Oh, Sarah, your writing moves me as O’Keefe’s did for you, and I don’t always welcome the bottled up pain and grief. Yet I know it’s essential to look at it, one chapter at a time. In a couple of weeks I’ll be driving a portion of Route 66, staying in old motels, eating at diners and looking for oversized things before they’re lost. Thanks for the tips.
My deepest sympathies to you as you grieve your father. I find the time you need away oddly comforting. It shows me that the man your father was and your relationship to him requires this. It’s a gift that many of us didn’t have, so please take your time. Like your writing, it, too, edifies us.
Thank you. Part of the reason I'm working slower, besides just grief and exhaustion, is to spend more time with my mom, who lives far away. My mom is awesome but this ordeal has made me appreciate her even more. It still feels weird and difficult to write "my mom's house" instead of "my parents' house".
We lost my father-in-law last year. Last night as we were discussiing my husband's upcoming trip home, I said "your folks." He paused, then gently corrected me "just my mom now." Right, the new reality. We live hundreds of miles away from family. Time warps. Habits of mind hold. Death feels unreal still. "Yes, just your mom" I finally replied. I now understand how grieving people hear voices, see ghosts. For our brains, past patterns are still often the present, a new emptier family pattern has not yet taken over. And I too have felt that void of feeling, the numbness. Take good care & all the time you need. And yes as much time with your mom as you can.
Yes, Barbara, most of us here realize the grief with which Sarah has been having to deal.
Compared to what she's been given personally, our national and international depravities must seem a bit repetitious (and horrifically yes they do repeat, and worsen, and ever more sicken).
She'll pull out of this descent, however, for fresh takes on our predicament, which she's only temporarily left off, after at least a good decade of sleuthing, putting outrages in her inimitable wider context, free-association English.
I wish this comment could be a little more private, but it is what it is.
Take time for yourself, for you kids, for your husband. Plan more trips for the next year. Take your dad with you. Share the memories with him. Honor him with your writing. I didn't subscribe to you to get daily emails, I subscribed to support you in your journey. And it's going to be a rough one for a while. The boulders get smaller, the path evens out, it gets easier but there are still bumps in the road.
I just now read about your father’s death. I am so very sorry. Brain cancer took my sister in 2024 and leukemia nearly took me 2022. Cancer such a nasty disease that takes so much from so many people. Cherish the memories and may there be at least some peace in your lives as you face the days ahead.
I'm so sorry about your sister and you too. Cancer is a nightmare. Over the last three years, I've watched so many people close to me die of or (thankfully in a few cases) survive cancer. It's the most brutal disease. I thought I was tough but watching cancer slowly rob so many of my loved ones of their lives and futures changed something in me. I had no idea. If evil is a disease, it's terminal cancer. I feel like there's a group of people deeply versed in stages and metastases and CTs and petscans and chemo and paracenteses and all the other hallmarks of cancer treatment, and a second group of people who doesn't think much about these things, and I don't recognize myself from back when I lived obliviously in the second group.
I am grateful everyday to be alive and I look at life much differently now. I don’t think anyone understands how all encompassing a cancer diagnosis is for everyone involved until they experience it. The love of those around you does heal.
Thank you for your clear writing on the cancer that now engulfs our government.
In my age, I have lost both my parents. Your grief will never go away but it will change.
I wanted to call my mom yesterday and tell her about the wreck, tell her I was OK, tell her not to panic, but she's been beyond panicking for her miscreant son since 2010.
I share your pain, and I grieve for you, but I am so grateful you are still sending us - me - your words.
Jeff I'm so grateful to you for being my internet friend for so long. I've got to come out to west MO and finally meet you sometime. What else is life for but appreciating the people you have left? Thanks for your kind words and your own insights and I hope you recover from your inquiries soon.
You were staying on land that is full of death. My people, the Kiowa, held out there with our allies in 1874. At the time, the United States had ordered all of us into a small area in SW Indian Territory, now called Oklahoma. We did not submit. You may have noticed the little legs of the river going up into the canyons, that’s where we kept our horses. When the US came at us, they used Gatlin guns to mow us down. Even worse, they built fires at the openings of where we had our horses and burned them alive. They burned down all our lodges. We lived through it-my grandma was born right afterwards so our stories of what happened to us still live on our breath. Those of us who survived the Gatlin, scrambled up the canyon walls and took off running over the desert scrub and cactus. The US soldiers ran us survivors down. They rounded us up. They made us walk back to Fort Sill in Lawton Oklahoma. They raided us in the early hours so most of us were poorly dressed and not ready to walk hundreds of miles. When we got back to Fort Sill, they put us in the horse corrals on the base and held us there over the winter feeding us rotten beef (google the Bush family, the grift is built into the US code). The cold killed a few more of us. There was one old lady who survived that, and when they built Hwy 62 next to the corrals, she would turn her back to that place every time her family drove on that road. Two years ago, some of us went back to Palo Duro and danced in that space next to the visitor’s center. A lot of Kiowas refused to go. A lot of Kiowas will never go back there. The whiteman director of the site said Kiowas are not allowed to go to the area where the massacre happened since you have to cross private land to get to it. That’s convenient. The USA acts like it’s always been here and everything is pre-ordained. It is not. Kiowas survived the last zombie apocalypse—got plans on surviving this next one too.
Thank you for sharing this history. When I was in Palo Duro, I met some folks on horseback who were telling the history of the Canyon and the battles between the US government and the Comanche, with fleeting mention of the Kiowa. Though they presented the Comanche as a "gang", I thought indigenous defense of territory was justified and natural, especially given all the broken treaties and US state brutality that preceded it. I'm horrified that Kiowas are now blocked from the site of the massacre under a private land pretext. It's immoral and I'm sorry the government treats your family and community cruelly.
This is an amazing piece. Thank you for writing about Georgia O’Keefe and her letters. Yours and her experiences help me feel not so alone in this perilous time. 💐
You speak to our broken hearts Sarah. You are in my thoughts and I hope you take as much time as you need. Grief is like waves and sometimes you can stand upright yet feel a bit wobbly and sometimes it just knocks you over. I can never predict those days for myself, but slowly it gets um, manageable. Take care ok? ❤️
There are many of us hovering in your constellation, silently sending comfort and warmth. Thank you for all you share.
Thank you
Oh, Sarah, your writing moves me as O’Keefe’s did for you, and I don’t always welcome the bottled up pain and grief. Yet I know it’s essential to look at it, one chapter at a time. In a couple of weeks I’ll be driving a portion of Route 66, staying in old motels, eating at diners and looking for oversized things before they’re lost. Thanks for the tips.
My deepest sympathies to you as you grieve your father. I find the time you need away oddly comforting. It shows me that the man your father was and your relationship to him requires this. It’s a gift that many of us didn’t have, so please take your time. Like your writing, it, too, edifies us.
Thank you. Part of the reason I'm working slower, besides just grief and exhaustion, is to spend more time with my mom, who lives far away. My mom is awesome but this ordeal has made me appreciate her even more. It still feels weird and difficult to write "my mom's house" instead of "my parents' house".
We lost my father-in-law last year. Last night as we were discussiing my husband's upcoming trip home, I said "your folks." He paused, then gently corrected me "just my mom now." Right, the new reality. We live hundreds of miles away from family. Time warps. Habits of mind hold. Death feels unreal still. "Yes, just your mom" I finally replied. I now understand how grieving people hear voices, see ghosts. For our brains, past patterns are still often the present, a new emptier family pattern has not yet taken over. And I too have felt that void of feeling, the numbness. Take good care & all the time you need. And yes as much time with your mom as you can.
Yes, Barbara, most of us here realize the grief with which Sarah has been having to deal.
Compared to what she's been given personally, our national and international depravities must seem a bit repetitious (and horrifically yes they do repeat, and worsen, and ever more sicken).
She'll pull out of this descent, however, for fresh takes on our predicament, which she's only temporarily left off, after at least a good decade of sleuthing, putting outrages in her inimitable wider context, free-association English.
I wish this comment could be a little more private, but it is what it is.
Take time for yourself, for you kids, for your husband. Plan more trips for the next year. Take your dad with you. Share the memories with him. Honor him with your writing. I didn't subscribe to you to get daily emails, I subscribed to support you in your journey. And it's going to be a rough one for a while. The boulders get smaller, the path evens out, it gets easier but there are still bumps in the road.
Thank you very much. You have no idea how much I appreciate your understanding.
Thank you for writing out your thoughts, like O'Keefe and like all of us yearning to connect and be understood. You are a life saver.
Thank you -- I'm glad it helps
My sincere sympathy for the loss of your father,Ms.Kendzior.🙏🙏🙏🙏
Thank you
"land that seems more like the ocean than anything else I know"
-o'keefe
I love this book. I remembered this quote, where you say about O'Keeffe, "she'd lost herself and found her vision" and how much that impacted me.
Thank you! That means a lot.
you are an engaging writer, lady
I just now read about your father’s death. I am so very sorry. Brain cancer took my sister in 2024 and leukemia nearly took me 2022. Cancer such a nasty disease that takes so much from so many people. Cherish the memories and may there be at least some peace in your lives as you face the days ahead.
I'm so sorry about your sister and you too. Cancer is a nightmare. Over the last three years, I've watched so many people close to me die of or (thankfully in a few cases) survive cancer. It's the most brutal disease. I thought I was tough but watching cancer slowly rob so many of my loved ones of their lives and futures changed something in me. I had no idea. If evil is a disease, it's terminal cancer. I feel like there's a group of people deeply versed in stages and metastases and CTs and petscans and chemo and paracenteses and all the other hallmarks of cancer treatment, and a second group of people who doesn't think much about these things, and I don't recognize myself from back when I lived obliviously in the second group.
I am grateful everyday to be alive and I look at life much differently now. I don’t think anyone understands how all encompassing a cancer diagnosis is for everyone involved until they experience it. The love of those around you does heal.
Thank you for your clear writing on the cancer that now engulfs our government.
Sarah, my friend -
In my age, I have lost both my parents. Your grief will never go away but it will change.
I wanted to call my mom yesterday and tell her about the wreck, tell her I was OK, tell her not to panic, but she's been beyond panicking for her miscreant son since 2010.
I share your pain, and I grieve for you, but I am so grateful you are still sending us - me - your words.
Strength and peace to you.
Jeff
Jeff I'm so grateful to you for being my internet friend for so long. I've got to come out to west MO and finally meet you sometime. What else is life for but appreciating the people you have left? Thanks for your kind words and your own insights and I hope you recover from your inquiries soon.
Injuries?
Such an amazing and beautiful book. Maybe I'll just read the whole thing again!! Take care, Sarah!!
Thanks!
You were staying on land that is full of death. My people, the Kiowa, held out there with our allies in 1874. At the time, the United States had ordered all of us into a small area in SW Indian Territory, now called Oklahoma. We did not submit. You may have noticed the little legs of the river going up into the canyons, that’s where we kept our horses. When the US came at us, they used Gatlin guns to mow us down. Even worse, they built fires at the openings of where we had our horses and burned them alive. They burned down all our lodges. We lived through it-my grandma was born right afterwards so our stories of what happened to us still live on our breath. Those of us who survived the Gatlin, scrambled up the canyon walls and took off running over the desert scrub and cactus. The US soldiers ran us survivors down. They rounded us up. They made us walk back to Fort Sill in Lawton Oklahoma. They raided us in the early hours so most of us were poorly dressed and not ready to walk hundreds of miles. When we got back to Fort Sill, they put us in the horse corrals on the base and held us there over the winter feeding us rotten beef (google the Bush family, the grift is built into the US code). The cold killed a few more of us. There was one old lady who survived that, and when they built Hwy 62 next to the corrals, she would turn her back to that place every time her family drove on that road. Two years ago, some of us went back to Palo Duro and danced in that space next to the visitor’s center. A lot of Kiowas refused to go. A lot of Kiowas will never go back there. The whiteman director of the site said Kiowas are not allowed to go to the area where the massacre happened since you have to cross private land to get to it. That’s convenient. The USA acts like it’s always been here and everything is pre-ordained. It is not. Kiowas survived the last zombie apocalypse—got plans on surviving this next one too.
Thank you for sharing this history. When I was in Palo Duro, I met some folks on horseback who were telling the history of the Canyon and the battles between the US government and the Comanche, with fleeting mention of the Kiowa. Though they presented the Comanche as a "gang", I thought indigenous defense of territory was justified and natural, especially given all the broken treaties and US state brutality that preceded it. I'm horrified that Kiowas are now blocked from the site of the massacre under a private land pretext. It's immoral and I'm sorry the government treats your family and community cruelly.
This is an amazing piece. Thank you for writing about Georgia O’Keefe and her letters. Yours and her experiences help me feel not so alone in this perilous time. 💐
an old friend once remarked, That I'd become a better person, since i started hanging with a few 'artist types'
You speak to our broken hearts Sarah. You are in my thoughts and I hope you take as much time as you need. Grief is like waves and sometimes you can stand upright yet feel a bit wobbly and sometimes it just knocks you over. I can never predict those days for myself, but slowly it gets um, manageable. Take care ok? ❤️
Take all the time you need. We'll be here when you are ready. Sending love and positive thoughts your way.