Day: January 27, 2012

Berenice Abbott’s wonderful black-and-white photographs of New York City inspired me to try and capture Timeless Manhattan.

Some writers call it cultural fascism – the voices inside one’s head that self-censor to avoid the inevitable. I admit that when I posted my photos of the Central Park horses I hesitated, knowing I would get a slew of e-mails suggesting that they are, have been, or will be mistreated. It actually was worse than that. One message said she could tell from my photograph that the horse was pleading for help.  Another e-mailed me this morning urging me to examine the Central Park horses poop and compare it with my donkeys, and I would see that the horses are suffering being forced to work in this way. I think she might be happier on another blog.

This, along with the Rainbow Bridge, is another space I am not going to cross. If you live in upstate New York and hang around working animals, the horses in Central Park look pretty good, fat, groomed and content.  The Central Park horses do a lot better than most of the cows doomed to spend their lives in concrete floors in factory farms. The SPCA regulates the temperatures in which they can work and inspects the stables in which they live. Animal rights advocates monitor their lives closely. I don’t have a political position on their lives.  I enjoy seeing them. I don’t doubt for a minute that if these horses did not have these jobs, they would probably not be alive.

They move at steady paces carrying light loads for short periods of time. People enjoy seeing them. Perspective is rapidly vanishing in our relationship with animals. We are so much more concerned about their welfare than that of the human beings they work for or transport. Are construction workers in New York called off of buildings when the thermometer goes higher than 80 degrees? I don’t think so.

Personally, I love to see working animals work. And am happy to see them protected. I think working with people is the ancient and historic role of animals, and a glorious one. People are free to pursue whatever causes and ideals that make them happy. I am not comparing poop and I hope these horses are around for a long time for me to photograph.

My father refused to ever buy life insurance which puzzled and then terrified my mother. She lived in dread of his dying and of struggling to take care of her three children by herself. Perhaps because of that,  I always thought of life insurance as one of the seminal responsibilities of the head of any household. And I never understood why my father, who could easily have afforded it, wouldn’t.

When I married Maria, an account told me the responsible thing to do was buy life insurance. I am older than Maria, and she was an artist struggling to do her work. Artists, like writers, do not have much in the way of safety nets. Maria almost violently resisted the idea of my buying life insurance. She viscerally hated the idea of betting against one’s own life with a corporation. She could take care of herself, she said, and would have the farm and other resources if I were to die unexpectedly. The insurance bill was steep – thousands of dollars for a man in his 60’s, and the insurance company didn’t like the fact that I didn’t see doctors much and didn’t have much of a medical testing trail for their actuaries to study. They offered me 10 years of insurance, and after that, the rate would more than double. Obviously, they think I’m good for a decade or so but would be more than that. The exam and paperwork were all understandably creepy. I thought it was worth it. I thought it was my responsibility.  If I died, Maria would not have to worry about a mortgage, would have many choices. Much of the American terror of life I write about has been embedded in me, and digging it out is painful and eternal. I often feel as if I am jumping off a cliff blindfolded.

This week, the annual bill came, and I braced for my annual fight with Maria about insurance. I told myself to listen to her. This wasn’t me, she said. It wasn’t us. I thought about my frequent evocation of Thoreau. The American idea that I always loved was that you were free to live your own life, make your own choices, follow your own heart and feet. The new American idea is that you must need and fear many things, all of them involving giving money to corporations – mortgages, work, technology, health insurance, tuitions, old age, retirement, medications and surgeries.

And life insurance. It is, I had to admit, a cornerstone of the fear machine. Perhaps it make sense for others, or for people with small children. Or for my father.  As Maria and I talked more and more about it, it stopped making sense to me. And how can you justify giving someone something they so clearly do not want? It was patronizing, Maria said. It was not something she wanted or needed.

So yesterday, after listening to her,  a bulb went off in my head, and I proposed this: How about choosing life and not betting with a corporation on my own death? At our wedding, we vowed to choose life. It is what we are about.

How about I cancel the insurance policy and we take that money and to go Florence for two weeks instead? And every year after that, we take the thousands of dollars and go somewhere else we want to go? Going to Florence is something I know Maria would love to do. So would I. And yes, I know Maria can take care of herself. In my continuing pursuit of a self-determined and spiritual existence, giving thousands of dollars to an insurance company that wants me to live, but not too long, does not seem to fit anymore.

No more life insurance. I’m choosing life. We are going to Florence.

On New Year’s Eve, we sat with some friend’s and made a silent wish for the New Year. My wish for 2012, for Maria and myself, was that we each have the most creative year of our lives. Once I would have thought it arrogant, even dangerous, to wish for something so wonderful. My grandmother would have warned against arousing the evil eye. But I have learned not to be afraid of life, to await the infinite expectation of the dawn. Life is good, life is precious, life is short.

I am not really a believer in luck or fate, although there is some of each in all of our lives. I do not believe that wishing for something makes it so. I believe, though, that I must open myself up to the good and wonderful things in the world, and not accept the judgements of their idea of news. I wake up every day, and ask myself, what can I do to make my life worthwhile? Creative? Loving and meaningful? I work every day at this, every hour of my life.

It’s only January and I feel I might get my wish, that this may be my most creative year. In New York, at Random House, I picked up a copy of the cover of “Dancing Dogs,” my first short-story collection, out in September. It’s a funny, quirky, surprising book, and I can’t wait for it to come out. I am nearing completion of an agreement to write “The Story Of Rose,” an e-book original, due out sometime this Spring or Summer. My next children’s book “Lenore Finds A Friend,” the story of Lenore’s wonderful friendship with Brutus the grumpy ram is also out in September and it is a sweet, sweet book.

I will turn in the “Frieda” book this year and begin work on a book about Simon, and what animals teach us about mercy and compassion. And it looks like I may have found a home for my Writing and Story-Telling Workshop – Hubbard Hall, the legendary arts center in Cambridge, N.Y. I hope we can assemble some writers who want to tell stories about rural life and that we can assemble these stories into a book. Rural life is in great and difficult transition in America, and nobody is much writing about it. This could be the home I’ve been looking for for this workshop. We are, I believe, the stories of our lives.

I want to continue my work with Battenkill Books to shore up the notion of an independent bookstore. Connie will be involved in all of these projects and we will continue to expand the Battenkill Experiment. So this is just January and I don’t have time for too many more creative adventures this year. But there is the photography and the blog, and photo shows and who knows what else? Dreams do come true, if you help them along and allow them to breathe, and don’t qualify and diminish them with the fear, anger and cynicism that pervades so much of life. I intend for 2012 to be the most creative year of my life. That is my ambition for myself. I think Maria is on the same track – she is doing amazing work, selling everything she makes –  and how wonderful to share it with this wonderful and loving and creative  human being.