Month: February 2010

Where the cows are curious, and love to be photographed, and always come over to say hello.

I am appreciative of cows. I’d love to have a couple on the farm if I stay here.

People write to me sometimes and say the blog is important to them, that it is something they turn on in the morning, before they get started, or in the evening after work. This is humbling to me, and puzzling, too, as I don’t know why my life would have that impact. The blog is an important part of my writing now, and it has, in some ways, been part of my community for several years. It is grounding.

I appreciate that it means much to a lot of people, and feel obliged to say that that means something very important to me. At dark times, I found myself going to the blog.  And in good times, too. It is sometimes a great trial to share parts of one’s life, but I don’t regret it. I think it saved me in many ways, helped me when the mask came off, was grounding and healing. And forced me to be  honest and acknowledge the reality of my life, which I had kept hidden for so many years, and denied.

I can’t say I understand it, but when I head out every year on book tour I see evidence of it, everywhere I go, and in the flesh. Our world is magical and mysterious, and it is changing.

This is a new kind of community. In discussions about animals, I often find myself thinking that there is no substitute for meaningful human connection and community. And there isn’t. But there are powerful new kinds of community, and like animals sometimes can do, they can shape and define our lives. I sometimes tremble at the thought this might inspire someone. Maybe I will make sense of it one day. In the meantime, I appreciate it.

February 28, 2010- Had a nasty  round of the night terrors. Woke up, read, drank tea, meditated, talked to Maria.

Maria and I went to Glens Falls to take down her quilt show “Cut It Up,” hanging in the Crandall Public Library. We drove around Glens Falls, had lunch, talked about our lives. It turned out to be a beautiful day, and Spring is near. We fell in love with a house, before discovering it costs $450,000. But it was nice to talk about the future.

If the farm sells, it will be in the Spring. If not, another year or two here I think.

I am ready to stay. I am ready to move on. For me, change is rebirth, a la Campbell and Hero’s Journey. It is fuel for my creativity. The dogs and I are ready for other adventures, but different ones. A different kind of change.

Less intense, dramatic, lonely, expensive and circus-like. More creative, hopefully. A shared experience, not a solitary epic. People write to me warning me not to leave the farm – my creativity is here, they say. But I think not. Creativity goes with you, and comes from within, not from a farm or from animals. I have more stories in me, and they want to come out. A sequel. A children’s book. My life.

Two years ago, I nearly cracked up, and it was close. That changes one’s perspective. I have come far, and have a ways to go. I’ve found love, and renewed energy, health and creativity. I am more focused, creatively, on my work, and on dogs – mine and others – and the impact they have on our lives, and that is good. I have a keener sense of time. More empathy, I think. I feel that I am becoming more honest and genuine, or trying. That juddgement is not up to me.

I understand better how my mind works, how damaged it was, how painstaking the repair work can be. There are no shortcuts, magic pills, super mantras. You have to get in there and get dirty, day after day. You fall down, you get up. You get scared, you get strong. You learn from all of it.

So like everyone else, Spring is an expectant time for me. A friend told me she didn’t know many people who were happy, and doubted there were many. I said I didn’t believe that. I know quite a few. They just don’t make the news.

February 28, 2010 – Today was a surprise, a sunny day. Maria and I went to Glens Falls to take down her quilting exhibit, “Cut It Up.” We walked around Glens Falls. We came back and walked on the path. Lenore ate some meat from a dead deer. Crate for her tonight.

The sense of Spring is everywhere. I don’t know if the farm will sell or not, but I suspect that if it does, it will be in the Spring. If not, I will have another lovely year or two here.

I do think I am ready for something different. I think the positive side of my craziness has been the willingness to give rebirth to life – the Hero’s Journey – in ways that stimulate my creativity. I love the farm, and it is a wonderful place to work. But change is fuel for me, and the dogs and I have some more adventures in us. I think Maria feels the same way.

I had an awful and unexpected bout with fear in the middle of the night – the night terrors, the shrinks called them. I meditated, visualized, gritted my teeth. Read, went for walks, had tea. Walking with Maria and the dogs helped settle me, as it always does. Need to work hard, be strong.

This week, I hope to start the next round on my short story book. Then I have to start thinking about the sequel to Rose In A Storm. Or perhaps another children’s book. I want to write a book about dogs and their dreams.

Tonight, quiet time. More reading about China. Posting of photos to the blog. Appreciation for the good things in my life.

I’ve always been interested in work, and astonished at the systematic degradation of work by corporate America in my lifetime. My first book, a novel called “Sign Off” was inspired by the destruction of CBS News after one of the first big media takeovers that ended up demolishing the mainstream news media and replacing it with a nightmarish hodge podge of hate radio, information blogs and cable scream-a-thons. I am not one for romanticizing the old days, but the country suffers from having little credible media left.

The media is only one small part of the corporate takeover phenomena which replaced individuals who (sometimes) cared about the companies they ran and the employees they hired with boards of directors answerable to stockholders who cared only about profits. This happened across the spectrum of American work, from publishing to medicine to airlines to law firms and manufacturing – well, you know the story. Soon there will be one giant Wal-Mart running from coast to coast and we will all be working part time and wearing those blue vests and telling ourselves that life is good because we are saving more. We will all have come from someplace and be heading someplace else.

Work has been degraded. The notion of a secure job has just about vanished. People, loyalty and security are no longer considered nearly as important as maximum profits.

Joshua Ferris has captured some of this brilliantly in his novel “When We Came To The End,” now out in paperback (I also loved his new book “The Unnamed.”). He is turning out to be on of those astute chroniclers of the times. “When We Came to The End” is a poignant, heartbreaking, bitter and even chilling account of a a Chicago ad agency which goes from being a good place to work to a place obsessed with layoffs, fear, gossip and the grinding down of spirits. The employees, creative, neurotic kids are initially enthralled at the prospect of being creative. Then the layoffs start and being creative is something you fake to pad your time sheet.

It is difficult to find people who love their work, or who feel they are treated well. Our economic system seems to have accepted the idea that worker are unimportant and disposable. That good jobs can be poured so easily out of the country, and so many Americans live in perpetual fear and uncertainty about their work and income. It astounds me that this is not a political issue until you see where political contributions come from, and then it isn’t so much of a mystery.

Ferris captures this transition with great dialogue, distinctive characters and an ingenious narrative that zips back and forth and paints a portrait not only of one place, but of our place. The loss of good work is, from my remote perspective on this farm, a national tragedy. And an outrageous one. I think the politician who gets this will do well. He can’t do much better than read Ferris’s book. The new book “Unnamed” is just as powerful, although in a different way. Ferris understands relationships and connections and the trauma of losing either.

It isn’t often I come across a writer who I am sure will be a major force in books in the years ahead, and I betcha Joshua Ferris will be. His stories mirror our time a lot better than any media or most writers I know.

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P.S. I am now reading “Country Driving: A Journey Through China from farm to factory,” by Peter Hessler, and “Summertime,” novel by Nobel Laureate J.M. Coetzee.