My dears, Our much-loved Val Garrison left us one year ago today, a fact which still seems inconceivable. I miss her every day. Here is something good: the Valerie Garrison Art and Education Scholarship is launched! Miles and Sandy and I have chosen the very first recipient from Val’s hometown Continue Reading
memory
birthday relay
Val was almost exactly a year older than me. 22 days separate our birthdays: March 8 (mine) and March 30 (Val’s). Every year when my birthday would swing around again, I would get this companionable, kid-like goofy happy feeling from being the same age as Val for most of March. Continue Reading
dahlias
A wonderful woman, Betty Garrison, left the world a year ago today. She is sorely missed by me and many others. I’m doing my best to remember her on Val’s behalf too. This year I’m gonna pick out some new dahlias in her honor.
birthday cake
Good job being born, Val Garrison. I celebrate you today and every day. The sun is out, and I saw the first purple nubbin of a lilac bud beginning to open. One of your favorites. Thanks for being one hell of a fine human being. I sure miss you. Brooke got you Continue Reading
pieces-parts: January-February
More jottings from my grief journals. 1/13/14 R asked me about the term “bucket,” and Val using it as an endearment. Here’s what I told her: To be honest I am not sure where she got it. But it seemed to spring up a few years into my knowing her Continue Reading
pieces-parts: December
More jottings from my grief journals. 12/8/13 I am not so easily overset as I was. My cup is no longer full-up, sloshing, to the brim. So I am not constantly spilling over at the merest additional drop. On the other hand, I am able to push real recognition away. Continue Reading
wish list
Hello my dears! Are you wondering what to get me for Christmas (or Solstice or belated Hanukkah)? Here is what I would like: a memory. I would love it if you would tell me something you remember about Val. Or about Val and me, or Val and you, or you Continue Reading
Day of the Dead
Nelson Mandela died yesterday. Here is a thing: nowadays, when I read that someone has died, I am noticing that I react with almost a comfortable sense of kinship. Not kinship with the mourners, but with the person who died. As if the dead person and I, we went to Continue Reading
sangha stone & huckleberry
My dears, A small sweet house in SE Portland has been turned into a meditation center, a sangha. Val used to meditate there, and when she couldn’t travel easily, her meditation group came to her at home. Nelly (Val’s meditation teacher) and the rest of the group wanted to Continue Reading
an invitation
My dears, listen, this blog has so many days felt like a lifeline. Writing that – “lifeline” – I pictured, in quick proliferation: a towline, like with a mule on the Erie Canal; a muddy tug-of-war rope at some happy family picnic; an IV drip; the belaying line connecting mountaineers; Continue Reading