In a now defunct coffee shop on the outskirts of Greenwood, Indiana, Scott Hensley (a brilliant song writer, farmer, human being) and I had just wrapped an evening of guitar accompanied storytelling. We were socializing with the guests who had come out to listen to us warble in a strip mall cafe while knocking back espresso drinks and fruit smoothies.
I was introduced to an acquaintance of Mr. Hensley: a young woman with a fiery head of hair. She was distant, preoccupied, uninterested in conversation. Because I always assume everything is about me, I drew the conclusion that she found my songwriting hackneyed and had neither the time nor the patience for exchanging idle pleasantries with the likes of me.
Though we parted that night with very few words shared between us, I would soon discover that she was anything but distant or uninterested in conversation. Years later, my dear friend Katie and I would laugh about that night we first met.
Katie and her camera documented the stories of people living, hoping, and surviving in Thailand, Uganda, Swaziland, Nicaragua, Haiti, Malaysia, just to name a fraction. She had just returned from one of her many international adventures and was experiencing a kind of culture shock after returning stateside to the excesses of American life.
That night in the strip mall coffee shop I had performed a song I’d written as an indictment against the injustice being perpetuated in the pursuit of an “American dream”. I wrote the song as a step in processing my own complicity and the privilege that allowed me to look the other way. Katie later informed me that the lyrics did a real number on her already volatile emotional state and rendered her unable to engage with people for the rest of the evening.
I received this as the highest of praise.
A week or so after the coffee shop, she reached out to me through *cough cough* Myspace.
That was a thing… Myspace.
I wonder how Tom is doing these days?
As I was saying, Katie reached out with an invitation to contribute some hand drawn artwork to the documentary film her friend was producing to expose the exploitation of children that was happening in Thailand.
This would be the first of many collaborations I would have the joy of sharing with Katie over the next several years.
There is so much I could say about Katie, but it quite frankly wouldn’t do her justice. She was a force of nature. She was a magnet who drew people to herself and to one another. She made you feel like you had something to offer the world that no one else had. She made you want to be better, and made you believe that you could be.
I miss my friend.
In 2014, while pursuing a Master of Arts degree in Conflict Analysis and Peace Studies in San Diego, Katie was diagnosed with stage IV cancer. She returned to Indiana to seek treatment and to be with her family. She spent the next few years living, surviving, exploring, loving, documenting, creating, making peace with her own mortality, teaching us all. On April 17, 2018, she left us.
After she passed, one of Katie’s closest friends shared with her inner circle one of her last journal entries. The words of encouragement Katie left her family and friends were, “dig for gold in others. It's in there. One must be patient. One must listen. One must love. Love. Love. Love is the only damn thing that matters on this planet.” I joined Katie’s words with my own memories and wrote this song for friend and hero, Katie Basbagill…
Bohemian Red
I met you in a maelstrom of reverse culture shock Setting free the very strings I'd wrapped around a wooden box Might I have said too much for your words to be so few? Some thirty hundred days later holding my hand You were falling in love with the songs of another man’s Handicapped piano in the company of friends Now you’re gone, but you left us this refrain Love is the only thing, Love is the only thing Love is the only damn thing that matters The good ole boys banjo-picking stars in their eyes While they hammer out the same seven songs seventy times You were gliding over snow white walls in a sled Of crayons in the shade of orange & bohemian red Oh how sweet the sound, what a magical mess Like a burning bright beacon in the dead of the darkest Night by moonlight of blue I could hear you cry, Let’s get busy living, cause you know we’re all gonna die Love is the only thing, Love is the only thing Love is the only damn thing that matters Roll up them sleeves, get yourself a shovel Don’t be surprised when you discover No, don't be surprised to find that you’ve struck gold Don’t be surprised when you strike gold in one another A bottle’s worth of bourbon in a chalice of sand Holding one another’s beating hearts in our unsteady hands Our patron saint of badass over us prays Beloved, do not be afraid Love is the only thing, Love is the only thing Love is the only damn thing that matters
A year after Katie passed, I happened to open the iMessage app on my MacBook (an app I never used, by the way) and noticed she had sent me the following messages two years earlier…
It kind of devastated me that I hadn’t seen the messages she’d sent me, that I didn’t get the opportunity to draw Katie’s portrait for her to enjoy. I returned my love and set forth to create that portrait she requested - our final collaboration. I tried several passes, but this quick ink drawing is the one I cherish the most. I hope she would have loved it. I know she would have, because that’s what she did.
xoxo JDR
What a great article. The song and portrait are such a wonderful tribute to her. I'm honored to have met her.