Oh Kathryn, Our Kathryn

One week ago this afternoon, the world became a little more shadowed as a brilliant soul passed through the veil.

Kathryn Ann Fernquist Hinds.

She was a shiny person.  I never had a moment with her that wasn't brilliant.  Her smile, laugh, wit, intelligence, and vision made life a finer thing.

I didn't get to know her for very long, and we met because her husband Arthur is a musician (a damned fine one) and we used to play some of the same gigs.  Honestly, I can't remember when I met either of them.  They've just...always been there.  Arthur and Kathryn.  Kathryn and Arthur.  

For the last few years we've been neighbors at PSG, one of the events I regularly attend.  I liked listening to their banter and they tolerated my occasional interjections.  They shared space, let me feed them, Kathryn let me fuss over her and we shared water.  Seeing her in the audience when we played together for Bardapalooza was a treat.  She truly shared in the music in a way that was rare and beautiful.

Some relationships defy the odds, defy  definition or explanation.  Some relationships are just so...perfectly imperfect?  Imperfectly perfect?  So damned marvelous that when we see them, we can't help saying "There.  That's what is could be, what it should be, what I want it to be..." 

Those relationships are rare.  Arthur and Kathryn had what I aspire to.  Oh the laughter, the love...how it enveloped them, and everyone nearby.  They shared unstintingly.

I always told her that I adore her, that she is one of my favorite people.  She was.  Is.  Will likely always be.

Her heart, her magnificent, wise, kind, compassionate, fragile, dysfunctional heart, it couldn't survive the surgery she needed to keep it ticking.

One less drumming, thrumming beat echoing in the ether.  One less laugh reverberating in the circle.

I find myself wondering why, in a world full of horrid people, full of cruel, selfish, ugly-souled assholes, why did we have to lose one of the best people I have ever known?

It isn't right.  

Oh, Arthur.

If I who didn't know her nearly enough can hurt so...oh...I can't even touch imagining how those who knew her long and well must feel.

Me, I feel robbed of something precious.  

She belonged to a community vast and varied, and the hole she leaves is immeasurable.
I posted this on Facebook when I found out:

Hail Kathryn.

Your light will long linger.
I will carry you with me always, and when I shine I will shine with you, sending your light outward. You are one of the best people I’ve known in my lifetime, and I’m better for the knowing.
May your journey to the other side be peaceful and easy. May you leave behind all memory of pain, sorrow, and suffering. May you carry with you all memories of love and laughter. May you be met with joy and fellowship by those who went before you, and when you return to the circle, may we who loved you know you once more.
I raise a glass and toast you, feisty, kind, shiny, wise, compassionate, creative, encouraging, goddess of a woman.
Hail Kathryn. Hail the traveler.

Thoughtfetti

The world lost a bright soul, a shiny person, earlier this week.  I'm still reeling, and I didn't have the honor of knowing her as well or as long as some others.  I cannot imagine the sense of bewilderment and loss that her family is feeling.  Right now, that's all I have in me to write about her.  There will be more in a few days.
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It's February.  Cue the ominous music (dunh, dunh, duuunnnnhhh).  If I can make it through there's March after, and things are looking up for March.  Well, up-ish.

The month started in a hole, and it's getting deeper.

I'm going to get through February a week at a time.  And each week?  A day at a time.  Days will be cut into confetti-sized pieces and sprinkled everywhere.  I'll clean up the mess in August or never, whichever comes latest.
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I thought the beginning of the week would drag on in an endless drone, a litany of death and sorrow.  It did, but now the week is nearly done and I have a date on Saturday to look forward to.  Not a date date, like with a fellow.  A date with Mizz A.  We're leaving my beloved spawns at home and going out for a few hours.  We both could use some cheering up.
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Next week, I have a tentative date with K2.  We're hopefully going to have our combined birthday dinner, just the two of us.

Then there's a lunch date with my Mom two weeks on from that.
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In between times, I am working on some sewing and quilting projects.
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Distractions, people, I needs 'em.  Positive distractions, I should say.
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Later in the month I'm doing a craft show with my mother.  We have fun, and it gets us out of our respective houses/ruts.  I like helping her set up.  We're both taking part in a soup cooking thing as well, on the same weekend.  I didn't say I was distracting myself with anything earth shattering.
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The depression has been particularly bad, this winter.  It seems like I say that every year, and it's like my brain takes it as a challenge to make it worst next time around.  I mean, it's always here, it never really goes away, but some winter, it just piles on like tons of stones, and every winter I pick up the stones, put them in my basket, and plod along.  Maybe it's not getting any worse.  Maybe it's just that I have more stones in the basket and I'm not as strong as I used to be.

I'll make it up the mountain, all the same.
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If I make the mistake of saying, or even thinking, that it's not so bad right now, it's like my brain think I've challenged it.  Can't win for losing.  Oy.
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My house phone, a land line if you can believe that anyone still has one, is sort of fritzy.  The phone doesn't ring, but the answering machine still works.  I guess the battery in the handset gave up, and it won't charge.  Anyway, sometimes a voice will just float out into Casa de Crazy, mostly selling something or telling me I really ought to pay my bills, you know, on time, and every now and then it catches me off guard and I wonder how the hell someone got in the house.  Good times.
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I have been re-listening to Eddie Izzard's audio book of his autobiography.  I very much enjoy it.  He's intelligent, which is sexy, and he's funny, which is also sexy.  In addition to his book, I've been listening to a Pandora station I created named - wait for it - Eddie Izzard.

It has a number of other comedians as well, and they have all, so far, kept me in stitches while I stitch (because I listen while I sew, get it?).

I highly recommend making making an Eddie Izzard station on Pandora, or finding a list of his clips on the YouTube.  You may even forget it's February for a minute!