Update on Vimeo post and books

Updating the Warriors

Laura Jeanne Morefield and her mother, Charlene Baldridge
2008

There are many things I cannot divulge these days -- a horrible condition for one such as I, who wants to blab all to the world. Patience is required of me for the first time in a long time, and I've never been good at the practice of this trait. What's the old saying? "I want what I want and I want it now"?

Be that as it may, there are a couple of things I am able to relate to you.

1. James Vasquez's marvelous filming of my November 18 talk about Jake, Laura, Flicka and me is up on vimeo! Just go to www.vimeo.com/83116588 and you can see the whole thing. The composer loves it by the way.

Charlene at reading of Laura's work
April 2013

2. I've decided, since I can't untangle the prose book (see previous post) that Laura does need to have a larger voice in its creation. And so, I've copied the email exchanges between us and news she wrote to her Team Laura caregivers. She also wrote the time line of her disease on her own blog and I intend to incorporate that into the book as well. 

Samantha Ginn and Charlene
July 2013

Collecting and editing Laura's post-diagnosis poetry and making the chapbook The Warrior's Stance (www.ccalliance.com/Laura) brought me daily contact with my late daughter and her luminous works for more than a year.

Writing the play titled The Warriors' Duet, which incorporates her work and mine, brought me peace and release. Watching it performed last year by Circle Circle dot dot (Katherine Harroff and Anne Gehman co-directed) was an indescribable experience.

Finishing Line Press's forthcoming chapbook of my poems, The Rose in December, written since Laura's 2008 diagnosis seems to be the icing on the cake for this soon-to-be-80-year-old (www.finishinglinepress.com and go to forthcoming books). But that brings us to the undisclosed news. If you see me and wonder why my normally open mouth is tightly closed and in a straight line, that's why.

This morning in my predawn dreams, Laura took me shopping at Macy's. "You always looked so good in red," she said, as I held up a wild print in front of my body. "Put that into the cart." We had such a good time. She bought nothing for herself, but it's quite apparent that she is still in charge of the hairbrush.