Lenore, of course, is not allowed on the furniture. My computer is just a few feet from this sofa and quite often, I sense a presence behind me, watching me and when I turn around I see the Hound Of Love watching me closely, keeping an eye on thing. I should yell at her to get off and once in awhile I do.
So many people have asked me if I am scared lately that I sometimes wonder if I should be. Or that I am, and am just not owning up to it. One visitor gulped when I told her we had bought a new farm before we sold the other one. Another asked me if I might become indigent in the process. No, I said, I didn’t expect to do that. “You are crazy,” said an old friend. “I would never take that risk.”
I’ve dealt with quite a lot of fear in my life, and I know it is infectious. If fear is around you, it is easily transmitted, like a virus. This is why the therapists urge people who are anxious to surround themselves with positive people. And why I’ve come to see the news as a health hazard, not a civic service. If the people around me are into drama, are wedded to martyrdom, are frightened themselves, addicted to gloom and worry, it can go through me like a bolt of electricity. Many people love to transmit fear. It is what they know.
Sometimes I do feel some fear about selling the farm, owning two properties, lowering the price on Bedlam Farm so much there will be little money left. And lots of other things are happening in my life this summer. I will turn 65. I am in good health, but my body is changing, and I can feel it. Whatever happens, there will not be enough money to do all of the things we had wanted to do. I understood I would have to give up most of my savings and IRA’s when I got divorced a few years ago. I did so knowingly, and traded this willingly for the many things I got in return. It was cheap at the price.
There are many work changes as well. The publishing industry has been completely transformed, and the revenues that used to come from hardcover book sales and their royalties have been essentially wiped out in the great and ongoing transition to cheaper books and digital books. In response to those changes, I’ve devoted myself to the blog, deepened my work in photography, undertaken video work, expanded my “brand” (the publisher’s term) to include children’s books, e-books, and also changed the nature and structure of my paper books.These changes have helped me creatively. I am more focused on what I do well – tell stories about animals. My blog is enormously successful and thus, increasingly valuable.
I believe these steps will work for me, but there are no guarantees in the creative world. The future is not predictable. And then, there’s the real estate market, which has changed as radically as publishing. The farm could sell tomorrow or not for months. It just takes one buyer, they say, and this is so. Everything sells, they say, it just takes some time, and this is so also. We’ve knocked $75,000 off of the asking price since December, and we are not comfortable knocking off any more.
So perhaps there is a lot of fear buried inside of me, waiting to emerge, requiring maintenance, thought and awareness. I know these anxieties live within me, are part of my neural system. I often wake up in the night afraid, and by dawn it has melted away. Fear never completely goes away, it just needs to be understood for what it so often is – a symptom, just a reality. A space to cross.
And there is this, I tell my friends. I am absolutely committed to the course we are on, and so is Maria. I believe in it fully, and we will find a way to do it. It calls to us. It is meant to be. The donkeys, sheep, dogs, cats and chickens are all going, and a new dog, Red, is coming too. Rebirth to life, fuel for a writer.
One of the things the move offers is this. I have given up on fear as a way of making decisions about my life. It is disastrous and destructive. Fear did me much more damage than any move to any new place could possibly do. Many of the things I have always feared in life – vulnerability, incompetence, the handling of money, helplessness – are tied up in this change. So I must proceed, show myself once again, and maybe even for good that a life in fear is not a life worth living. I won’t ever do it again. I will share this process as I have in the past. It is good for me and hopefully helpful to some of you.
Walking in Merck, I thought how fortunate I was, at this point in life, to learn how strong I can be. And when it is over, and I look back, how proud of me I want to be.
If you are a donkey, one of your most sensitive spots is the area around your nose. Simon loves to have his nose rubbed, and I live with a woman who loves to do it (I must confess I love to do it too). Get your nose rubbed. It eases the day along.
I love the spirit of donkeys, much worked, harshly treated and abandoned creatures over much of the world for many centuries. They seem to expect little of people, but they are not shy about demanding what they want and need. Our donkeys need attention, at least once or twice a day, on their own terms in their own time.
Sometimes we will come out and call to them, and they will just coolly blow us off – not in the mood. Other times, they will come down and nudge us in the butts with their noses if we are not quick with a cookie or carrot. In the mornings, they come to the barn door and demand a treat. Sometimes they wait for it – rarely – and sometimes they just muscle their way into the barn and dig in. We are quick with a cookie in the morning, if we want to get out of the barn.
Bedlam Farm is a fertile place, and it seems to attract and grow symbols who venture out into the world and touch people in a different way. The first symbol here was Carol the grumpy old donkey who had a stroke in the Pole Barn and was the first beloved animal I lost. Many were to follow and I learned too much about death and dying. Or maybe just enough. Winston the rooster was the second symbol, and he lived to a ripe old and dignified age until he was attacked by his son Winston Jr., one of the first living things I ever had to shoot.
Many symbols followed. Orson. Rose. Elvis. Simon. More are coming – Red perhaps. And now, Strut, the rooster we thought was a hen (we called her/him Freaky) but now strut, as that is what he does, strutting and preening around the farm. Maria and I are getting attached to Strut. For one thing, he is a beautiful creature. For another, he is a good rooster, watching over the hens, keeping them near the barn, vigilant when dogs or stray things approach. He is a major reason, I think, why the fox has been stymied in his pursuit of our chickens. Strut is on the case. When he sees something that concerns him, he puffs himself up, starts to crow (he is just learning) and flaps his wings. He is brave and conscientious, just as Winston was.
He is also good with people. A Swedish Flower hen (he came from the writer – she claims to be a farmer, I think she is a writer – Jenna Woginrich’s Cold Antler Farm, a wonderful place to get a chicken if you need one) and he follows Maria around like dog, and likes to pose for me. He is quite photogenic. The camera loves him, as they say. All the happy and successful animals here seem to love the camera. Hmmm….Strut is the newest symbol of Bedlam Farm – Strut and all the animals are moving to the New Bedlam Farm – and like all good symbols, you don’t always see them coming.
