I clicked on the Baltimore Sun today.

I’m usually a Washington Post reader. In part that’s because I live right outside DC and the Post is my local paper. I can read it for the coverage of issues that relate directly to my county as well as for their reporting on national and world affairs. In the before-times I sucked up Post articles like they were oxygen.

But lately, I prefer the Baltimore Sun because it will tell me what’s going on in my state, without the distraction of knife’s edge analysis of what Nancy Pelosi is doing at any given moment.

Don’t get me wrong. I love Nancy Pelosi. But I need to know about the logistics of the new testing site the governor just authorized.

My world has grown so much smaller in these months since we all retreated to our homes to wait out the virus. I used to spent hours every week scrutinizing Congressional affairs and national election polling news. The arena of national politics is like my NFL or NBA and I study the game film like an aspiring coach.

But complete contracture of life has included my scope of attention. The borders of my interest have shrunk. I care about politics as much as ever but I’ve gone local. The arena that matters to me the most right now is my school district. I need that entity to be there for me and my family right now and I’ve become laser focused on the school board primary happening now.

I can’t pay attention to whatever jackhole think Donald Trump is saying when he struts in front of the mic. He’s too big for my field of vision. And he’s useless to me. He can’t do a thing to improve me life.

But I sure as hell can get on Facebook to remind my friends and neighbors that there’s this one guy running for school board on a platform made completely of racist dogwhistles and NO NO NO DO NOT VOTE FOR STEPHEN AUSTIN, DO YOU HEAR ME? I’m serious. He’s the dude who started that group to whine about the school boundary study and he kicked me out of it because I criticized the people who yelled at an 8th grader who presented at a town hall. He sucks and don’t vote for him.

This is where I am now. Crouched in my den like a trapped honeybadger, snapping at anyone who tries to invade my tiny slice of territory.

Maybe someday I’ll regain the focus I used to have on macro issues like reproductive justice and intersectional social justice but right now I can only see the landscape right in front of me.

But that’s ok. School improvment and equity in education are intersectional feminist issues, too. All politics are local and all feminism can be local, too.

PS: I voted for incumbent Shebra Evans in District 4 and chose Lynne Harris for the at-large slot after MoCo Students for Change endorsed her. I trust students to understand what is good for schools and I will follow their lead.

Photo By en:User:Jaganath – This file was transferred from English Wikipedia. CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=37862386