Then and Now
Sunday 7 October 2007
Curious professor,
Indeed I am reading a book about Mev Puleo, coincidently written by you. SLU’s library is currently loaning me the book, but I was urged to read it by Megan Heeney and Katie Cushwa. I am working my way through it slowly. I read a chapter at a time and then think about it, usually for 15 minutes, but more frequently all day.
It has been really interesting reading the book since Dan’s death. I actucally started reading it two days before. I have not quite figured out exactly how to put it into words or exactly how I feel about it, but I feel this sense of deja vu when reading about Mev’s life while just starting to learn all about the life of this beautiful human named Dan Horkheimer. So, it has been quite intense, to say the least. There is this great sense I get about community from the book that is unfolding before my eyes, even as I am typing this. When I first started reading The Book of Mev I thought, “I wonder if I would have ever known anything about this woman had she not died. Would her photographs be as beautiful or her words about the Pope and the church and love be as great if we would see them 40 years from now, when Mev was old and greying playing chess somewhere?” And I don’t know the answer, I think to some of us, yes, to you and to Teka and her other close friends and family, but to me? I would probably never see anything of her, at least not conciously. And I feel with Dan’s death, I have been given the opportunity to see this beautiful community and this great love and an amazing sacrifice. These same things I am reading about in the book, but I am getting to see them, feel them. What a blessing.
I don’t think I said exactly what I was trying to. The ideas and emotions inside of me right now are pretty powerful and equally daunting to try to process, so they become something I can spit out into fluid sentences or conversations.
In Peace,
Kristin
Kristin Swanson is studying in Social Justice 361-03 and is a regular housetaker at Karen House.