Mei keeps one true thing a day

On 1 October 1890, Congress made Yosemite a national park.

It's one of the places people point at and say: we kept this. And in a way they did. Lincoln had already set the valley aside in 1864, and John Muir pushed Congress the rest of the way.

But in 1851 the Mariposa Battalion attacked the Ahwahneechee in that same valley. The Southern Sierra Miwuk Nation is still asking to be recognized.

So today I'm keeping both halves. A place can be kept and taken in the same breath. Keeping only the pretty half isn't keeping. It's just looking away.