I’ll offer two views of what’s up. The first is a snapshot of the present.

Throughout the past two years, we’ve tried to maintain a three-month cushion in the balance we have on hand. That lets us operate without the added stress of low funds, while also keeping an eye on the future. As you can see, that cushion is now less than our goal, and moving toward nervous-making. The main reason for this is our increased reliance on paid care.

We would love to raise $17,000 in the next month, so we can continue to pay our excellent caregivers. (This is our “survival” figure. The “thriving” figure would add funding to better support our volunteers, expenses after Hanna’s death, and future publication of Hanna’s work.)

If you are able to give, the easiest is to go through GiveButter. One-time contributions are great. Monthly donations are great too—a way for you to manage things and for us to have foresight.

Might someone else in your world be interested in Hanna’s story and able to support her care, life and work? Do pass on this link, or a link to the GiveButter campaign: givebutter.com/hanna-care.

The second picture is a summary of the full history of the “Hanna Fund.”

The left side shows the inflow from our different sources, while the right side shows where the money has gone. This is imprecise, but it is true in its categories and proportions.

Of the sources we have available for income, talking to you is our most flexible. The savings are gone, social security is fixed, grants are limited and take a lot of effort, and family and friends have done / are doing all they can.

Money alone does not give a realistic picture of the resources that are required for Hanna’s care. And Hanna’s condition and quality of life is not the only fruit born from this flow. What else is on the balance sheet of care and community?

Thank you for the swirling flow of generosity and love we’ve experienced for two and a half years—financial, emotional, laborial, jokeial. tearial, laughial, poemial—in all forms. It’s not one-way, from community to Hanna and Careforce. It’s a system of currents among us, in which we all participate. From the exhalations of the trees with whom we exchange our own exhalations, to a meal provided, a coin contributed, a compliment given, a tear witnessed, a need confessed. Thank you. It’s a privilege.

A short note on short notice!

“Choosing to See,” the video that Hanna has been writing all summer, is showing at the Woordfees festival Saturday the 18th at 1:00pm. This is part of the “Veldhospitaal” exhibition at Libertas Farm, near Stellenbosch.

If you can’t make it during that time, the video will be playing on a loop on a smaller screen all day through October 19.

Tickets to Veldhospitaal are R500 per day. You can buy them at the link above.

Can’t make it? Far from Stellenbosch? We’ll soon be announcing a Zoom watch-along premiere.

Hanna’s short first book of essays, Bedsores and Bliss, has been very well received. Unfortunately it has been a bit difficult to distribute outside the US. The eBook helped. And now, at last…

The audiobook edition of Bedsores and Bliss is now available. We love this production—beautifully performed by famed South African actor Erica Wessels, with theme music some of you will recognize: “Most Beautiful Sky,” written by Jennifer Levenhagen, arranged by Annie Zylstra, and performed by Lisa Littlebird.

Curious what it’s like? Here is an excerpt from the audiobook.

Folks who’ve seen Hanna’s art have been asking how they can get prints. Also, Hanna’s writing contains many memorable short passages, suitable for clipping out and holding onto. So these seemed like a natural: folding cards, blank inside, with a painting from Hanna on the front and words from Hanna on the back. Fifteen gorgeous “greeting cards.”

Well, they look like greeting cards. But they don’t say “happy birthday” or “get well.” They carry invitations, blessings, provocations, fresh ways of seeing ourselves and the world. The art is great. The words make everything deeper, or higher or wider, or all three.

Some examples

How to order?
You can order Hanna’s cards and books online: okaythen.net/shop, or click the button below. If you click on any card, you’ll see there’s a way to see both the art and the writing on the back in more details.

For folks outside the US, I am sorry that shipping costs are so ridiculously high. I can’t find a better way to get books and cards to you, but I promise I’ll keep looking.

One more thing. The shop is brand new. Please let me know about quirks and difficulties.

Throughout her involvement with Careforce, Maranie Staab has been documenting life at The Oasis (Hanna’s house) and beyond. She makes photographs, and pairs them with Hanna’s words so that each amplifies the other.

• You can see Maranie’s Careforce captures on her Instagram feed, or on Facebook. And she has a newsletter, and we repost on Hanna’s Facebook page as well. (Though I’ve had a hard time integrating Instagram into the Okay Then site–working on it!–this will always be the go-to place for things Hanna.)

• This work will be featured in the inaugural issue of Working Assumptions Magazine this Fall. A fitting place for it—Working Assumptions describes itself as “a publisher of visual stories that provide insight into the labor and complexities of the give-and-take of family and caregiving in America.”

• The work is on the wall at a gallery here in Pittsburgh. Maranie combined Hanna’s words with her photographs, as one of the four artists featured in Tender Tuirse, an exhibition of four artists’ work all related to the theme of Care. It’s at the Community College of Allegheny County, in partnership with their Nursing Program.

Want to see the exhibition? Here, I’ll give you a tour….

Words are the life of our love

So there we are, fellow sailors on these seas. Creating, together, “in the furnace of this world.” What else?

This week I had lovely correspondence with James Heaney, one of Hanna’s Irish writing mentors. The drift of the conversation led me to bring up the poet Gregory Orr. He’s still on my mind, so I’ll bring him up to you now.

Orr writes into this notion that there is a thing called “The Book,” which is a giant invisible anthology that contains all the songs and poems ever written. He says, “They’re there to sustain us. Their purpose is to praise The Beloved and resurrect The Beloved.” And in “Beloved” he has another hard-working abstraction—a placeholder for all the people, all the beings and places with which we have a loving relationship. “This is my religion,” he says. “We live in this mystery of love and death and being a body in time. And we live in the mystery of language and what it can do.” Some of his poems are invitations, exhortations for us to add to the book.

I often think of Orr when I think of Hanna in her wheelchair, unable to move, dependent on others, using an inefficient interface to a machine that tracks her gaze, all so she can add to “The Book That Is The Body of The Beloved.” And I am visited again by gratitude and inspiration.

Here is one of Orr’s invitations to add to The Book.

This is what was bequeathed us:
This earth the beloved left
And, leaving,
Left to us.
No other world
But this one:
Willows and the river
And the factory
With its black smokestacks.

No other shore, only this bank
On which the living gather.
No meaning but what we find here.
No purpose but what we make.

That, and the beloved’s clear instructions:
Turn me into song; sing me awake.

. . . . .
Peace, peace.
Marc

This update comes in two parts. This first is our response to the question, “How would you describe Hanna’s current season—physically, her mood, her spirit, her days?