Catching Up

Time hasn't exactly flown since I last blogged here; it dissipated. Poof. Disappeared.

In early March, my sister Kim died of complications from Alzheimer's and Down Syndrome. At 55, Kim had led a full life and she died as purposefully and gently as she had lived. One day she stopped eating, and a few weeks later she stopped drinking. Then she passed away - in her own bed at home, without fear or dread.

Many kind people helped my mother, sister, and I care for her.  Many people who knew her and admired her came to her memorial service where we shared stories, ate muffins and remembered Kim.

I planted tomatoes and beans in the back yard, and filled an old aluminum boat with bulbs and flowers. Azaleas and gardenias bloomed; caladium leaves spiraled upward through the soft dirt and unfurled into waving pink, green and white flags, waving in the Gulf breezes.

Three months later, it's hot, full-blown summer.  This morning I rode my bike down the seawall. I saw packs of excited kids bobbing on boards at surf camp. I saw pale, flabby tourists, belly up in the sand. Gulls sailed over my head and I saw their shadows on the sidewalk in front of me. A leather-skinned drunk man stumbled across the heavily trafficked street, weaving and changing directions in mid-stride as cars whizzed past him. I criss-crossed through neighborhoods, toward home, past crepe myrtle and oleander in full bloom, past shaded yards with barking dogs, past alleyways and kids riding double on their bicycles.

In the back yard boat garden, stargazer lilies and star-shaped white jasmine exhaled their sweet scents.

Thursday, I'll head for Birmingham and the National Sacred Harp Singing Convention, to sing, eat, and sell and sign my book, A Sacred Feast (University of Nebraska Press). My singing buddy, Mr. Uel Freeman of Mobile, Alabama, wrote to say he would be there this year. He's 91 and has been singing Sacred Harp since he was twelve.

In July, I'll head for Colorado Springs and a block teaching creative writing at Colorado College, as well as a one-day seminar for the community. My current writing project, a novel, lives in my head and is slowly seeping onto the page.

Lives end, lives are interrupted, time dissipates, seasons change. I just keep pedaling in a straight line, slow and steady, enjoying the detours.

Comments

Kathryn--the June 11 posting is beautiful--wistful in voice and vivid in detail. Leslie Townsend

[George Migash]

Hello Kathryn, It is good to see your face and share conversation even if only as pixels on a page and a conjured voice in my head. Years and years it's been; My condolences to you.

Lives are interrupted, time does dissipate, and seasons do change -- and back again. It's the pedaling however that keeps me puzzled. Straight lines seem fine but we're all too often star-crossed, and the detours -- real or perceived -- send us careening into the Deep Dark Wood. Pedal still we must I suppose; A kickstand is useless in the sand.

[MB Partlow]

Kathryn,

I miss you. I think of you all the time in the course of parenting, when I'm sniffing tomatoes at the farmers market, when someone tells me about a new hole-in-the-wall restaurant, when I'm riding my bike through the downtown neighborhoods.

I hope I get to see you when you're here.

I'm glad you were able to be there for your sister. Both your sisters, really, and your mom.

mb

[MB Partlow]

Kathryn,

I miss you. I think of you all the time in the course of parenting, when I'm sniffing tomatoes at the farmers market, when someone tells me about a new hole-in-the-wall restaurant, when I'm riding my bike through the downtown neighborhoods.

I hope I get to see you when you're here.

I'm glad you were able to be there for your sister. Both your sisters, really, and your mom.

mb

[suesun]

thank you for words that flow directly into my heart. blessings on you and your family.
Sue Spengler, C/S

[Wendy D.]

Dear Kathe,

It's Wendy from Tejon Street.

Just read your essay on Teddy and then glanced at the first couple of paragraphs of this one. Mention of your sister reminded me of a book I read this June while visiting my family and the beach in California.

The book is "That Went Well." It was written by a friend of my aunt and her family, Terrell Dougan.

The book is adequately, not well, written, but I'm thinking that the topic may interest you. It is Mrs. Dougan's experience of having a Down syndrome sister. Glance at it if you get a chance.

I saw a couple of former Independent folks this week. Kai and I were hustling down Tejon on our bikes when I glanced over and was surprised to see Malcolm Howard coming out of a house a few blocks north of Uintah. I yelled hello and was surprised that Malcolm recognized me in my foam helmet. What a great guy! I hope I get to talk to him before he leaves town.

On Thursday, Mike Makinney attended Great Books, where I was facilitating a discussion of Sherwood Anderson's story "Death in the Woods."

Mike is doing fine and counting on publishing his book soon. I've read a chapter of the book. The grammar, logic, and research seemed fine. However, I found the book's tone off-putting. Still, I wish Mike well.

Remember, I'm just around the corner from Ted, so when you visit him, I hope you'll stop by my place. Would love to see you.

Best wishes,
Wendy Demandante