This past weekend, we memorialized Helen Zidar with a Catholic mass, placement of her ashes, and a brunch with all the cousins. Her life spanned the coal patch, several wars, public housing, the rise of the unions, raising two kids, the unexpected death of her husband (my grandfather, Luke Zidar), the unexpected death of her daughter (my Aunt Audrey) and ultimately receiving her four grandkids and four more great grandkids for many visits, as her surviving son (my dad, Bernard Zidar) expertly managed her care and affairs.

These are the photos shown at her memorial brunch, as my dad narrated and those gathered joined in with memories of our ancestors and the great lives of Helen and Luke. At the end are a few photos I took from my vantage in the room, as well as a few shots of us at the house. I wish I would have gotten more photos of everyone, but I was too thoroughly enjoying meeting “new, old” cousins and catching up with people face-to-face.

Hooray and bon voyage to Helen, and say hello to G-pap for us.

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So, we left, broke a sail, went back, dropped my phone in the water, our chart plotter tablet failed, and a squall blew away a sleeping cushion (*shakes fist at Neptune). Now, as we limp north, dodging the warm thunderstorms of the season, our drive to New England and beyond looks more like a pick and roll up the coast.

We are back to a life beyond our control – the deciding factors for each day’s movements are wind, weather, and tide. It feels a bit awkward but I find it is better to relax and try less hard to let go, if you can imagine that.

Mandala for Ms. Hurd, librarian and one of the Emanuel 9

Today’s wind, weather, and tide allowed for a few hour of walking in Charleston, SC. We walked across town to our favorite library on a course that brought us to the steps of Emanuel AME Church, where – exactly one year ago – nine black churchgoers (Cynthia Hurd, Susie Jackson, Ethel Lance, Rev. DePayne Middleton-Doctor, Rev. Clementa Pinckney, Tywanza Sanders, Rev. Daniel Simmons Sr., Rev. Sharonda Singleton, and Myra Thompson) were murdered during bible study by a young white supremacist who’s name I shall not speak. Suddenly we were in the midst of ceremonies, prayers, remembering, security perimeter, parishioners purposefully setting up chairs, and the Red Cross passing out water.

Memorial and parishioners at gate.

I was in coastal GA when this happened. I felt isolated with my own feelings of outrage and fear. Outrage because the capacity for hate in the human heart is an absolute monster. Fear because, as I came to realize, the fear of losing access to what privilege I have in a segregated society, could hamstring how vocal I was in my writing and day-to-day interactions. I prayed for opportunities to be placed in my path to promote unity and kindness (and they were) but I did not charge off the path one bit. As one who considers herself a lover of all flora and fauna, and a believer that we are here to awaken from the illusion of our separateness, I knew I could do better.

The vantage from our boat reveals much in terms of the historic orientation of land uses such as ports, quarantines and naval defenses, and often presents a modern day of stark contrasts. For example, Sullivan’s Island flanks the spacious harbor of Charleston to the north. Today you see its beachfront lined with opulent homes and kids out parasailing as you enter. Historically, it was was the point of entry for about 40% of the enslaved Africans who survived the Middle Passage and arrived in North America. In 2008, when the Toni Morrison Society finally established a bench as a monument, the only monument, to this fact, Ms. Morrison sat on the bench and said, “It’s never too late to honor the dead. It’s never too late to applaud the living who do them honor.” The honor I can do is to use every tool I have to promote unity and kindness, at home and in the street. I say this here to hold myself accountable.

I have been reading Octavia Butler’s Patternist series, wherein characters can draw down on the collective power of a “pattern” of brethren and use it to perform various tasks of protection, war, and healing. Doing so without great skill can cause damage to those in the pattern, but some are able to find a balance, and thereby do great work. Is this all coming together, dear reader?

In conclusion, and perhaps TL;DR, white folks need to talk about racism with other white folks. We all either have it, or have access to it, and so we can choose to help dismantle it. Choosing to let hate grow where we see it expressed is cosigning it. I believe that with love, there is enough pie for everyone.

This is going to be a post about my cat/s, and it will be quite long. [TRIGGER WARNING]

I met Beta around the same time I met my husband. He (the cat) was born in Greenpoint, USA, near the home of my friend Jane, who sort of tricked me into adopting him. Which is to say, she invited me over and plopped him into my lap. He was one-handful old.

At that time I already had a calico cat named Kitten, who was more needy than I ever imagined any cat could be. I was constantly harassed by Kitten every time I left the apartment, and her punishment would resume as soon as she heard my returning footsteps in the building. My stern landlord, who lived on the ground floor, maintained silence in the building. As the top-floor tenant who worked irregular hours and had to clip-clop up and down the linoleum central stair a million times a day, schlepping Godknowswhat and with the cat howling… our relationship was tense. So I would sneak in like a ninja, scaling the walls, to stave off Kitten’s racket out of fear that she would get us kicked out of this below-market-rate apartment – aka the holy grail. I know that’s a lot to put on a cat.

So Beta came home at 8 weeks old, to be my second cat – hence the name – as playmate for Kitten. This is how it starts with cats and cat ladies.

Beta fit in perfectly. Kitten stopped guilt tripping me, and bossed the new guy around instead. But Beta didn’t pay no mind, because this dude was CHILL. If he wanted food, he headbutted you. If he wanted to play, there was some string. No drama. One time he got really and suddenly sick, the way cats like to do right before you are about to leave for vacation. Nursing him back to health was the only time I think he really made eye contact with me. “Thanks”, he said, with his big golden eyeballs. He put his paw on my paw.

When I half-moved onto the boat, the cats stayed put with my cat-friendly friend and subletter – lets call her Joski. When it later became clear that I was going all in, I struggled to find new homes for both cats. I always feel a twinge of something about this part of the story, that I couldn’t be a “furever home” for Beta and Kitten, and that I leaned so much on Joski to place them. Bad human.

Come to think of it, I’ve never written about what it was like to leave New York. This part with the apartment and the cats was something quite difficult. When you chip out a little secret sanctuary for yourself over the course of many years, pulling the nest apart makes an utter mess.

Beta and Kitten were ultimately separated, and Joski took over the lease. My last towhold in the city was a storage locker with a duffle bag of journals in it overlooking Newtown Creek.

But wait, there’s more!

Just when I thought the dust had settled, Beta was returned by his new humans because they were getting evicted! Drama! That was it, I couldn’t bear this catragedy any longer. By this time, we had sailed all the way down the coast. So I got on what we call “the Midnight Train From Georgia”, which is actually the Amtrak leaving from Jesup at 7pm, arriving Penn Station at 11am. Who takes an overnight train from the rural Deep South to NYC? Ponder that one awhile, but at least one answer is: Cat Ladies.

I collected my bag of journals and my Beta, and we road tripped down I-95 back to the boat. Imagine Thelma and Louise, except his paw was on my paw and no one died or was hurt in any way.

The Little Island is a book by Margaret Wise Brown, which tells the tale of a little black cat that goes on a sail with his humans and explores a small island and the sea around it. I imagined Beta’s life aboard would be like this, and I sometimes tried to see our adventures through his eyes. We attempted to give him enough freedom to still be an animal, but keep him reliant enough on us that he would always come home for dinner and let us protect him.

When he hopped off the boat one week ago, I expected him to walk the dock and be right back for string time. We have replayed it so many times.

Right now we are in a boatyard on the GA/FL border, doing heavy work in some major swamp heat. Looking for Beta has brought us into contact with a growing spiral of neighbors, as the days pass and we widen our search. In a certain part of Camden County, Beta has better name recognition than most presidential candidates. Let’s just say clipboards are involved.

We have moments of deep missing, despair for all the potential dangers Beta may have already encountered, and also regret for what we failed to do.

But I also try to imagine this adventure through his eyes, the one where he ditches out on this rough patch of yard time and opts for some squirrel hunting in the moss-draped oaks of Point Peter instead. I imagine him grazing on pond frogs and tuning his satellite dish-ears on barred owl calls. Further down the bluff there is a stalled subdivision with an expanse of forest symmetrically fragmented with pristine asphalt roads. Perhaps he’s doing some survey work down there and will report back to me soon with some land use recommendations.

Is this is The Revenge of Kitten, wherein Beta is her Manchurian Candidate, performing the ultimate manipulation of human hearts?

We will need to leave this place in a week or maybe two, and Beta will either saunter back onto the boat like NBD, or we will need to accept that he’s really gone all in. Wish us all luck.