Friendships that Saved Me from Friendships that Nearly Killed Me, How Do We Mark Their Passing?

A Memoir Writer’s Dilemma, living book three while writing book one.

Grieving and death have overwhelmed me this month. I have lost three close friends and my cat Sweetie, who I left with Matt when I left him in 2018.

My writing may be better because of it. But likewise, my memoir feels irrelevant here at the end of June, the second year into our glorious Covid Pandemic. What a chore to keep up with the pages every morning. Feels like it’s more of a job that still does not pay any bills.

I’m constantly wondering about the death of my mentor and inspirational fiddle teacher David A. Kaynor on June 1, 2021 from ALS. It has had a huge impact on our world-wide music and dance community. He was the only guy I knew who could lead an All-Comers band, call the contra dance, and play amazing harmonies all at the same time.

This grief ought to get me to write Part III of my book. The part where my 25 year friendship with David started. At Ashokan Fiddle and Dance Camp in the Hudson Valley. When I bought my first fiddle from him, then took the class his good friend Susan Conger taught. We were eight brand new, squeaky adult violin players, Fiddle From Scratch, where we hacked out the tune Road to Boston all week. Hardly anyone reached that high A with any consistency.

Two years ago David had unknowingly carried me over the roughest spots in my traumatic, final grey-rocking of good ole old Suzanne, a tough but interesting friend over 20 years. At the same time, I had left my partner Matt. Because of some revelations Suzanne had led me into. A powerful messing with the energies of both our extended families, in the way that only a narcissistic wounded healer might do. That’s what Book One is about, Greetings from WORLDS, A Travel memoir of Friendship, Abandonment, and the Making of a Homeschooled Ph.D. Or some such title.

David anchored the musical safety net of friends where I landed, after I ditched Suzanne. Both in Montpelier Vermont and Greenfield Massachusetts. In his last year he finally got the honor for which I had nominated him, the Lifetime Contribution Award from the Country Dance and Song…