June 10/Third Quarter Moon

Mom's words/Laurie Anderson/Death-cleaning

Update on Mom’s cruise Journal.

My experiment with technology went very well, thank you. I have my first transcription of mom’s writing. And it was nice to sit down with her voice for a bit while getting it to the page. There are few decisions to be made before I can share it. How to present it, formatting and style choices, which photos, etc.

Finally how shall I publish it here at Songs of Forgiveness? Substack has a lot more features now than when I got started here in January of 2022. I have more choices on how to include Mom’s voice. I am leaning towards making it its own section where you could opt in or out of being on the mailing list. It will take me a little bit to think this through. If you have any thoughts, let me know. I may reach out with more specific questions in the future.

I’ve been reading about how to archive these kinds of collections and want to put some thought into this at the front end. If you wonder why, see Death-cleaning Update section below.

Here are some preliminary notes to place the journal in context: Mom’s Cruise Journal was written by Carol Lee Baudler for the dates November 29 - December 12, 1993 while she was a TNC escort for a cruise in Costa Rica’s National Parks, The Darien Jungle and The Panama Canal. Transcribed to digital format by me on Sunday, June 4, 2023 from a photo PDF of the original spiral-bound, handwritten journal. By 1993, Mom had lived in the DC area and worked for 7 years. This would have been the first year of Clinton’s first term as president. Mom and Bill attended the celebration of his inauguration earlier in the year. Mom was 44 years old. I was 24 and working at the Minneapolis Crisis Nursery but I hadn’t met Josh quite yet. Becka, 21, and living with me in Uptown on Garfield. Rachel, who was mentioned therein, would have been 12 and in 7th grade. Grandma, who joined Mom on the trip, was 64.

Screenshot of Mom’s Cruise Journal PDF

Laurie Anderson Grief Podcast

Anderson Cooper’s podcast on CNN called All There Is began as he sorts through his late mother’s possessions and then continues as he invites guests on to talk about grief and loss. B(W)ill and I listened to the episode with Laurie Anderson at Rachel’s suggestion. We listened while driving down to celebrate Memorial Day at Kern’s Oakgrove Cemetery in North Mankato, Mom’s family cemetery and a Memorial Day routine since they moved back to Minnesota in 2013. Laurie Anderson and Anderson Cooper spoke about the Tibetan take on grief and the Bardo, a buddhist belief of a transition period after death, and Laurie shared stories of her husband Lou Reed who died in 2013, her dog Lolabelle and the movie she made about her death and her realization that death is the “release of love.” I especially loved the story she told of saving her brothers and her mom’s response afterwards. Laurie Anderson is a warm, reassuring presence that I first met in the 80s when Dad was a fan. The podcast made me grateful to have her back in my life. It is a heartening listen. Then if you want, follow it up with her art film, The Heart of a Dog, which is as mesmerizing, as the reviews say. It’s available on Amazon for $3.99. But maybe you can find it another place?

Death-Cleaning Update

The death-cleaning is in process. This will take awhile. That is fine because I am not planning to die anytime soon, but when I do, I want my children to only have to deal with the things that I have specifically curated and arranged for them to deal with. So far, post death-cleaning, I love my closet. I ditched much and packed up the winter clothes. I find that the lightness in my closet spreads to my mind and heart. I shared two links about Death-cleaning in this post, if you're interested in reading what other writers are doing with their stuff. What I find is that I have a lot of baggage built up around my writing clutter after all my years of dreams deferred.

What happens to a dream deferred? 
Does it dry up 
Like a raisin in the sun? 
Or fester like a sore-- 
And then run? 
Does it stink like rotten meat? 
Or crust and sugar over-- 
like a syrupy sweet? 
Maybe it just sags 
like a heavy load. 
Or does it explode?
Langston Hughes, Harlem 1951

This great poem showed up with its questions during my Writes as I geared up for my recent push. Dreams deferred have become clutter in the brain, where my scribbled place holders are trapped orphans that will never reach an age of fruition. I find when working with this loaded back log of ideas, I need special instructions or I get lost down the rabbit-hole of futility and overwhelm spirals. Marie Condo’s joy instruction is incomprehensible to me, although I do like the practice of thanking my scrawling thoughts on jagged-edge paper before I recycle them. I was more successful this time around. Less getting caught up in what inspired me to write these things in the first place and more connection to what a future me might be interested in working on. The wisdom gained so far from death-cleaning: it can help define future activities.