In the never ending and evolving nature of a farm, a new confrontation is shaping up: Rose and Simon. Rose is coming into the pasture every morning, and Simon, who is not really at ease around dogs, is taking her on, charging at her. Rose is a veteran of many confrontations with animals, and she is handling this one with a lot of skill and diplomacy. Still, I’m betting Simon gets nipped in the butt soon, just as Lulu and Fanny did. Some morning scenes at Bedlam Farm, including Simon’s evolving challenge of Rose as leader of the pasture.
I’m almost embarrassed to write about freedom. Or religion. People who generally talk a lot about freedom or wave Bibles around have given both subjects a bad name. Yet freedom is important to me, and I have been thinking about it in the last few years, mostly because people seem to have less and less of it, and miss it more and more. Freedom is a powerful thing, and I wonder if the people who should be thinking about it the most are, like me, almost allergic to the subject, and leaving it to the windbags and opportunists.
Freedom is, to me, a personal thing, as are most large ideas. I don’t know what others should do, but am beginning to define the notion for myself.
Freedom to me means answering the creative spark.
I wish to pay my bills, but not to live to pay my bills.
Economists ought not dictate the terms of life to me, and economics ought not be the justifier and explainer of life for me, as it seems to be for many Americans. When Steve Jobs died, CNN instantly put a live graphic up showing the price of Apple Stock, as did much of the other media, as if this was the point of his living and dying. For many people, it is.
Freedom for me means being a farmer if I wish, even though the economists have decided small farms are no longer economically viable.
It means living and working where I wish, not only where a state allows me to buy cheap health care for me and my family.
It means having the freedom to use technology – or not – and to not be pressured or coerced into impersonal financial transactions because it is profitable for corporations. Technology is a choice, not an obligation.
Freedom for me means that independent bookstores, pharmacies, retail shops have a right to survive, that a Wal-Mart world leaves space for the individual and the family business to exist. I see how it works now – nobody has any money, health care is expensive, fees rise and rise, wages fall, so people have no choice but to shop at the least expensive places, even if they are ugly, monopolistic and greedy and destroy the economic fabric of their communities.
I would like the freedom to not be around people who talk about their or “our” age, or all the things they can no longer do from age 50 up. Or better put, to not let others define my stage of life, and denigrate what it means to be older.
I wish the freedom to avoid people who use the term “in this economy,” which I hope to never hear again in my life.
I believe animals are an integral part of our cultural and spiritual life, and I would wish the freedom to bring them into the world again, and not be confined only to houses and yards.
I wish the freedom to travel freely in my own country, without passwords, photo Id’s and documents, and to keep my shoes on when I go to an airport.
I wish to decide how I live and die, and to not be coerced into a long life with little or no quality.
And most importantly, I cherish the opportunity to be free to live a live I love, not one that others tell me I can afford.
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Notes: Connie Brooks is now taking Paypal at Battenkill Books and you get a free signed video or Bedlam Farm notecard with each copy purchased of “Going Home: Finding Peace When Pets Die.” You can also call her at 518 677 2515. We hope to sell 1,000 books at Battenkill by New Year’s. About 400 to go.
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Speaking at the North American Veterinary Conference (NAVC) January 14, 5 p.m. the Gaylord Palms Hotel, Orlando, Florida. Talk: “Going Home: Finding Peace When Pets Die.”
