We’ll Meet Again: A pandemic story in three acts

Act I - The Before Times

March 16th, 2020 was the last day of the Before Times for me. It was the last day I thought I was going to have an ordinary day working in NOAA’s offices before going home to my beloved Greenwood neighborhood. We got the word late in the day to pack up and take our laptops home and prepare to work remotely for at least two weeks. I hated this idea. I didn’t want to lose the enjoyment of working across from my best friend all day, or going out to lunch, or having casual hallway conversations. I didn’t like the idea of being alone all the time.

I’ll complain and moan for a while when work compels me to do something I don’t want to, but ultimately I know which side of the bread the butter is on, so I soldier up and do what needs to be done. I, my bestie, and his housemate at the time packed up our laptops at the usual time and made our standard goodbye stroll to the parking lot. They walked slow to smoke cigarettes before starting their brutal hour + commute northward. I just enjoyed the chat.

They finished their smokes and it was time to part. Some place of deep knowing inside me opened up and I would have said then that I feared, but really I knew that it was going to be much longer than two weeks before I saw them again.

I started singing. It didn’t feel voluntary.

We’ll meet again. Don’t know where; don’t know when

but I know we’ll meet again some sunny day.

Keep smiling through just like you always do

‘til the blue skies drive the dark clouds far away.

Memories of our mom flooded me. She was a WWII veteran born and raised in England. She often told us that one of the things that got her through the war was Very Lynn’s recording of We’ll Meet Again written by Ross Parker and Hughie Charles. Mom and I would sing it together when I was a teenager while we danced in the living room. She showed me then the power that music has to reach us when nothing else can.

My best friend and his housemate stared at me as I came back from wherever I had gone and started crying.

“Y’ OK?”

“Yeah. Mom used to sing that. It’s from the War.”

I drove home and as I passed through the little business district I think of as ‘downtown Greenwood’ past the restaurants and bars where I spend some of the happiest hours. As I did, the song came out of me again and I felt certain that there would be a shutdown and these places would be dark and silent for an unknown amount of time. It felt like the end of the world.

You can listen to a wonderful rendition of this song by a choral group from England called the D-Day Darlings here:

The second thing that Mom said got her through the war was knowing that then Princess Elizabeth was serving in the military just like she was.

On April 5th, 2020, Queen Elizabeth II made an unprecedented speech about the pandemic. The whole video is worth watching, especially if you are an American who doesn’t understand the value that Her Majesty brings to her people. If you are short on time, though, you can jump ahead to minute four. She makes reference to We’ll Meet Again in encouraging everyone listening to remember that better days are ahead and that we will overcome this problem.

It felt like she was speaking directly to me; or that someone was.

Act II - Sunset Harping and Fae Wiedenhoeft

Inspired by viral videos of musicians in Rome under severe lockdown orders singing and playing instruments from their balconies (sometimes collaboratively with other balconies!) I decided that one small thing I could do was play harp from my own balcony. No one would hear, of course, because it overlooks noisy Greenwood Avenue. My favourite time of day to be here at my condo is sunset. I have a pretty good view of the Olympic mountains to the west and there are times when the sky is breathtaking. I decided that would be the time of day I would play music. It would give me an anchor, and by following the sunset later and later in the day I would keep myself oriented toward the world beyond my four walls.

I had the idea of doing a Facebook live broadcast of these sunset shows, so on March 21st, 2020 the first episode of Sunset Harping happened. I continued to produce half-hour episodes about four times a week and gathered a surprisingly large and loyal following. The show did what I intended. It gave me a relief from feeling alone and it gave all of us an anchor in each day to stop, breathe, and assess.

By early July, there were some temporary reductions in Covid restrictions, which allowed me to invite guests to be on the show with me. One of them was my friend Fae Weidenhoeft. She is a fabulous singer songwriter who I met when she started taking Gaelic classes in the Zero to Gaelic program and singing in the choir. Fae is a blazing talent and a fabulous human and I was delighted to have her with me on the balcony. Over dinner we discussed what we would do on the show and she brought up We’ll Meet Again. It was one of the songs she wanted to perform on the show and she knew it was special to me, but not why, so I told her.

We started the show off with that number with her on ukulele and singing lead. I had worked out a harmony for some parts, but the song has far too many sudden changes of sharps and flats for a lever harp, so I didn’t play. It was an absolutely magical moment. You can see it here:

Act III - A new instrument and a neglected set of skills

My music career has been thoroughly and happily devoted to the music of the Gaelic-speaking people of Scotland, Ireland, and Nova Scotia. My original education, however, was in classical music at Cornish College of the Arts. It took a while before I really found my feet and started to excel, but I managed it. By the time I graduated, I put together a program for my senior recital that included a very respectable collection of mainstream, challenging pedal harp pieces.

Traditional music by and large, doesn’t call for huge range and full chromatic capability of a classical harp, but is better served by the smaller, portable, more resonant, and less expensive lever harp. I have two artist quality lever harps. One was made for me in Scotland, and the other right here in Seattle. They are wonderful, fulfilling instruments that are perfectly suited for what I have done with them. No complaints there.

Although I had completed my degree in classical music, I never owned my own classical harp. I rented a small one from my teacher and regretfully returned it shortly after finishing my degree. I was soon off and running into the world of traditional music, and my investments belonged in instruments that would serve me there.

In 2011, the World Harp Congress was held in Vancouver BC, and my friend Alys Howe with whom I preformed in a harp duo, got us booked to do a concert of music from Scotland and Cape Breton. It was great fun. While I was there, I also spent a bit of time in the vendors hall looking at all the instruments including the classical harps. A spark of interest grew in me.

It took a decade for that spark to grow into action, but in February of 2021, when I was due to receive my inheritance from my parents, I placed an order for a new Lyon and Healy pedal harp. It arrived near the end of June and it was time for me to dust off a stack of music I hadn’t played in 30 years or more. Although my hands could play all the right strings, on a classical harp you have to move seven pedals at the base of the instrument, each of which has three positions, to get all the sharps and flats. That skill was a bit rusty. Like really rusty.

I had the idea to use We’ll Meet Again as a kind of study piece. I pulled out the sheet music that Fae had given me a copy of and spent an evening working out what all the pedal changes would be to get all the right sharps and flats at the right times. It turns out there were quite a lot, so it has been a great exercise.

It has also given me a way to take ownership of the importance of the song in my life. Mom taught me how to find hope in dark times through her love of that song. Queen Elizabeth told me that things would get better again, and I believed her because she touched the place that song holds in my heart. Fae wanted to know why that song mattered to me, because I mattered to her.

Now I can play We’ll Meet Again whenever I need to remember those things.

The Remover? Fuck that guy: A Valentine’s Day Meditation

On the occasion of the last Valentine’s Day before we are married:

Doug,

Alteration has found us, but whatever
The Remover? I don’t know that guy and I don’t bend in general, much less so
We see an ever-fixéd mark, and that’s who needs to
We have looked on tempests and been shaken
But we are
Still
Here
We are no fools, not for Time, various taxing authorities, or even Grindr
Shakespeare? That one writ, and we loved

Always yours,
S

****
#116.

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no; it is an ever-fixed mark,
That looks on tempests, and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
   If this be error and upon me proved,
   I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

Alasdair Og Donn

Alasdair òg donn,
eireachdail, dualach,
tàmh thall anns a' bheinn àrd:

Thug thu bhuam cuid mo chrìdhe

agus ghlèidh thu gu caoin i.
Thug thu dhomh air ais i
nas fheàrr na bha an toiseach i.

Fhir nan crìdhe binn agus nam pòg,
éist ri cainnt mo bheòil dhut.
Saoil nach faic mi a-rithist thu
ach bithidh mo bheannachd mhaireann leat.

Happier

While I treasured my wounds
The days ticked by
Now most are gone
My wounds will die when I do
But no one will mourn them
They will just wish
I had been happier

Seumas Gagne
2019

Last Words

In May of 1998, I met a guy who for some inexplicable reason was interested in being more than friends with me, so we were more than friends. He will always occupy a special place in my memory because he was the very first man that gave me the gift of intimacy more than once. I was 32.

We were quite poorly suited, but I was oblivious to that. Someone had been cast in the role of Boyfriend and that was a huge check mark on my list.

Time, however, had no issue with showing both of us the flaws in our current situation and I was then back into my Mum's orbit for council. The following is the last thing Catherine Bolan ever wrote to me. I keep it folded up in a heart-shaped box with a heart-shaped stone on top.

There is nothing for you to be afraid of. You have achieved such a lot through work and perseverance, that it is impossible to conceive that you should be afraid of failure of any kind. This situation you are in is not the beginning or the end of anything. Don't take things at face value. There's very little in life that is as it appears. Q & A; that's what you need and you need it now, for your own peace of mind. Do not put it off.

Still working on the complete fulfillment of this advice, Mum, and I will never give up. You are still my shining star, and by the way, I did actually find the One True Love of my Life. You would have loved him.

A Family of One

Back before I met Doug​, I struggled with being single. I remember my 30th birthday in 1996 very clearly. My friends and bandmates threw me a lovely party, but I had never been in love with a man who was in love with me and I felt that made me a failure as a human being. Surely I was a warty horror that no man could ever love.

Warty horror circa 2000CE.

Time went on, and I did eventually have a stormy nine month relationship with a very nice and completely ill-matched man. It came to a crashing end on Winter Solstice in 1998, but no matter how painful that experience was, I'm still grateful to it and to him for all that I learned.

When I moved to Baile Ard​ in 1999, I decided that I was going to change my life; that I wouldn't wait to have a husband before making a home and being a family. I would be a family of one. Each time I worked on the place, cooked for myself, decorated for a holiday, or entertained friends I became happier. I had my friends, my band, my family, my coven, my Gaelic society, my job, my health, and a home I loved. What earthly reason did I have to be unhappy?

I became unreservedly content, joyous, and satisfied as a single man. Maybe being authentically happy is what changed my luck in love. Only the gods really know, but I can tell you that even if I had remained single I would still be a family of one with a very rich and fulfilling home life.

If you're struggling with being single, lay down that burden and make yourself a home and a life that you love. You don't need anyone's approval or permission to do so but your own.

With love,
Seumas

Kitchen Witchery

This is the third of the four enchantments that I designed for my House Blessing / Spell Casting party when I moved to Baile Ard in 1999. See Spell To Attract A Cool Boyfriend for more details on the event.

My relationship with cooking fundamentally changed while I lived in Baile Ard. I had never been particularly enthusiastic about it, but there was something about the combination of having a place I was proud to invite people, having a kitchen that was open to the living area, and a decision I made not long after moving there that changed everything.

The decision was that I was not going to wait to have a man in my life before making a home. I was going to be a family of one, if that was my fate, and that included homemaking, home cooking, decorating for holidays, and entertaining.

I started off by delving back into my childhood memories of cooking Japanese food with my godmother, Kimiko Sakai, and with her mother-in-law, Botchan-san. I was still vegetarian at that time, but managed to pull together a couple six-course Japanese dinners. I don't know if my guests stopped for burgers on the way home or not, but we had a laugh anyway.

The epitome of my culinary adventures was the Winter Solstice Banquet, which I and my friend Pandora started as a collaboration. There's a little more about that in this post: Happy 10th Ballardiversary!

This transformation of ingredients into food was a new form of magic for me, but the spell that was cast by so many friends that night which led to my embrace of it was classic Seumascraft:

Kitchen Witchery

Take your favorite of the cooking implements from the kitchen and go back and forth between there and the dining table waving the implement and intoning the following:

By wooden spoon and crescent Moon
By spice mill, sieve and knife
By spinach, potato and garlic clove
All foods that nourish life,
All meals and snacks and feasts herein
with any tool employed,
Shall be full-well nutritional,
un-fattening, and enjoyed!
Heed this charm!
Cause no harm!
So mote it be!

Spell to Attract a Cool Boyfriend

Back in June of 1999, when I moved to Baile Ard, I had a clear sense that I was entering a very special period of my life. I knew that the experiences I had there would be a touchstone for everything that came after. As it turned out, I was right on the money.

I decided that this move warranted more than just a house warming party. I wanted an all-weekend affair, so I decided to hold three events. On the Friday evening there would be a House Blessing / Spell Casting party, followed by a House Warming Ceilidh on Saturday evening, and Survival Brunch on Sunday.

For the House Blessing / Spell Casting party, I settled on four enchantments that I wanted for my new home and I wrote instructions for each and made copies for all the guests. They were free to perform any or all of them in any order they wished. I plan on writing a short piece about each spell, and to start off, here is the one I called: Spell to Attract a Cool Boyfriend.

Gather two friends together and get a condom each. All three wave the condoms over the bed while one recites the following charm. The other two should chime in on the "COME YE NOT" parts! 

I send my voice through time and space
in all directions from this place
And call upon men who themselves love men
to arise and come hither!
BUT COME YE NOT
lest ye bring honesty
COME YE NOT
lest ye bring youthful maturity
COME YE NOT
lest ye bring good health
COME YE NOT
lest ye bring a sense of humor
COME YE NOT
lest ye bring faithfulness
COME YE NOT
lest ye bring a love of all Gaeldom
COME YE NOT
lest ye bring a recent pay stub
NOW, by this charm so nimbly wrought
and with many gifts from Ikea bought
come hither and shower love on Seumas
and should this work, may he never blame us!
Heed this charm!
Cause no harm!
So mote it be!

That was in June 1999. I met Doug in April, 2001. Considering how many conditions I placed on the spell, I think that less than two years was an exceptional turnaround time.

How To Boyfriend: The Gift Giving Edition

Every year in November, Doug reminds me how difficult I am to shop for. I'm a minimalist with reasonably good income and reasonably poor impulse control. This year, as he often does, he asked for hints. Hints I can do. List? No way. That turns the whole thing into a transactional obligation and banishes the magic.

Over the course of the last thirty days I've sent him these text messages at various times:

Thanks for the stemware, Baby. Gin-o'clock!

Red KitchenAid two slice toasters are so lovely. I'm quite distraught about mine being broken you know.

I feel so ratchet when I drink martinis out of ordinary glasses when I'm in Seattle. I just love the ones at The Olive and Grape with charming coloured glass stems.

Sometimes when I'm working on black fabric at night I wish I had a good task lamp for my table. I should ask for a recommendation the next time I'm in Fabricana.

To which my prince responded:

I see what you did there. 

And because he's the most awesome man ever known to me, he started following suit:

I find it annoying to do laundry so often since the laundromat in Inverness wrecked one of my two good pairs of jeans. I often get work clothes at Old Navy.

In learning a little Turkish I keep wishing I had a small dictionary that indicates long vowels and unusual word stress, because the standard orthography doesn't. I'd even get rid of a book or two to make room for it.

(Yes, he's learning Turkish now)

And I do so miss Babylon 5 and wonder if it ever came out on DVD.

And that, dear readers, is how you boyfriend. Can there be any doubt why I adore him so?

Taking Doug Home

Growing up in Poulsbo, I knew that when my Mother used the term "home" she didn't mean the farm where we lived. She meant the town she was born and raised in, Cleethorpes, England.

The Promenade in Cleethorpes at the mouth of the river Humber

Mom took us back there several times while we were growing up, but the first time I was old enough to really remember it was when I was 13. My cousin Karen, the daughter of my Mom's youngest sister Betty was getting married, so Mom took me and my brother Tom with her back to Cleethorpes for the summer of 1978. I got to know Cleethorpes a little, and formed relationships with my Mom's father, her brother and sisters, and their kids that have stood the test of time. My grandad, aunts and uncle and their spouses also made trips over to visit us and sometimes brought their kids with them, so we really did know each other pretty well.

From my 2001 visit: Left to right: Eric,
his wife Lois, Karen, Betty, Me, My aunt May's
widower, Les, and Betty's husband Tom.

As time went on, we drifted apart a bit, though we've never been completely out of touch. When my Mom died my cousin Lynn wrote us a condolence poem that couldn't have been more perfect if Mom had written it herself. I decided then that I needed to make a trip back to Cleethorpes. I went in October of 2001 and had a great visit with my two aunts and uncle and most of their kids. At that time, Doug and I had been dating less than a year, but my cousins all wanted to know when I was going to bring him over to meet them. "Soon" I said. Irony. Anyway, I wasn't sure how receptive my Mom's generation would be to meeting the gay nephew's Canadian boyfriend, so I let sleeping dogs lie.

The years got away from us, and the next trip to Britain was in 2010. Doug and I signed ourselves up for a one week Gaelic immersion course in South Uist, and we didn't plan a trip to see my family. I will regret that decision for the rest of my life. Since then I've lost my last uncle and one of my two aunts.

And now it's 2014. Doug and I were invited to travel to the Royal National Mòd with the Victoria Gaelic Choir to compete this year and we accepted without hesitation. I insisted this time, however, that we spend enough time to make crossing the Atlantic worth the expense and the effort. Three weeks, and not a day less, and visiting family was non-negotiable. No argument. Doug had seen my face when I learned that my uncle Eric had died, and when I found my aunt Gladys' obituary online accidentally. No argument.

From my 2001 visit: My cousin Lynn, Her son Matthew
and his newborn son, Corben. Corben is in the
double-digits now!

We flew in to Heathrow on Monday and spent the first few days in London doing tourist and harp-related things. Thursday we hopped a train North headed for Ramsey to visit my cousins Lynn and David. I had asked them to arrange a birthday cake, since Doug was turning 50 while we were there. My cousins were just as warm and welcoming as I had remembered from my childhood, and they made it clear that under no circumstances were we to get married without giving them enough notice to come. Message received, cousins.

So, my aunt Betty, my Mom's youngest sister, is the last of her generation, and still lives in Cleethorpes, just around the corner from the house where they were all born and raised. She's in her eighties, and I had learned that she is on dialysis, so I was prepared to find her and her husband Tom in tough shape, and didn't want to be a burden in any way, so I only planned for us to spend a half day with them. Just enough time to see a couple sites, maybe have lunch and a good visit before heading off to Glasgow.

#19 Edwards Street where Mom
was born and raised

David volunteered to drive us to Cleethorpes, which meant that we would also get to make a stop at Lynn's mother's house. That's my Uncle Eric's widow Lois for those of you keeping score at home. We had a short but robust visit there, then back on the road.

When we arrived in Cleethorpes we got quite a surprise. Far from frail, Betty and Tom met us at the door looking like the picture of health and style. Tom took our suitcases and said he would bring them down to the train station for us so we didn't have to wrestle with them. My cousin Karen was there, now a woman in her 50s, with her grown daughter Kelly. We hadn't even sat down before Betty asked if we had eaten. No? Within thirty seconds we had a table reserved at their favourite restaurant down at the front (that's the waterfront for you Yanks) and we were in Kelly's car. Memories from the summer of 1978 started flooding back. Mary Lawless' house! The family home at #19 Edward Street! Saint Peter's Church! Ross Castle!

Over lunch, Betty shared news of the family. She talked about her brother Eric who had died in 2013; about what happened when her last sister Gladys passed away earlier this year. She told me about her and her Tom's illnesses. They had come close to death, but were both now doing very well. She also wanted to know about us and our lives together. She talked about having gone to a same-sex wedding recently and made it clear that she had no issues with it. Then she got quiet.

"I told her. I told her that Summer when you were here for Karen's wedding. I told her she needed to help you cope." she said.

And my understanding of my life changed. Someone in my family was advocating for me when I was 13, and she was still alive and sitting across the table from us, right there in Cleethorpes. Then she took an envelope out of her purse and handed it to me.

"Something for you and Doug."

Pounds sterling. Lots of pounds sterling. There's only one time in your life when relatives hand you envelopes of cash in England. This was a wedding present.

It was time for us to leave to make our train to Glasgow, so Betty walked us the two blocks to the station. Tom was waiting there with our cases. I put my hands on her shoulders and said the truest words I ever have.

"I don't want to go. I don't want to leave you." I said.

"I know. Don't be too long." she said with a smile that was at once happy and sad.

We got on the train and as it pulled away, my heart ripped out of my chest. I was leaving home again. When we reached Glasgow, we stopped at the first news stand and got some postcards. I wrote the first one to Betty and Tom, thanking them for the present and promising a longer letter when we got home. I included it in a Christmas card I put in the mail last Thursday. This is what it said in part:

Mom died on October 26th, 2000, as I’m sure you remember. I met Doug on April 7th of the next year - barely five months later. Within a few weeks, I realized that I had met the person with whom I intended to spend the rest of my life. It wasn’t too much later, on a Summer weekend when we were hanging new curtains in his house that it truly dawned on me that I would never be able to take Doug home to meet Mom. They would never laugh together; never make fun of my quirks together. I would never see them hug. She would never be there to accept him as a part of our family the way his mother and father have accepted me.

Thirteen years have come and gone since then. Doug and I have been through a lot and seen the days when first his country, and then mine, and now yours accept our little family as real and worthy. My heart is so full and I’m so grateful for my life that I didn’t think I had any wounds left to heal until you opened the door of your beautiful home and welcomed us in.

During our lunch at Steel’s, the things you shared about your conversation with my Mom that Summer when we were over for Karen's wedding, and about your own positive relationships with same-sex couples were a great comfort to me. That old sorrow that I had been carrying for thirteen years melted away. No, my Mother wasn’t there to accept Doug, but through you, my Mother’s family was. It meant so much to me, Betty. I feel more at peace than I have in a dozen years.

Getting on that train and leaving Cleethorpes was the hardest goodbye I’ve experienced in a very long time. I will return as soon as I can and we’ll have a proper visit if the fates allow.

I got to take Doug home with me where we were welcomed with open arms. Even here at the shaggy winding-up end of our stories, there are still miracles of grace to be found if you look. If the fates allow…

The Luckiest 13

Today is the fourteenth of April, in the two thousand and fourteenth year of the common era. That might not mean much to you, but it does to me. Thirteen years ago today was my first whole day spent with a certain Canadian.

These were those anguish-filled times long ago.

My schedule has kept me in Seattle for the last two weekends, so I haven't woken up next to him since the 30th of March. Our anniversary, or date-a-versary as I often call it, taking place in the midst of a period of separation would have, at an earlier point in time been the cause of great anguish. Today it is still uncomfortable, but we've got this.

I'll be in a surgical waiting lounge tomorrow with my godson's father while his wife has a tumor removed from her brain casing. I'll be 110 miles from the only set of shoulders that fit my furrowed brow, but we've got this.

My siblings are in a tricky situation that I may have to get them out of despite the fact that they HATE asking their baby brother for help, but it will be OK. We've got this.

Himself just heard that his mother (whom I adore) has gotten some troubling medical news of her own, but we will rise to meet whatever need comes, because we've got this.

Reaching middle age comes with challenges. There are creaks and groans where before there were none, but there are also powers and rewards. There is a sense of satisfaction that comes when you walk into a situation where people you love are struggling and they heave a sigh of relief because "The boys are here."

Yes, I would rather spend every remaining day by his side. Yes, it costs us to be apart so often, but we're OK. We've got this. What can we do to help?

A Moment of Grace

Last Sunday night was shaping up like many before it. Doug was at work until 5:00 pm, and I had everything ready to make a nice dinner of oven roasted chicken and vegetables with a side of red quinoa with butter and salt.

I picked him up from work and we came home. I busied myself in the kitchen while he unwound and caught up on what had happened on the Internets during the day. I set the table and laid out dinner, which all turned out well. While we were enjoying it and talking something dawned on me that transformed my experience. I realized that this was one of those times that in future I would look back on as a rare and wonderful moment of perfect intimacy, peace, and enjoyment together. Through some unknowable grace, I could see the timeless divine light shining through each moment. We finished dinner and being the wonderful man that he his, Doug did all the dishes while I stretched out on the couch.

Dear gods, if I have served you well, when my last night on Earth comes, somehow let it be that night again. That's all I need.

Project 32: Skirting the Issue

One of my dearest friends is a woman about my age whom I met when she joined our Gaelic choir in 1997. After being close friends for several years, she was diagnosed with Cushings Syndrome, which is caused by a tumor on the pituitary gland in the brain. She had probably had it since her late teens, and since the net effect of the syndrome is to flood the body with cortisol, it explained her slow but steady weight increase over time and her difficulties managing severe anxiety. It's hard to be calm and relaxed when you have enough adrenaline pumping through you to alarm a small village.

It has been an honor and privilege to be her friend and walk beside her during her long struggle against Cushings. I can say without hesitation that she is the bravest, strongest, and smartest person I know.

Last year her doctors made an alarming new discovery and she needed urgent surgery. There were complications. There are almost always complications for Cushings patients, and very few people have ever lived as long with the disease as my friend has, so there is little science to help her care team along. At this point, she has been in the hospital for almost three months trying to recover from surgery and has reached nearly 500 pounds. As she continued to work toward going home, one thing became clear. She was going to need new, comfortable clothes that work with her medical appliances, and when you're a certain size, shopping becomes a challenge.

I knew it was time to take on the challenge.

I decided to design a small collection of skirts for her to get her started post-hospital. Early in the process, I had the inspiration to use a different part of my vision of her and her life as the guiding idea for each design. I have completed three of them, and have a vision of another two, so this is a collection still in process. I call it Skirting the Issue:

Frida's Garden is the name of the print

Frida

The first skirt was inspired by my friend's passion for the visual arts and her love of Frida Kahlo. I found this awesome print paying tribute to Frida's art and used it as the center panel framed in black.

Some kilt references, but hopefully not too literal

Albion

Part of my friend's heritage is Scottish, and that was the context in which we met, so I naturally wanted a design that was inspired by that. I found some Nova Scotia provincial tartan and used it for this design. The navy blue linen around in the third panel has pleats for ease of motion.

Seattleite

In this design I combined three prints. The bottom panel is leaves, both evergreen and deciduous. The middle panel is sea creatures, and the top is clouds.

Peasanty, yes, but I like it too.

Closer view of the prints.

I wish that it was a different and happier circumstance that moved me to work on these garments, but it wasn't. In the face of a situation about which I can do almost nothing, the only things that remain are love, friendship, and art.

And there they are.