Day: July 21, 2012

The young woman lay awake,

deep into the night, hearing nothing the snores of her husband,

lying inches from her, now knowing, she was choking on

fear. Fear is the gray thing, she whispered,

praying to the night, it steals hope from me,

and laughter, and strength, and love.

It is the dying thing, the draining thing, devoid

of color, feasting off the dark, hiding from the light,

like my spirit vampire, that lives in my heart.

Fear is everywhere, all around me, in me,

she wept so softly, as the first birdsong

pierced the mist outside of her window, and she prayed for the strength,

to get to the light, as she heard the sighs of her husband, her partner

so close but so unaware of the fear stealing her very breath.

What can help me?, she wonders. What can save me?,

she prays. I am so alone.

And she heard a whisper in her ear, felt a soft caress on her cheeks,

like the feather of a baby bird, so soft and gentle.

I can help you, said a velvet voice, nothing more than a hiss,

really in her ear. I am a fairy, a good fairy, and you are not alone.

Believe in me,

as I have come to collect your fear in my purple lace shawl,

to wrap my self around it, and ride you to the light,

on my army of crickets and frogs,

and to another, better, day, and to kiss your inner spirit,

my love, and set it free.

And so she did.

August 6 is an important date for me, the on-sale date of “The Story Of Rose: A Man And His Dog,” my first e-book original and already a bestseller on many lists two weeks before publication date. This book is a big step for me, and also for Random House. A step into the future for both of us, an experiment. It’s the first e-book original for either of us. The book will cost $2.99, less than a cup of coffee at Starbuck’s and it is a gorgeous book with video for those who wish it and photographs for others.

I’ve decided the right and perhaps surprising way to kick-off this digital book and digital book tour would be  in my bookstore, Battenkill Books in Cambridge, N.Y., at 6 p.m. August 6. I will talk about this book, why I did it, how e-books affect my writing life, what I think will happen in my future.

I do not believe that e-books harm books or book reading. Rather, digital tablets are triggering a golden age in writing and story-telling. More people of different ages and backgrounds are reading more books less expensively and more readily than ever before in human history. I need to be a part of that if I am to survive as a writer. I want to be a part of it because I love it.

Connie Brooks will perhaps disagree.  It has been nearly impossible for independent bookstores to find a way into this market or to break the growing stranglehold companies like Amazon and Apple have on digital publishing. She will talk about the impact e-books are having on her bookstore and many other bookstores, including the fact that even if she could sell them, which is difficult, she would only get pennies.  Connie is a good friend, and she says she has been getting earfuls from my angry readers who don’t want to read my books on a Kindle, Ipad, Nook, cellphone or computer. We’ll air all of that out.

I never imagined writing a book that sells for $2.99 and I love this book, which is a full and original work and a tribute to my wonderful dog Rose who died last year. The book is the most innovative project I have ever worked on in publishing, redefining what book is for me and how narrative works. I can’t wait to do another. I am very proud of it – my text, photos and videos – and am very excited about it. I think it’s appropriate to launch this book in a bookstore I love and to have an open and important discussion about what it means. Connie will also be able to take pre-orders for “Dancing Dogs,” my collection of short stories out in September (I’m doing a talk and signing at Battenkill on September 25), and “Lenore Finds A Friend,” my next children’s book, also out in September. Connie will also have copies of my other books, which I will be happy to sign. It will be a new kind of reading. My wish is that I can mark the e-book and that Connie will sell plenty of my paper books.

I think it’s great to have this conversation in a terrific independent bookstore, my bookstore. Seems right.

We will not be recording this talk or streaming it live, alas. It’s a distraction and we don’t have the equipment for it. Connie invited me to bring Red, so I might just do that – his first bookstore appearance. Please, no other dogs. A distraction for me and others.  If you want to learn more about “The Story Of Rose,” help me kickoff  this radically different book, and join in a discussion about the future of e-books, writing, bookstores and publishing, please come and see. The store’s number is 518 677 2515.

Perhaps one day I will understand a friendship between a 34 year old pony who is totally blind and has lived outside in a pasture alone for 15 years, and a five-year-old border collie from Ireland who until a month ago had not lived in a house or even been housebroken. Whenever I look up at the new farm, Red is watching me, as usual, but he is most likely hanging out with Rocky, the pony. Rocky sniffs Red once in awhile, but generally the two show friendship in the way dogs show real affection – just be being near the things they love. That is not, of course, enough for us, we want them to melt through the ground at the sight of us so we feel loved.

So in our various ways, we teach them to lick us and squirm, because we love it, but when I see a dog hanging around a human and just being a dog, that is love for them.

And this is what I see in this very unlikely friendship – a connection. Rocky, always skittish because of his blindness, and Red, always active because he is a border collie, seem to calm one another, ground one another.  They are so often just around one another, accepting their world. I am listening to that friendship, watching it. A beautiful and surprising thing to see.

One of the curious things about our new home is that we want to change so little of it. It is such an evocative place. Today I opened the medicine cabinet and found a few old things – boric acid, an old mercury thermometer still encased in an alcohol-soaked cotton swab, an eye cup. People keep asking us when we will replace the wallpaper,but I think we won’t. The house was built in 1840, it’s fixtures frozen in 1950. The cabinets in the kitchen have a pamphlet dated to 1950, and Maria and I want to paint them white ourselves. My grandmother would have fit easily into Florence’s kitchen.

There is no work that Red does not seem to want to do. Today he hopped up on Florence Walrath’s mower at the New Bedlam Farm after my friend Ben Osterhaudt had it repaired. Florence was said to have run the old mower into one of the barns and the front was broken and the blades damaged. I was assured by every men who came bye that it could never be repaired, and was not worth the money it would take to fix it. I am used to being underestimated by country men, who assume anyone from an other place can barely drive a car. I’ve lived on a farm for nearly 10 years, lived through house and barn restorations, tractors and many kinds of animal, hay and water crises. At least three different people assured me we would never get it started or running.

But they did not know me, and they do not know Ben Osterhaudt, who is the Prince of all restorations and repairs. I am almost psychotically willful – this mower was going to run – and Ben is gifted.  I cannot imagine living up here without Ben, who restored my barns, much of my house and a million things that broke, leaked, or fell off the roof. Ben and his friend had the old mower running in one day, and I was riding it this morning. In a way, the mower is a powerful symbol for me of this move. On Bedlam Farm, I could never mow my own lawn. Too big, hilly, time-consuming. On the New Bedlam Farm, I can. And I will.

This is the kind of self-determination I want. A place Maria and I can care for, know well, fix up. I love this mower. I cannot wait to get on a big sun hat. I am a writer, not a farmer, yet it is time for me to live like a farmer as well as a writer. That’s the life of the new writer.

When the engine starts, Red goes and sits under my car and waits till I’m done. As I roared across the driveway spewing rocks, Ben turned to Maria and said, “hmmm, maybe we should plexiglass the windows.” I’ve figured out how to lower the thing and work the clutch. I love it. I am grateful for my new mower and the chance to ride it around our new home.

Florence Walrath mowed her own lawn well into her 90’s. I can do it, too.