windthread

This is my friend Jane…..friends from maybe 19 years old?    Best Friends.    Her daughter messaged me this pic today after a 2 hour phone conversation.   How can i tell this story.   and Why would i.     it will be fragmented.   

It all began because the daughter sent Jenny a photograph of the Cass Avenue Unitarian Church,  Detroit Michigan that a cousin took, asking if Jenny would pass it along to me. Which she did.   It's a very old building.  Beautiful.  3 floors a curved balcony.  Made from stone.    Jane's daughter said      I'll bet  your mom has many stories from there.     I do.

The daughter was there from birth.  Friend Jane and  daughter's father were hired   (amazingly)    as caretakers of the church   living in a small apartment on the third floor.   Their big Collie,   Loki.    Jane and  i were around 20.  her dad,  21,  friend of the person who ended up being the father of my two children.   Exact years are blurry…we can figure it all out if  need to.   But it was the end of the 60's.   Viet Nam.    and in Detroit,   the White Panther Party,   Associated Rainbow Coalition,   John and Leni Sinclair.  Detroit ALIVE with Peace and Justice.   
Here's where it starts to get hard to tell.   

Connected to their apartment on that third floor was what we called the Ballroom.  I don't know exactly what it was?   but large,  like a basket ball court maybe?    We spent a lot of time stoned.   Jane's friend had moved to the UK and traveled a lot to India and sent chunks of hashish sewn into beautifully embroidered elephants to the daughter…a baby…..      the church had an industrial sized kitchen downstairs and we….maybe 20 people?   would make these what we called   International Dinners….cooking down there…All this Indian Food,  Syrian,  Fried Rice etc   always very care Full to clean up and it was never an issue with the church people and we brought it all upstairs to the Ballroom.   We went downstairs to the basement where they kept all the costumes for the church plays and picked out what we wanted to wear for the International Dinners.   Down there also were long corridors i guess we can call them and i knew them to be from the days of the Underground Railroad…but at the time didn't have enough sense to understand the GIFT of that…just being too stoned to wander them…some people did…i didn't.   ok…i can feel myself losing steam here…so….gotta figure out what exactly i want to say ………Daughter is right.    SO MANY  STORIES.   For reasons,  she Needs them.   And yes.   I will tell her.   It's going to take some time.  

so….this pic above…..      At some point,   we were all living in Ann Arbor.   this daughter about 9,  Jenny about 3.   Jane decided that there was more "opportunity" in Alaska……….and took  the daughter and their dog Crowfoot and         left.  The daughter grew up in Fairbanks.    

There are many stories.   Daughter wants to hear them all.   Wants to piece her understanding of her life together…like how we stitch together a cloth…..a quilt….a blanket.    

she asked today…..you grew  up in the 50's…….HOW DID YOU DO ALL THE THINGS YOU DID??????????????????????

She loves this pic of her mother.   She loves me.    I love them.    I told her today….ok….we will GROW this.   ok.