’ differences. Every year, Evergreen Park Elementary would fold one thousand paper cranes in honor of the story of Sadako, a victim of the Hiroshima bombing, who wished for peace on Earth.
In April 1995, I saw the American flag at half staff for the first time. When I asked about it, my grandfather told me that a man had bombed a building, killing over a hundred people, including many children my age. He explained that sometimes, people do evil things.
I remember sitting in Ms. Roberts’ homeroom in sixth grade reading Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire when the news showed the twin towers of the World Trade Center precipitously falling in September 2001.
I went to college in St. Paul and worked at the UPS hub in Northeast Minneapolis. I learned about leadership, what it is and is not, and the difference it can make in the kind of world in which we live.
But thirteen days ago, I moved to a new state.
Barely.
La Crosse, Wisconsin is a border town along the East bank of the Mississippi River across from La Crescent, Minnesota on the West. Let’s call them my new “Twin Cities.” La Crosse is a city of roughly fifty thousand people. The economy largely centers around manufacturing, retail, health care, and higher education. The latter two drew me here. This week, Jenna started the Physician Assistant program at the University of Wisconsin- La Crosse. For the next twelve months, she will be studying anatomy, biochemistry, and pathology, learning the science of medicine. Then she’ll do twelve months of clinical rotations where she’ll get hands-on training to begin to hone her craft, her art. Acceptance to this program is the culmination of a decade of work.
It is my task to work so that she can do this. I spent my twenties in warehouses and auditoriums, coffee shops and studios. As a student, teacher, pastor, and musician, I had respect and relationships full of meaning and mutual growth. Now I must start over.
I recognize that on the spectrum of tumultuous life experiences one can have, mine is not extreme. As one father of a student of mine remarked upon hearing of our move, “It’s just La Crosse.” I’m not moving to another country. There is no language barrier. Indeed, I still live on the same river, 170 miles further south. I get to take my accumulated experiences and wisdom with me. I carry both my trials and blessings, my challenges and privileges. So maybe I’m not starting over. Like the river, I will embrace the changing conditions on the ground, seeking a path forward and trusting the process.
