Clover in the rows
Hello friends!
OK:
I did have (pre-)trial that Tuesday long ago. And Wednesday, but not Thursday, and I won’t again for a while. There is not really a short version of what happened over the course of those two weeks in which we went to the courthouse most days, but what is most specific to me is in the write-ups of Day 1 and Day 2 we did for the legal-stuff newsletter.
I can offer a short version of the upshot: two of us (not me) are now scheduled for trial this fall. The rest of us are still under felony indictment, as we have all been since last year, and what happens next probably depends on what happens to our friends in the fall.
We are all still banned from public parks, and the NC ACLU has filed a lawsuit against the City and several specific defendants in the City government about it. The complaint is known as Norris v. City of Asheville, and friends: it is worth a read. Here’s the ACLU's original press release and an article in the Asheville Citizen Times; the complaint was also just amended to include a retaliation claim, so here is a recent post about that.
Ok! That’s it for that. It’s all still happening, I’m still very angry and sad sometimes, still buoyed by hope and solidarity most times, and you are still welcome to ask me about it any time. The best way to stay current is to subscribe to that newsletter and/or follow us on instagram @parksareforeveryone; I don’t plan to update here about it a ton more.
AND:
It is also summer, and so good! I planted flowers with clover in the rows so I could lie down on it and look up at them, and I have. I’m reading a lot. I’m remembering I love learning Spanish. I’m copy editing a bunch—for pay, for fun, and as part of organizing. I have one more year of therapist school and am looking forward to it. Lots of people I love are growing things, there is tending afoot, I feel surrounded by it and infused with it even when I am not its immediate aim.
Some things I heartily recommend lately:
60 Songs that Explain the 90s (podcast): really, just listen immediately to all of it. Cancel your plans unless they are driving plans. Put it on and drive to Asheville to visit me. Start at the beginning.
No More Police: this is not the balm of a book that We Do This Til We Free Us is, that Let This Radicalize You is (I am not done with that one but whewww the balm of it already), but if you are like “wait but really, no more police??” this is the book that makes the case.
JP Brammer’s substack, ¡Hola Papi! It’s so full of wise nonsense. Very “yep sure I’ll read this silly … ohhhhh now I’m crying.” The best.
with love,
Sarah