There is a myth about farms in America, perpetuated by movies and cards and calendars, urban fantasies and posters. The myth is that they are beautiful, pastoral, peaceful places. This is not so. Real farms are not beautiful, except from a distance. They are stinky, smelly, cluttered with junk and detritus. Real farmers never throw anything away, especially anything with an engine in it or parts that can be cannibalized. And they never buy anything new, it is an article of almost religious faith.
Farms are littered with tires, rusting oil cans, boards and plans, engine parts, the pastures are lined with manure, chewed brush, dead trees, hedgehog holes, paint cans, oil containers. Farms are a daily struggle against the elements, bureaucracies and economists. I am not a farmer, thank God, being a writer is challenge enough. But I love real farms and real farmers, and when I found this pile of tires behind our barn, I decided to keep it, at least until it fills with brackish water. This is not the Bedlam Farm Farm Monument, a memorial to barns and farms lost and to family farmers who didn’t make it.
Rocky visited us this morning. It seems a strange thing for me to say, even now, after everything. We think so poorly of death in our culture, we dread it, hate it, pretend we can live without it, forestall it forever, raging at it when it appears. Sometimes it is a beginning, not an end, a celebration, not a loss, an affirmation, not only a grieving. Maria and I were out in the bitter cold doing the morning chores and I felt something in the stall, Rocky’s stall. When I came into the farmhouse, Maria was there, and she was crying. Maria cries often, it is he way of speaking. I told he when we exchanged our wedding vows that I would love her a little more each time she cried, and I am wild about her by now.
I didn’t realize that by accepting her tears, I was giving her permission to feel, to open herself up. A lot of tears came out this morning, as she thought about Rocky. She felt he was visiting her, coming to tell her that we made him happy while we were all today, before we euthanized him a few months ago. During Rocky’s death, we were distracted by the anger and hurt people felt about him dying – we think so poorly of death, we will do almost anything to banish it from our consciousness. But time has passed now, and we are both aware that Rocky is not gone, his spirit hovers over the farmhouse, we are often aware of him standing in his stall, walking on his path, grazing in his favorite place in the meadow by the road. I saw Rocky before we came to the farm, and I saw him after, and he was healthy and happy and peace, almost to the end.
I loved Rocky, but he and Maria were connected at the soul. He loved her, loved being brushed and cared for by her, getting grains and carrots from her. All animals love Maria, are at ease with her gentle spirit, her emotions so close to the surface. I love her for this also. I would not, a few years ago, have imagined that I would see the spirits of dead animals, visit with them, yet I am as sure about this as anything material that I can put my hands on. Maria wrote about this on her blog this morning, she can speak for herself.
Rocky speaks to me here. He tells me that he is still here, this is still his place, he still walks his paths and drinks at his stream from time to time. I have learned that some animals are spirit animals. They transcend death, they live beyond it. Maria told me this morning that she sees now that she has failed to come to terms with the power of her love for this pony, and his love for her. For Rocky, death is a beginning. Her little pony still lives in his meadow, still thanks her for making him so happy.
I was a bit startled when my inbox began filling up with Paypal contribution receipts. Yesterday I put up a Contributions box on the Farm Journal Page, and it took me fix or six years to get comfortable with it (I am not totally there) and I have lost count of the number of contributions. I can tell you this much. I am touched by it – the contributions range from $2 to $200, most in the $10 to $25 range – and they are powerful things for me to see. I can’t quite believe so many people are willing to do this so generously and easily.
I feel good about the contributions box. They were going to call it a “donate” box but donate implies charity, and I see it more as simply being paid for the work of the blog. I guess it took me awhile to value my own work, and to not hide behind false modestly. That does not serve me, isn’t truthful or authentic. In the real world people are compensated for their work and while I will never be comfortable charging people to read my blog or use my photos, I understand now that there is nothing wrong with giving people the chance to pay you for what you do. It validates them as well as you.
It has been a great source of pride for me that I always made a living from my writer. That is still so, but the new writer has to be more flexible and open-minded than that. I will always see myself as a book writer first and foremost, but the world doesn’t really care how I like to see myself. It is asking me to grow and change. So I will accept that challenge.
One reader said I was learning to ask for help, but I am not asking for help, that is a different thing than asking to be paid for what you do. One person complained that she was sick of handouts, she resented being pressured to pay for things that are free. I told her she had several good options: she could read the blog for free (it is still free), she could contribute to supporting the costs of the blog, she could go read someone else’s blog. She apologized, said she hadn’t meant any harm, and in that moment, I understood her completely.
We live in a world where we are bombarded by fees, special charges, the conversion of free things into things that cost money. Banks do it, airlines do it, everybody does it. In hard times, nobody wants to raise their prices but everybody is raising their fees. I know how she feels. But I am also learning to understand how I feel, and to stand in my own truth. I love my blog, I work hard at it every day and have for seven years. I hope my work is always worth something and the contributions spur me to keep it that way. It feels quite wonderful to see how much people care for the blog, how much they value it. It is good for them and good for me. This is an important thing to learn in life, and also, a step forward in my continuing efforts to forge a better relationship with money.
I am deeply touched by these messages pouring into my mailbox. Each one of them is an affirmation of me, of my work. Each one is an angel singing to me that my work is worthwhile, and that I need to keep doing it well enough for people to care enough about it to contribute to it. There is nothing that doesn’t feel good about that.
I will never permit anyone to convince me that it is too late to change when you get older. It is the best possible time to change.
Connie Brooks was excited to pass along an article in the publishing journal Shelf-Awareness about my new job as Recommender-In-Chief at the Battenkill Bookstore. The job began last Saturday with my appearance in the bookstore from ll a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturdays to help people find books they want and love to read. But this is the information age, and the job mushroomed – phone calls, face-to-face, Facebook requests, live e-mails, Ipad blogs.
Bob Gray of Shelf Awareness – my inspiration for the Recommender-In-Chief when he was at the Northshire Bookstore in Vermont – wrote beautifully about the importance to readers of someone human for them to speak to and learn to trust. In this new role – this is my first new job in more than 30 years (like all good booksellers, Connie is tight, I have to fight for working conditions like tea and snacks, I need something to grouse about, like all employees). This is a job I am qualified to do.
I read obsessively, have written 23 books, and I have noticed on recent book tours that the new generation of independent booksellers has something in common – they are too busy surviving to read many books or to take much time away from ordering and manning the registers. Bookselling, like everything else in American life, is getting complicated, and the days when I could schmooze with people like Bob Gray are gone. When the big chains popped up, the handsellers faded and as the independents rise again, there is still a void. Nobody has time to talk to book buyers. Amazon’s algorithms are interesting, but software is not as endearing as me and Red.
So it seems appropriate for writers to step in and fill some of the void. We love bookstores, we love books, and I found Saturday that there is very special trust between readers and writers. They are on the same page, as it were.
So I’ll be back at Battenkill Saturday from ll a.m. to 2 p.m. You can call the store – 518 677 -2515 – or e-mail requests through Connie at [email protected] You can e-mail requests at any time. Red is coming with me, mostly to draw customers. He is more popular than I am.
I won’t have too much time to chit-chat either, and this is not about my books but all books. Please visit or call or e-mail. It would be great if you could purchase your books through Battenkill or your local independent bookstore. These stores are islands of life, individuality and thought in the Corporate Nation. We need to keep them, the world would be barren and gray without them. They are where ideas live and can go to be safe while much of the country is watching the poisonous dialogues on cable news and out of Washington.
I am thrilled that the Battenkill experiment is taking off, and it is as good a thing for me as it is for Connie. I am staying connecting to the world of books, to the works of other writers, and the passions and interests of readers. How curious, in the digital age, for a writer in a small upstate town and bookstore to work together this way. Thanks to technology for that. And thanks to Bob Gray for his wonderful piece. Maybe Maria will bring me lunch again, as good wives do sometimes for their working men. Hope to talk to you Saturday.
