Maria grows more confident all the time about her ability to communicate with Lulu and Fanny. I was not sure about putting them in the barn tonight, but she went out to check on them and said they wanted to go in, and they did. And she knew. I am excited about her idea to sketch the different libraries we are visiting next week – Granville, Cobleskill, Salisbury, Conn., Richboro, Pa., Providence, R.I. (Rochambeau Branch), Osterville, Scituate, Mass., Edgartown, Martha’s Vineyard. She will turn the sketches into potholders. How neat.
This winter has settled in with a grip, snow, ice, bone-chilling wind. This kind of cold – I haven’t seen it since my first memorable winter in 2003, when it settled well below zero for days and weeks, transforming the very chemistry of this world and it seemed like the presence of Rose was the only thing that kept me from blowing right off of the hillside. I think of how sweet Spring will be, when it comes. And here’s something, a neighbor pointed out to me – this year the ticks will actually die over the winter.
I am a storyteller, and have been all of my life, and I think of my life – as many people do – as having a tone, and a spine. Lonely. Angry. Set upon. Rebellious and resentful. I was telling a friend the story of how an insurance company wanted to come into my house and give me an EKG, gake my blood and urine, ask me questions and take my blood pressure, and how I said no and stood up to them. “It’s a victim story,” she said. “A struggle story.” Stop telling them, she suggested. The insurance company didn’t break into my home and invade my life. I invited them in because I wanted to buy life insurance.
Oh, I said. I thought I stopped telling those. Almost, she said, smiling. My life is one big struggle story, or was. I am constructing a different story, and construction is the right word. I can’t blame anyone else for anything in my life. I am responsible for it, and am very comfortable with that.
From this strange perch in the country, it seems to me that the subsidized world is vanishing, at least for now. Publishers don’t coddle writers, galleries are vanishing, schools are not offering tenure, resources are dwindling. We are on our own. That is good for me, and I welcome it.
Stories are the spine of our lives. We are what we tell. We can change our stories if we wish, and see ourselves anew. That is something one either believes or not.
So, I keep telling myself. It wasn’t just me that was crazy.
How comforting it is to sit down at the computer and file to the blog. A part of my life. It is cold, cold, cold. -5 at sunset and worse tonight. The donkeys practically raced into the barn, and are in for the night. Tomorrow, buzzing about an ice and snow storm. A real winter.
Had a milestone of sorts today. Traded in the Tacoma pickup for a small Toyota SUV. I like the satellite radio, which I have wanted for awhile. No more news for this cowboy.
Cars and trucks do say a bit, I think. When I moved to the farm, I bought a giant eight-wheeler, I was so crazy and out of perspective. I managed to get it home and nearly took out the bridge into Hebron. Never drove it again. Then I got a Chevy Silverado, a huge thing. Then a small old farm pickup. And then a big SUV with rims, deer guards and headlights. Then the Tacoma, and no more trucks. I am not a farmer. I don’t need a truck. I told Maria, there is no longer a me, there is an us, and a truck is not us, it is me. The trucks were harbingers of a different, more grandiose time, the beginning of the process where I lost my mind as well as perspective and money and drama flowed through the farm and the barns.
This new car feels like me. Like us. No more trucks. That is not a statement I need to make anymore, to me or the world. I even forgot to bring my camera to take a last photo of the Tacoma, which served me well. The salesman did the usual car salesman stuff but he was a nice guy. My last truck.
I watched a football game last night, the first time I have watched TV in many months. I watched the Jets-Patriots game, and I like this big, loud-mouthed coach, Rex Ryan, who loves the sexuality of feet. I’ve never been that good at being a man, my father thought I was a sissy, and so did many of the males in the neighborhood. I’ve never been able to talk sports.
Maria came in and stared at me as if I were standing on my head in the snow. “How is it?” she asked, solicitously. Strange, I said. I don’t understand much of it, but I do feel like an American guy, which is nice. I ate popcorn and drank red wine. I even called up my daughter and tried to talk sports with her – she is a sportswriter – but I couldn’t quite pull it off. I loved the banal chatter from the sportscasters. Lots of cliches.
I was proud of myself. Maria and I both congratulated me. “It was good to watch the game,” she said, supportively. “Ahh., are you going to watch every week?” No, not every week, I said. Maybe next week.
The winter forest can be eerily beautiful at times, and this morning, the light and ice and shadows captured that. It was well below zero, and you could almost feel it looking at the trees.
Library tour information. I’m doing a bunch of interviews for the library tour, which is drawing some local media, which is great. I’m also getting a lot of e-mail and questions about the tour, which I can’t answer individually. As E.B. White once wrote, please remember there are a lot of you and only one of me.
But here is some information. Please check times with your local library as they change. I’ll be posting daily on the blog and Facebook about the tour and my whereabouts.
First events: Sunday, 2 p.m., the Pember Library, Granville, N.Y. Monday, 6:30 p.m., the Community Library, Cobleskill, N.Y.
Tuesday, the Scoville Library, Salibury, Conn. 7 p.m. Then onto Providence, Osterville, Mass., Scituate, Mass. and Edgartown, Martha’s Vineyard.
I will not be bringing dogs. I’ve stopped bringing them to book events. It is distracting to me, the audience, and puts them in some uncomfortable situations. The focus will be on libraries, writing, humans and animals, and more libraries. I will talk about my work, about “Rose In A Storm” and anything anybody wants to ask me questions about. I see these stops as conversations, not lectures and I look forward to it.
I will sign anything people bring to me, including all of my books and people’s body parts. Maria is coming with me, and she will be sketching for her potholders and we will be selling signed photographic notecards to benefit farm aid and family farms, which, like libraries, seem to be left behind in a country that subsidizes banks, insurance companies and car companies, but not humans or their precious institutions.
Hope to see some of you there. If you have any questions, please contact the libraries. Thanks.
