Seeing Rocky is a gift, an affirmation. Something about him reminds me of acceptance. Of connection. Of loyalty and shared experience. Animals speak to us in so many different ways. If we listen. And hear them. Rocky reinforces my ideas about accepting and respecting animals as they are. When we appear, he comes right over now, struggling with his eyesight to place us, but we always come to the same spot now and he knows to go there and get his apple, and to listen to us for a bit.
My friend Ben Osterhaudt and I went over to the possible New Bedlam Farm this morning, and it was very meaningful and meant a lot to me. Ben and I have been through a lot together. He is a carpenter and restorer and he, more than any other human, is responsible for the work done on Bedlam Farm – the barns, maintaining the property, repairing the wood and water systems. He is something of a throwback, a Marlboro man, a strong, competent quiet craftsman who loves to work alone, hunt, be outdoors, who can master almost any tool, and sits for hours in bitter cold with no jacket or gloves, puffing away on his cigarettes. We have worked together for years, and always comfortably. Ben is reasonable, doesn’t much like estimates, and never overcharges. He is shockingly strong, and as honest as he is competent, and we are so lucky to have him around. He could write quite a book himself about his time at the farm. Maria’s Studio Barn screen door was falling apart and came came over with his truck yesterday and found some old barn wood and built a new door in an hour or so.
He and I went over to the place we want to buy and we talked fences and heating and grounds, pipes and water, roofing and pasture. I loved it, one of the guys, talking animals and fences. He was very enthusiastic about the property and we walked the grounds – there is an old barn there – and figured out how he could dig out a pasture with his tractor. Ben loves nothing more than to be alone in his tractor for days and if we end up in this new place, he can do that for weeks, if not months. I feel Ben’s presence was very ratifying. Things that looked difficult were very doable to him, and made me feel easy. I said we had to sell Bedlam Farm, of course, and he just laughed. Oh, that will not be a problem, he said. It’s a great place. I am very lucky to know Ben.
He likes the new place, and thinks it a good fit for me, and for Maria. It is not a simple or easy place. One woman wrote that she thought it was good to move to a simpler place as we get older, but I do not believe that, at least not for me. I think it is good to be challenged as one gets older, and the new farm is, in many ways, more physically challenging than the existing Bedlam Farm. Lots of work to do there.
Hey I fell down and mashed up my knee, so it would be entire inappropriate for me to shovel donkey manure at this time. Somebody needs to keep a record of things yes, and the former girlfriend is a whiz at barn chores.
Got the video camera out today and am eager to get back into videos. Got some shots of the farm this morning, with Simon clearing the air. His bray is missed, and I love catching it. A beautiful and settling morning on the farm.
I didn’t think there was much chance I would ever closely identify with Newt Gingrich, but my controversial Dumpster experience has given me an insight into the life of this angry little-man, this modern-day politician, twirling around in the whirlpool that is modern media, a hyper world where one unguarded remark can alter reality and set off digital firestorms. Politicians know to be careful in this hyper-world and journalists and bloggers feed ghoulishly off of this craziness. I found myself plunged into this quite bizarre maelstrom this week and it was pretty interesting.
I mean, really, garbage. Who would have thought. I don’t recall ever writing about a more innocuous subject in my life than my decision to get a dumpster and fill it up with stuff from the barns and basements as we moved to sell our house. It turned out to be the most controversial blog yet.
As has been pointed out to me by scores of aggrieved people, I did not make it clear in my first post about moving – it wasn’t even about trash – that I would separate my garbage, re-cycle it where appropriate, and donate my books to libraries and other things to the many good charities we know well up here. They are right. It is absolutely true. I did not make it clear. And strike me down if I ever do. I can’t imagine anyone who ever read a word I wrote thinking I would toss my books in a dumpster. It’s an odd thing about the self-righteous, they do test the character and the soul. I actually found myself briefly wanting to respond and say, “but wait. I do re-cycle. I do give books to libraries. I do contribute to charities. I am correct.”
When Hell freezes over, maybe. Soul-selling at its worst.
It never crossed my mind that people would assume the author of 21 books would toss them and the others he loves in the trash. Or that his fiber-artist wife, whose art has been devoted for years to the use of recycled fabrics, would throw her fabrics in a dumpster rather than haul them to thrift shops and charities, places she haunts like a spirit. “When I thought about it,” one woman wrote, “of course you wouldn’t do that.” But in the digital age, we don’t have to think about it, so many don’t. I try to be honest here, so I will concede that it was great to get angry. Important for me, after years of meditation, walking in the woods, spiritual readings and spiritual counseling. I felt like an old grizzled tiger, pacing in his cage, after somebody poked a stick through the bars and got him roaring. Was that me?
There was the flap, and then, just like Fox Sports or CNN after a debate, there was the post-flap, which is even worse. On TV, it’s a bunch of angry people shouting. Online, pretty much the same. Americans are used to this, I see. You have the debate, and everyone gets to pile on and analyze the outcome. And everyone is an analyst. And nobody is listening. Ever.
Even more messages in the post-game than the game. I was funny. It was fun. I had made too much of it. Or not enough. Buddhists were troubled that I seemed angry (If you want to light my fuse, this flap is how to do it. When I told my daughter about this dumpster controversy, she said “oh-oh, I hope they don’t live nearby.”) People insisted in informing me and Maria of their environmental commitment and methods and urging that we do the same, many not even reading the posts. One person wrote me that it was a shame I had shown anger, when I seemed to be moving to a more peaceful place. She was not sure she could read the blog any longer in the face of such deterioration. Angry posters were outraged that I would question their right to challenge my garbage morality, even if they were completely wrong in their assumptions and statements. Humility, like our trash, is out the door. People were outraged by what I wrote, and then outraged by my outrage at what they wrote. Or was it what I wrote?
Okay, so other than spouting off, what do I take from this that is useful or positive? What might you?
We live in an age of hyper-media and hyper people, a series of mobs raging from one subject to another – the left mob, the right mob, the animal mobs, the political mob, the media mob, the abortion mob, environmental mob, the business mob, of course as always religious mobs, the feminist mob. I usually stay away from mobs, as they are rarely sources of accurate or original thinking. And they have a long and rich history of unthinking assaults on ideas and people. Two weeks ago, I joined one mob briefly – the support Planned Parenthood mob, and that was a good mob for me to join. I never imagined that only a couple of people would be outraged by that, and hundreds, if not thousands, buzzing about my Dumpster.
Surely, this is not that big of a deal. Except in a couple of ways, it is. I can tell.
I wonder where people get the gall to presume to tell me what to do with my garbage is one thought that persists. Am I too blame for this? Do I share too much?
Shame on them for that, for making me think that way. My life is not an argument. People do not get to own me when they read my blog, or tell me what to do, or give me advice I do not ask for and do not want. Or have the right to express opinions that are offensive or disturbing. If they do not agree, they ought to consider going elsewhere, and firing up their own blogs, and pay for them, and see how many people want to hear their prescriptions for life and the disposal of trash. If you need to go, go in peace. But go.
In the age of hyper-opinion, of hyper-people, all the more reason to center down and practice calm. I’ll get back to it. Every controversy, every challenge is an opportunity for me to center, to ground, to grow. To be in peace. Growth is not a straight line, I know. I like to affirm my identity, and challenge helps that, truly.
Most importantly, there is this. I am delighted to be reminded and acknowledge that I am so very, very human. I get ticked off like everybody else. I hope to never be so spiritual that I lose the ability for anger. I am sometimes imprecise (often, Maria might say), but I am also free, and will remain that way. I promise that I will never never scrutinize every word and thought I write so as to never offend, or let the mobs get into my head.
Thank God, I am not a political candidate. Newt, I’ll send you a signed book. I hear you love dogs. I do feel a bit of sympathy for you. If this keeps up, I’ll might start empathizing with Rick Santorum. The dumpster is filling up.
One of the most impulsive things I ever did was to restore the four barns at Bedlam Farm. It cost a lot of money – all my money – but I could not bear to see them collapse. In the last few years, we have lost so many barns that I often ride around photographing them so there will be some record of them. I don’t mean this as a lament. All things have their time, and in a world where there are so many priorities, it is not for me to say barns must be preserved above all other things.
Still, I connect with them, see them as pround and beautifully simply structures. They evoke so much, and it is a gift to be able to walk in them, close my eyes, hear the voices inside of them, the wind creaking through the beautiful old wood. And I thank them.
I am glad I restored my barns, and that for many years, they will stand in testimony to a glorious past.
