Edmonds

back in Edmonds

~ katiecoolady ~ 5 Comments
took this the day after the smoke cleared–I couldn’t even see the Sound for two days prior

Hello!

I’ve returned to my happy place, Edmonds, WA to finally finish this book.

I had a bit of a rocky re-entry though. I was quite sick the week before leaving, got a positive Covid test, got better quickly and made the cut for traveling post-Covid symptoms, so I was able to travel on this long awaited and planned trip. Also, my brother went off his meds again, and was admitted to the hospital the week before I left, so I had a lot of involvement with that and setting up a likely discharge plan for while I’m gone. Never a dull moment.

I landed in Seattle during an air quality issue, rendering it “the worst air quality in the world” (!). This kicked up my lungs again, landing me in an Urgent Care center for more albuterol for my nebulizer my husband wisely forced encouraged me to pack.

I started to hunker down and start my reading/writing process, only to come down with my first, aggressive, full-body case of the hives three days after arriving. Concerned this might be a reaction to my three-times-a-day albuterol treatments, I landed back in the Urgent care who also couldn’t figure out this new twist. It was kind of scary honestly, as it came on quickly in the evening, and Dr. Google kept talking about anaphylaxis, which just the mere mention of it caused my throat to constrict (ugh–I’m so suggestible). After a dose of Benadryl, I succeeded in knocking it back and knocking myself out and having a day-long hangover the next day, rendering it impossible for me to think clearly, much less read or write.

So I caught up with my obsession curiosity with the NXIVM case, watching and rewatching some episodes about it. As coercive control is an element of my book, this kind of thing is something I study. It’s fascinating and terrifying to realize how vulnerable very smart people can be to this kind of manipulation. Just as Cindy was. It’s not about intellect, usually. It’s about vulnerability. It’s still mind boggling, to me, how long these strings of influence can have over a person, and how damaging they are.

It’s a beautiful cloudy and cool day here in Edmonds, and I have a dinner date tonight with my cousin, so I’m making good use of my brain and this time to read everything I’ve written so far on this book and taking notes.

During my first days, I read Ruth Markel’s true crime memoir about her son Dan’s murder which was very good/heartbreaking/sad/inspiring. It was a perfect way to set my trajectory to getting back in to my writing. I realized I was missing some tonal aspects, and frankly, was just good to feel the solidarity with someone who is ensconced in the same web of murder survivorship and the legal process. I’ve been following that case closely, watching the dominos fall toward justice.

I’ll likely start writing some more tomorrow and share some snippets.

Oh, also they are doing another show on Cindy’s case, which will be airing on Investigation Discovery sometime this Fall or early Winter. I’ve been very involved in that, being interviewed for it, providing lots of video and photos and other material, so that’s been a project. I’ll definitely post when I have more information about when it’s being aired.

Here is one photo I found that I shared with them–not sure it will make the cut for the show, but it was taken on our last family trip to Maine the year she was killed.

That’s it for now. Stay tuned. And, as always, thanks for being there all this time and caring.

I’m back!

~ katiecoolady ~ 5 Comments

image

Good Lord! It’s been over a year since I’ve posted here. <<spanking myself>>

I have posted a bit over on the other blog Two Innocents.

In case you missed it, Cindy’s case was featured on Investigation Discovery’s new show True Conviction. John and I were flown back to AZ (from PA where I mostly live now, or at least trying to) for the taping. It was quite an experience — not only the being picked up by a fancy car service, etc. part– but mostly it was the unexpected healing that came with it. I was so glad they allowed John to come with me, as I really needed him on so many levels. We hit the ground running, and rushed up to Sedona to retrieve photos and documents for them, before being interviewed the next day.

If you have a provider that has ID, you can watch the show via this link.

dViHCwN

There were also some videos of it available online, if you want to search “True Conviction Deception in the Desert”, you might find one.

The producers wanted all kinds of photos and documents and anything else that I had, which required me to dig through all of that stuff, when all I’ve been looking at for the last 3 years, have been police reports and trial records. Believe it or not, those things were emotionally easier for me to view than the photos, letters and a cassette tape I uncovered that Cindy and I passed between us, before the days of cell phones and internet, when she lived in Minnesota. Sigh…

image

 

I had that tape copied to CD, so I can listen more easily. Chitchat between us, talking about boys we were dating, how much we missed each other, etc. Just hearing her voice again…well, you can imagine. All of the feelings.

img_1383

The act of being sort of forced to excavate those things, also forced me past some of my blocks in remembering good times with Cindy. That’s always been the hardest part. I know that sounds macabre in a way, but the deepest pain, for me, has always been remembering the great memories. It just led me down a dark rabbit hole to remember what I’ve lost–never to be again. It has been very, very hard for me and kind of a secret I’ve held. When people say things like “at least you have so many fond memories”, it’s like a dagger in my solar plexus.

Confronting that, through participating in that show, helped clear some of those brick walls of resistance out for me and connected me back to Cindy in a positive way. Yes, it has taken nearly three decades. Grieving has no timeline.

photo(45)

 

It was also really wonderful to reconnect with our amazing prosecutor Cathy Hughes and some of the detectives involved, who never knew what became of me. It was so great to see them from a place of happiness in my life. There were so many tears and hugs all around. The producers and host Anna Sigga Niccolazzi treated us all (including Cindy) with such tenderness and respect. It was overall a very positive experience and I’m glad her story got to be told in this way.

I had some revelations, that perhaps I will write about later once I’ve let them gel inside me a little more. They will certainly land in the book somehow.

 

image

 

Speaking of the book, once I was contacted out of the clear blue about this show, I realized it was a sign that I needed to finish the book. There is attention now around Cindy’s case and I need to finish telling it.

Also, around the same time, my dear friends in Edmonds asked if I would house-sit again for them. What an opportunity! You may (or may not) recall, that I have taken two fairly lengthy sabbaticals and have done about 99% of my writing there. I’ve rented their wonderful studio, overlooking the Puget Sound and read, literally, every document I have related to the case–from police interviews to testimony from both trials–and written about 2/3 of the book. I’m at the “Book Proposal” stage now, and over half way through crafting that lengthy document.

 

image

 

So, in about two weeks, John and I will be flying to Seattle together, where he will stay with me in their gorgeous three story house (I call it a mansion because it is to me). He will leave after 5 days, then I will hunker down and finish the proposal, send it out (I have two agents interested in me, maybe more now because of the show) and see what happens. It’s time.

 

img_8087

I can’t wait to get to my creative haven again. I’m also glad to have that opportunity, because I also realized that it’s not easy to think about bringing the book in to my peaceful, spa-like home here in Pennsylvania. Did I mention we recently got a hot tub? Heaven soaking out in the snow-filled cold air. I’m really loving this life that I never expected to fall in to in mid-life. It is really, really wonderful and I am so grateful.

 

 

Well, these are my updates for now. Stay tuned. Very shortly I’ll be posting more snippets and book stuff. I’d really like to get this thing completed this year.

Thank you, as always, for coming along for the ride!

 

img_7993

back in Edmonds

~ katiecoolady ~ 4 Comments

image

Greetings from gorgeous Edmonds, WA where I am again for the fantastic Write On the Sound annual conference which was my entree to this beautiful part of the country that invited me back earlier this year to write 30 chapters of this book.

image

30 chapters which I , due to my own naivete and stupidity, nearly lost. I had a mini meltdown when the first day we got here (yes I brought my darling husband this time) I realized I’d forgotten my password for the online site LitLift I’d used to write my book on, without backup (yes, I said stupid). Well, apparently LitLift exists out there with no one at the wheel. The password reset email they generated sent me to an error message and no one ever replied to my emails on their contact form–scary! I sat and sat and finally made a jab at a password that *might* have worked and voila I was in! Whew! My husband stuck his flash drive so fast in to my travel laptop and we got all of my words out of that site as fast as we could. Talk about dodging a bullet!

image

Oh and Litlift finally did get back to me–via another “undeliverable email” message. It’s kind of unconscionable to me that no one has deleted that site or their Facebook/Twitter pages or made a notice that it’s defunct. NO ONE is minding the store, obviously. And people are signing up, trusting them. Ugh! I’m just glad I got my words.

image

In celebration, I will share some that I just opened to randomly and read to my husband the day I found them. Hope you like them too:

Cindy and I became famous for our spontaneous road trips.  We would look at each other and almost simultaneously say “let’s go”.  We would jump in the car and head to another city to visit a friend in college or in some cases make more dramatic adventures like that one time to Rocky Point Mexico on an impulsive Spring break weekend. 
This trip was where I had the one and only foreshadowing of what was to come several years later.  It was the trip where Cindy went missing and scared the living shit out of me.
“Come on, we’re going to Rocky Point” she called excitedly that day.  “We’ll throw some stuff in the car, grab our sleeping bags, I have some food and we’ll play it by ear”.
As was often the case, this wasn’t a question or even an invitation.  It was a mandate–we’re going.  This was how things often went between us.  Maybe I was having a rough moment, stressed in college, going through a break up or she was just having an itch.  All I knew was she was driving and we were going.  She streamlined it to what I had to bring, told me what time she was picking me up and that was that.
I loved our road trips.  We had so much fun in the car.  We’d make mixed tapes for them and catch up.  Often it would start with “let’s obsess” once we hit the highway.
We were often going through something and with each other, could hash and rehash it to our heart’s content.  It was almost always about boys–a world we were collectively befuddled in and failing at usually.
“Why is it that I’m not so in to a guy, then as soon as I have sex with him, I’m suddenly caramelizing for him and he’s not in to me?”.
Cindy created nicknames for everything and everyone.
Caramels somehow became a derivative of the word “karma” which was used, inaccurately, for being attracted to someone.  “We have the karma” she’d say.
Then it turned to “I have caramels for him” which later became a verb “we were caramelizing, heavily” and on and on.
There was one road trip to LA where Cindy produced a tape recorder she’d borrowed from her work at the school system office.  She’d brought it home for a project then got a wild hair to bring it on our road trip to visit Buddha in Santa Monica. 
“I have a great idea for our trip” she said with a twinkle in her eye.  “We’re going to interview each other”.
She named this interview show, via cassette tape, “The Dan Rather Show”.
For some reason, she spoke this name in in a semi British pretentious accent so it came out “The Dahn Rahthah Show”.
“Welcome to the Dahn Rahthah Show.  Today’s guest will be….Oprah Winfrey!” and then she would interview me, using that five inch microphone tethered to the bulky cassette player while insisting I stay in character as Oprah Winfrey the whole time. Until she decided she was bored with Oprah and needed a new guest.
“Well, thank you for joining us Oprah.  Now on to our next guest on the topic of ‘fame in America’ we welcome…Madonna!” and on and on with her in character questions. 
She would stop the tape from time to time to listen to ourselves back as we laughed hysterically all the way across the boring desert to LA.  Everything was a game with her.
Oh how I miss that.  And how I wish I had those tapes. Even one of them.

image

I came here to this Conference the first time three years ago by myself. I’d never been to Seattle and it was such a magical trip, it took me five blog posts over on Two Innocents to write about it. I still feel the magic here but this time it gets doubled with my husband.  We’ve slept well and dreamed here, written, shared, eaten great food, drunk wine he carried from PA, stared and stared at the gorgeous Puget Sound. And he’s teaching me chess. I lose every single time but last night gave him a run for his money holding him off my King for over an hour. VICTORY!

image image victory

Today we take a train–the Amtrak Empire Builder–in to Seattle just for the experience of riding the train. We’ll bring our travel chess set and drink coffee and see a movie at the famous Cinerama theatre and then ride back. Not a bad Monday at all.

image image

Hope you all out there are enjoying your Fall. I’m energized again to finish the book and I have a plan for another Sabbatical this Fall–in another part of the country. I’m ready to take this story to the next level.

Stay tuned…