I found a poem from years ago when Susan was having her heart surgery and we were all asked to send poems.  There were some beautiful ones.  This is the one that I sent.    

Where Does the Singing Start?

Lorna Crozier...

Where does that singing start,

you know,

that thin sound - almost pure light?

Not the birds at false dawn or their song

when morning comes, feathered throats

warm with meaning.

A different kind of music.

Listen, it is somewhere near you.

In the heart, emptied of fear,

stubbornly in love

with itself at last, the old

desires a ruined chorus,

a radiant, bloody choir.

Where does the singing start?

Here, where you are, there’s room

between your heartbeats,

as if everything you have ever been

begins, inside, to sing

I met Susan at a memorial service when Dr.Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated.. spring of 1968.

It was down the street from me on Cambridge Terrace at someone's house - a woman named Eve. Susan and I talked and I was looking for a roommate since my other 2 roommates were moving out.

So Susan, David and Landis moved in - with someone named Roger.. I learned how to play chess with Roger. I think that Landis was about 5 and David 8.. I was in grad school at the time so I had a lot of free time.

Susan on the other hand was really busy. She had a full time job at Harvard GSD and 2 children and made meals etc. etc.

And she drove a VW bus and we were the "weirdos" on the block. It was kind of Irish working class when we moved in.

Not any longer unfortunately.

She wore these tiny denim skirts and was able to put a meal together in an amazingly short amount of time.

There were other men of course. For both of us. I don't know what happened to Roger.

She also had a cat who peed in my shoes in my closet. Oh his name was Dartanian.. And a German Shepherd named Shotsy who liked to chase people and bite the back pockets off their jeans.. Sadly she had to give him away since the dog was a problem and the mailman wouldn't deliver mail as long as Shotsy was outside... to anyone on the block.

At the time I got Chinook - who was just about 5 weeks old. He liked the houseful of animals. Even when I moved away, Chinook always made his way back to Cambridge Terrace and Susan would call me and say "guess who's here?"

I lived in the back of the house but I don't remember much of it. There was an upstairs in the back as well. Maybe Landis and David lived upstairs? And someone lived in a room off of the kitchen.. Maybe David?

There was always butter on the counter.. and coffee.

And BlueGrass music and Toni Lee.

At some point I moved to Chauncy St with a few friends and I think that Susan moved to Rockport. I guess it was at that point that her father died and she inherited the house on Pigeon Hill.

We spent many happy weekends up there. Annie and her friends loved coming up. Annie especially loved it because she didn't have to clean up at Susan's house the way she did in my house.

I bought a used trailer and kept it in the back of the house. It was like the guest room.. Annie and her friends stayed there and I guess anyone else who needed a place.

The kids (mostly Lucas and Annie) and Susan and I loved going swimming in the quarry. We would go after the lifeguard left.

Susan planted all these little trees that got big. She also had this great rock flower garden leading up to the house..

Every July 4th she had a special party - soiree - and people performed or recited a poem or contributed in some manner.

We set up tents and some people slept in the house.

And of course she had the kiln, and people made pots and there was a firing. I still have some of the things that she made and also my kids made some cute things that she fired for them.

She always had dogs - big overweight Golden Retrievers. There was a big kennel out behind the house.

And of course Cloud? a shy dog who thrived with her.

There was always music playing in Cambridge and in Rockport. and she always had crushes on people - musicians. I went to some performances to see those musicians - Jesse Colin Young and Tony Bird were two of them.

We were going to go to Woodstock but decided not to go and then when we read about it we were really bummed out.

She was a news junky -- always had the radio on with news. As a matter of fact when she was at Nemasket the first time she complained that they wouldn't put the news on - but Hallmark music.

When I moved to the Lower East Side, she and David loaded up the van and they drove me to the city. It was snowing and terrible out but she was a good driver and we made it in one piece. In the morning we unloaded and Susan and David drove back to Cambridge.

We both finally grew up - stopped with the crushes and she worked at helping people mostly women who were starting over.

And of course her editor jobs.

She had no sense of money and would spend whatever she had. And we went to Gloucester Stage together.

Sometimes she would come into town with a friend to go to a Sox game and park in my driveway.. and walk across the river.

In the last few years after her first stroke she was forgetful. She told me that she hadn't renewed her drivers license.. and lost her glasses. But she didn't want her "kids" to know since she was driving.. and they would be mad at her.

She was a rebel.. always through and through.

I will miss her terribly.

love

Joyce