Appreciating Cate

Cate On Stage With Sister Starla

I imagine that almost everyone on the Peninsula recognizes the name ‘Cate Gable’ – for sure you do if you read the Chinook Observer.  Perhaps you have even been featured in her weekly column, “Coast Chronicles”.  Or one of your friends has.  Or, perhaps, she has written about a situation or event near and dear to your heart. Or… the opposite.

Sometimes, in a sort-of role reversal, I get to be the one who puts something in the paper about her.  Like this morning.  I just submitted a very short article about the upcoming Oysterville Schoolhouse Lecture Series – an announcement, really about Cate teaming up with Mary Garvey in a sort of reprisal of their last year’s presentation as singers of stories.

Cate’s Column

That event will occur on February 15th and it was as I was putting my thoughts together that I came face-to-face with the fact that Cate, once again, is putting herself in the background. When I asked her, for instance, what their program would look like, she said:

“We’ll sing, we’ll talk about the process of writing songs and, we’ll talk about our location and how this very place informs and inspires songwriting.  Also, I intend to talk about Mary as a contemporary Marine Shanty songwriter.  The fact that she is writing songs about current history is remarkable and unusual.  Many have been recorded and are being sung by others.  I have no doubt that they will continue to be sung long after we are dead in the tradition of folksongs everywhere.”

Is it just that she’s so used to putting others in the spotlight through her column that it’s automatically the way she thinks of things?  Take her poetry, for instance.  Even though she has been writing poetry for decades and has recently received her MFA in Creative Writing – magna cum laude! – from Pacific Lutheran she has arranged for several local poetry events featuring others with herself only tucked in around the edges.

New Graduate, 2016

And her teaching career –  years working in classrooms from Hawaii to mainland Indian reservations.  Or her own musical background and a lifetime of singing and composing.  Her talents and contributions go on and on but she seems to be fully committed to the hide-your-light-under-a-bushel way of life.  That and making all the rest of us look good!

Thanks, Cate!

One Response to “Appreciating Cate”

  1. Cate Gable says:

    Sydney: how truly lovely! Bisous, CG

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