Day: January 19, 2012

At some point in every winter, even in this mild one, the bitter cold arrives to take my breath away, chill my lungs and remind me exactly where I am. When I went out into the pasture this afternoon, the wind brought me up short, and my fingers and some toes, frostbitten a few years ago during lambing and my first Mad Winter, throb with attitude. It was well below zero today and the wind was shrieking across the pasture, and the first thing you think of is the animals. Cold and wind are something you need to deal with.  The chickens waterer froze today and we had to go get another one. The cats get fed in the barn.

I saw Minnie coming out to see me, walking on the windblown ice. I am reminded of how different animals are than us, how accepting they are. At these times, and others, you need to speak for them, think of them. I opened up the barn and Maria saw me and came out of the Studio Barn and we wordlessly and quickly and without any need for words got the barn ready for the donkeys. We went and cut open a bale of straw for Simon to lie on, as his legs are weak and he can’t stand up as long as Lulu and Fanny.

We hooked up the new waterer and made sure the sockets were working. Put out feed for the chickens in the morning. Got out some hay for the donkeys to keep them busy. They were eager to rush into the barn. It is cold there, but at least no wind. We will check on them later. Earlier,  I went to Manchester Vt. to drop off photos for printing at the Image Loft, the photos for Gallery 99 the week after next. Picked ten. Did some grocery shopping, picked up some food at the Panda Garden. In for the night. The dogs have little interest in going outside.

This kind of cold reminds me of where I am, and I love that about the cold. It is beautiful and stirring, and I always make it a point to think of James Patterson, who built this farm and of what his winters must have been like. Got a wood stove fire going and the new Jamie Lee Burke mystery. We are good. Orlando seems a good ways away.

I sometimes think Thoreau was thinking ahead when he wrote the conclusion of Walden: “The surface of the earth is soft and impressible by the feet of men; and so with the paths which the mind travels. How worn and dusty, then, must be the highways of the world, how deep the ruts of tradition and conformity.” Someone asked me recently how I might define an “authentic” life and I said I could only answer for myself. To me, what is sacred about life is our desire to live a meaningful existence.  To make our own tradition, follow our hearts, live out our passions. Some people are lucky to just survive, others are content to exist, still more accept the expectations of others for them.

In my life, in our culture, I hear many good reasons every day why people feel they cannot live lives that are authentic to them. Health care. Retirement. Mortgages. Kid’s tuitions. Security. Parents. The News. The Economy. The Market. Fear. Obligations. Bills. This to me is the music of the lost. The very idea of a Thoreau seems absurd in our time. How many people do any of us know who will cut those very powerful and real chords and set out to live their lives, to define what is important to them,  and jump off the tall and terrifying and magnificent bridge that is life. Thoreau gave up a mortgage, had no health care, refused conventional work, had no security, set out on a course of self-determination. Two hundred years later, we are quoting him still. How strange he seems now. I am no Thoreau. I worry about things all the time – money, mortgages, family, security and fear has often roadblocked me from living my life.

I am getting there. Closer than before. The ruts of tradition and conformity are worn deep, and I walk in them every day, every time I leave the farm and set out into the world, or listen to the news, or hear another poor soul explain to me why they live in those ruts and can’t climb out. My heroes are the people who do manage to climb out, whose hearts are beating out of their chests, who sometimes can barely take a breath they are so afraid, and still, every day, they climb out and make their own path. Are these not the truly blessed people of the world?

If you are out there and reading this, close your eyes and take heart.  Do not cry for your life, as you are radiant. The wind will come and fetch you, and carry you home and the angels will sing to you along the way.

I’m showing and selling 10 of my photos as 8×10 matted prints at the Gallery 99 Show in Glens Falls, Thursday February 2, 5 to 8 p.m. Friday, February 3, 9 a.m. to 8 p.m., and Saturday February 4, from noon to 6 p.m. The show will be at the M. Dolan Jr. Building,  3 Broad Street, Glens Falls, N.Y. I’m selling the photos – mostly chicken art – for $60 matted, not framed. Gallery 99 is an exciting experimental art project that means to offer high quality art at prices people can afford. The gallery  moves from site to site. I’m happy to be a part of it. Maria will be showing some of her new streaming pieces and potholders.

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Also, this Sunday, 4 p.m. at the Battenkill Bookstore, Main Street, Cambridge, N.Y., I am happy to be introducing Jenna Woginrich of Cold Antler Farm at her reading/celebration for “Barnheart” her new book about her successful and happy compulsion to get a farm of her own. Free posters of the cover will be given away. Come on by.

Well, the thing about vacations is that they are not life, but the absence of life in so many ways. It’s so easy to come back from them depressed, anxious, afraid of one’s own life. So much easier to stroll through Disney World, checking out animals, eating great food, having no cares or responsibilities. Or so it seems. On the other side are e-mails, phone calls, chores, decisions, health,  bills.

I love vacations and need and want more. But I have learned to love coming home as well, or almost. I refuse to see my life as a tedious chore, although it sometimes feels that way.  I see the day after vacations as rituals of renewal and rebirth. Back to meaningful work. Back to friends and community. Back to my home and the animals here. Back to the blog and the community there. I want to face the world and today I can renew my life, give rebirth to it, dedicate myself to it again and again, every day.

The thing about renewal and rebirth, the thing about a meaningful life, is that it is not something a magic wand brings, you, or positive energy accomplishes all by itself. It is good and hard work, every hour, every day, on vacation and off. So on my first day back I will work on an afterward about Rose for the paperback edition of “Going Home,” out this Fall. I will think about the Rose E-Book original and plan it. I will prepare some photos for sale for an art show – Gallery 99 – in Glens Falls in a couple of weeks. I will have lunch with a friend.

I will renew my life and give birth to it. Every day, forever and again, for as long as it lasts. Every day is precious to me. Every day a gift. Every morning, I ask myself, what can I do to love my wife? My friends? My animals? My life?