5 January

Dogs on the path

by Jon Katz
Dogs and books

I’ve written about each of my dogs, Rose the most, then Izzy and Lenore. Now Frieda gets her own book, and a children’s book as well. The process of training and acclimating her has been difficult, perhaps the most challenging thing I have done with dogs. Frieda has a wild history, and was not open to much instruction, either by experience or temperament. All of my dogs have come, directly or indirectly, from good breeders, and are open to working with people, calm and appropriate around other creatures.

Frieda is something else, and I am excited about tracking down her past. I have some good clues, and I love the way she is adapting and acclimating to life with Maria and me. I used to call her “The Dog Who Kept Men Away.” We altered that a bit. At the shelter, they told me she never played. Now she plays all the time.

5 January

Winter Pasture: Lonely Cornstalks

by Jon Katz
The cornstalks

I saw these proud and lonely cornstalks on a country road near Hebron this afternoon. The only way to get this shot is to go out and lie down next to the pasture, and so I did, leaving the truck running to be warm with Kanye West blaring obscenities about sex and race in America. I was lying with my head and shoulders in the pasture and my butt and legs out in the road, and I didn’t hear the pickup pull over until it was right behind me.

I turned and looked up and saw the farmer and I guess his son stare me, trying to take in the sight of me lying in the road, the idea that I was photographing frozen cornstalks, my big 400 mm lens,  and the racial epithets emanating from my truck. West not a soft-spoken writer.

“Hey,” the farmer yelled at me, over the music. “You okay?”

“Yessir,” I said, “I am just photographing this beautiful cornfield.”

“You’re the writer guy aren’t you?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said, “that’s me.”

“Well, hey,” he said, smiling. “Maybe you want to think about getting out of the road.”

“I will,” I said, “and thank you for stopping.”

And he drove off.

5 January

The death of drama

by Jon Katz
Big Green Farms, Salem, N.Y.

Big Green Farm, Salem, N.Y.

My own experience with fear began many years ago, but came to a head when I broke down a few years, an experience I partially shared on the blog. Since then, I have gone many miles and to many people and to a lot of different places  in my search to understand fear and move beyond it – therapy, medical doctors,  analysts, pills, music, friends and family,  meditation, massage, Quaker Meeting, Presbyterian Church, Zen Centers, poetry, acupuncture, spiritual counseling. I am getting somewhere. I am going to see myself. It’s inexpensive and effective.

I always try to share what is useful, while keeping the most personal parts to myself.

Through spiritual counseling, I have come to understand how my mind works. How it evolved into a fear-scanning and anxiety machine which sometimes served me well, sometimes not. I have lived in lament and drama. No more drama. No squawking about snow, whining about bills or the state of publishing, living out of fear and anger to the normal exigencies of life. When you stop telling that story out loud, the mind calms down. That is what is happening to me. It works. It isn’t that I won’t squawk or complaint sometimes, of course I will. But it is no longer the story of my life. My insurance company denied a dental claim, and I didn’t tell Maria how unfair that was, I just paid the bill. This has helped me slow down, sleep and open myself up to the joy, love and creativity that are the true and important stories in my life. When I call Customer Service, and get off the phone, I do not grumble about going to Asia.

Drama is uncomfortable for me, now, and when I hear it, I wince, whether it is coming out of my mouth or somebody else’s. I think drama and complaint have become the national ethos. People do not expect to pay taxes or bills, or to have life work in any way but the most inexpensive, self-serving and undemanding. I don’t want to do it anymore. I don’t watch the news much so I don’t have to bitch about the news much. Stuff I need to know finds me. When this drama isn’t coming out of my mouth, it is also beginning to flee my mind, looking for a more receptive home. It feels joyous and wonderful. I can’t really even describe it.

5 January

Energy. Walking with dogs

by Jon Katz
Energy. Walking with dogs

If there’s anything I love more than walking and taking pictures, it’s walking with dogs and taking pictures. Frieda is pretty reliable off leash now, and these four are a pleasure to walk with. They check out every sight, sound and smell. They stay close. They love the camera. Walks with dogs are healing, loving, refreshing of the human spirit, which can grow weary of the short-sighted and difficult ways of humans. Being with these creatures somehow makes me better.

5 January

Frieda, a/k/a “ACC”

by Jon Katz
"ACC" a/k/a Frieda

I am so happy to be back working on a book. I just finished the grieving book a few weeks ago, but I don’t feel alive if I am not working on a book, and I have plunged into the Frieda story with a vengeance. I’ve talked to the nice people at the Queensbury ASPCA shelter in the Adirondacks where she was brought and lived for eight months until Maria adopted her. They remember her well there, they called her “ACC” because she was captured on the grounds of the Adirondack Community Community where she ran wild for some time, possibly as long as a year.

I’ve also heard from a woman in South Glens Falls who says she recognized Frieda from the blog and has an amazing story to tell about her – she says thinks it may have been the dog her husband abandoned out in the woods shortly before he died. She has some other powerful stories about Frieda – pretty powerful stuff – but I want to know more before I discuss or describe them. I’m going to the shelter next week to hear the stories about Frieda, hopefully to track down the animal control officer who finally got her into the shelter, and begin retracing her life. This is a love story all around, and we are thinking of calling the book “Frieda: A Love Story.” On top of everything else, Frieda brought me Maria, helped me find love again, and both of these women changed my life. I’m very excited about the book. How lucky I am to get to write this happy story. And even luckier to live it.

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