It was a frigid morning in early January. I sat on Silver Lode lift, noticing how each of my fingers suddenly felt lonely and cold inside my packed-out gloves. But it was a pow day, so I quickly dismissed the urge to go inside and warm up.
Weeks later, my left pinky is still numb. My doctor friend Xander says I likely had frostbite. And the feeling may never come back.
Kind of like my heart in this moment after the presidential inauguration. For the past year, I’ve alternately felt joy, outrage, hope, despair. But now, I feel … nothing.
What is the biological imperative of numbness? The Dutch psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk says it’s the body’s way of protecting itself — a survival mechanism that shuts down sensation to prevent system overload. The emotional brain continues to carry the weight of what we’ve been through, even when we no longer feel it. As van der Kolk says, “The body keeps the score.” And so do we.
This week, I went to Petco to sign the referendum to challenge Dakota Pacific’s Kimball Junction development. The project has been overwhelmingly opposed by Summit County residents who’ve cited traffic congestion, sprawl, infrastructure capacity and legislative overreach as their main concerns. To add insult to injury, the developers are now scrambling to turn the project into its own self-governed town. I felt a tiny surge of righteous indignation rise up in me as I entered the store.
I expected to see a table set up near the entrance. There was nothing. I asked one of the kids working there about it. They just shrugged and walked away. I picked up a few things for my dog and walked back out to the parking lot. There, I saw a long queue of people. At the head of the line was a 30-something guy in a hoodie and Pit Vipers holding a clipboard. No one seemed to mind the 11-degree temperature while they patiently waited their turn to sign. At least it was sunny.
As I got on line, a Summit County sheriff’s car pulled up. A deputy came over and asked what we were doing. The petitioner calmly explained that he was gathering signatures for a referendum vote. The deputy said we had to leave.
People on the line groaned and someone shouted out, “Can’t we just get through this line and then we’ll all leave?” The deputy said no. The parking lot was private property and Petco had called the Sheriff’s Office. Petco is dead to me, I thought to myself.
The petitioner asked if there was someplace else we could go and the deputy pointed to a sidewalk near the road. Undeterred, the petitioner continued to collect signatures as the whole line slowly snaked toward the public sidewalk.
Sure, we were all frustrated — and cold AF. But we were also united in our refusal to back down. Sometimes a collective experience can be a balm. The smallest acts can feel revolutionary. There’s strength in showing up and standing together — even for something as seemingly insignificant as a signature on a clipboard.
After signing the petition, I went into the store and spoke to the cashier. The location had been reported in the local press and on social media for several days, I reasoned. It couldn’t have been a surprise. What’s the big deal? He said it wasn’t up to him. The property’s landlord, Jeff Machin, had called the police.
When I got in the car, I quickly glanced at my newly downloaded Bluesky app — the antidote to the Meta broligarchy of X and Threads. My friend Jonathan had messaged me to check in. “Hanging in there?” he asked. I needed no context for the question. And I realized, it wasn’t really about the question or even the answer. It was just the simple act of being there for each other when everything else feels uncertain.
See, numbness doesn’t have to be about feeling nothing. It can actually be an invitation to pause. To realize that we still have agency, even in the smallest of moments. Even knowing there are much greater issues going on in the world. In fact, the ones that seem only to affect a few of us can have an impact on all of us. As my friend Ryan reminded me, all politics is local.
After I got home, I googled Jeff Machin. Turns out he’s the property manager of The Boyer Company — the same company that sold 60 acres to Dakota Pacific Real Estate in late 2018. The land known as the Tech Center was governed by a 2008 agreement with Summit County that restricts what can be built there. That includes tech-related office buildings and small support businesses — not a densely populated, mixed-use development.
As I pieced together the details, I couldn’t shake the feeling that this wasn’t a coincidence. My spidey sense tingled a bit. Even when we feel powerless, the simple act of paying attention can be its own kind of resistance.
Today, as my fingers fly across the keyboard to write this column, I realize the feeling in my left pinky may never return. As for those feelings that reside in my heart, the ones that guide my conscience and instinct … well, let’s just say I have a feeling they already have.