Katie Swanberg got Well!
After a 6-mile hike on Saturday and a full day of gardening and cooking on Sunday, my best effort resulted in this scary photo of me with a month-old beard. The beard was symbolic support for Katie Swanberg who spent a month in intensive care before returning to Twitter on April 4th.
Just over a month ago, I wrote about Katie Swanberg, a fellow-gardener and blogger who had suddenly “gone off the grid” when she came down with a life-threatening illness. The post was a significant departure from the food-growing-and-preserving focus of this blog, and, thankfully, it has led to this second significant departure. I’m very happy to report that Katie has made it through!
In my original post, I committed to symbolically supporting Katie by suspending my relationship with shaving gear: I vowed not to shave until Katie was once again tweeting (on Twitter). Low and behold, on Easter Sunday Katie tweeted, and the beard came off. No, of course it wasn’t that easy. I actually had to shave it off.
Just before I shaved last night, I sat for a self-portrait. Sadly, the best I could do after a day of sweaty gardening is kind of scary… but there it is to show what havoc Katie’s four-and-a-half-week absence wrought. The camera became finicky and wouldn’t take an “after” photo in artificial light, so the beardless look comes to you from this morning’s visit to my home kitchen garden.
I’m sure I’ll enjoy gardening much more without the beard. Thank goodness Katie returned to Twitter before the really hot weather set in.
I’m so glad that Katie is well on the way to recovery. Oddly, my wife seems nearly as happy about it as I am.