Why I Wrote "ICE Must Go"

A Song Born From Grief and Responsibility

I usually turn to mountain biking not for solitude, but for connection. Riding is about cavorting with friends, laughing too loud, singing to myself on long climbs, and letting the rhythm of wheels and breath shake loose whatever the world has piled on. Out on the trail, joy is communal. Light is shared. We ride together and we come back lighter together.

Sometimes it’s just my husband and me cavorting on the trails and breathing deeply of the sage-scented air.

But this past weekend, everything changed.

On January 7, 2026, Renée Nicole Good, a 37 year old American woman, was shot and killed by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent in Minneapolis during a federal enforcement action. She was in her car on an ordinary city street when her life was violently taken. Her death landed like a blow to the chest, not only because it was shocking, but because it felt so unnecessary and final. A poet and mother - erased from the Earth.

Less than three weeks later, on January 24, another U.S. citizen, Alex Jeffrey Pretti, a 37 year old ICU nurse, was fatally shot by federal agents in the same city. Alex was a helper. A healer. A mountain biker. Someone who stepped forward, phone in hand, trying to document what was happening and to protect others. Witness videos show him doing what so many of us hope we would do in a moment of chaos. And for that, he was killed.

Mark and I have been activists for decades, marching for peace and justice many times over the years, sending money to nonprofits at the forefront of aiding people (Amnesty International, ACLU, Heifer International, Doctors Without Borders, etc.)

Alex’s death felt like the final straw on the camel’s back.

That weekend, I went out for a ride, expecting the familiar medicine. Normally, the sound of tires on dirt, the jokes, the shared effort, the ridiculous songs sung out of breath, all of it brings me back to myself. It usually works without fail.

This time, it did not.

Even surrounded by friends, it was hard to return to light. The laughter felt distant. The joy was muted. I felt tears rise unexpectedly. I grieved for Renée. I grieved for Alex. I grieved for the way good lives are being taken in plain sight. And layered underneath it all was an older grief, one I recognized immediately. It was the same grief I felt when my brother passed away too young. That deep, disorienting sorrow that barges in when you least expect it.

I cried openly. I let myself feel it.

I also know something else about grief. If it turns inward and stays there, it becomes despair. And despair spreads as easily as fear. Over the years, I have learned that my role, imperfect as it may be, is to remain a bearer of light. To keep showing up. To keep creating. To keep offering whatever steadiness I can, even when the world feels brutal and unrecognizable.

So I did what I know how to do.

I turned grief into sound. I let the anguish, the anger, and the moral injury move through me and into words and melody. That is how the song ICE Must Go came into being.

This song is not only about politics. It is about humanity. It is about refusing to normalize cruelty. It is about naming what feels wrong when power is exercised without accountability and lives are lost without consequence. It is about standing up for our neighbors, our fellow riders, our fellow citizens, and saying that this behavior by ICE and by the leaders who enable it must end.

Each of us can only give what we can, in the ways that we can, to bring about peace in our world. Art is one of the ways I know how to do that. This song is my offering.

Thank you for listening. Thank you for bearing witness. And thank you for staying in your light, especially when it is hardest to do so.

🎥 Watch the video here: