I carry a card that says, "Be a warrior, not a worrier." I have been trying to practice that, as worry, especially since the arrival of my children 24 years ago, has been my near constant companion. I believed that if I worried, the bad unnamable thing would not happen.
No surprise then, that in a moment of no worry, while at our Central Minnesota lake cabin someone stabbed human beings at my mall, Crossroads Center. The mall where I bought recital dresses, and jeans for school and bought makeup when I was in high school. The same day, in New York City, near the location where my daughter works, a bomb was set off. It’s a darling and beautiful neighborhood, Chelsea. Cozy with shops and coffee shops and people working hard in a city that draws people from around the globe.
The thought drifted through my mind in church Sunday after the attacks, that I felt trapped. There isn’t safety in my hometown, nor is there safety in New York City. There is not even safety in my new river town, the Twin Cities.
The vise of reality, of unsafety, tightened for me just a bit. I remembered my wonderful driver’s ed teacher from Apollo High School, "Mr. Riley," as he so carefully instructed us in safe driving.
"The most dangerous place to drive is in the parking lot of a mall," he intoned, encouraging us to be alert to people who back out from parking spots without looking, drive willy-nilly across various parking lanes to get to the exit, and otherwise cause parking lot chaos. Little did this kind and ever patient man, whose words still echo in my head, think that his students would need to worry about being stabbed in the mall.
Blissfully ignorant of these two upsetting events the day before, we boated on the lake, drove back roads in Meeker County, and ate at a burger joint in Kimball. We watched the moon rise, heard an owl hoot, and saw deer eating apples from our tree. Tiny, wonderful events. A great day in my book, a day I would wish for anyone, anywhere on the planet.
Healthy people, want basically the same things: To raise children to adulthood and see them thrive, to find meaningful work, to have moments of leisure and reflection to wonder about life and how we got here. To practice religion freely, to make a difference in the world. To leave things better than we found them. I know that’s what motivated my mom as a teacher in St Cloud, and it’s what I do as a preschool teacher in Minneapolis. To help humans, even those unrelated to us, to reach their highest potential.
I wonder, when these two events are investigated, what we will find out about the perpetrators and their history. Was success an option for them? What could have been done differently, so that there was no bomb, no knife, and that yesterday was just another late summer day that unfolded without worry or fear.
Kris Potter lives in Minneapolis and on Lake Sylvia. In Minneapolis she works as an Early Childhood Educator. She and her family have had a cabin on Lake Sylvia for more than 40 years. This article first appeared in the St. Cloud Times.