Florence Walrath was a strong woman and her spirit remains strong in our house, in our lives. Her blue and yellow Irises have become to come up, right behind her red tulips. Her love of gardening is evident, even thought she couldn’t take care of her gardens – she was blind and deaf in her last years – they have outlasted her and thrive and appear in unexpected places. I see them as the spirit of Florence, spirit flowers reminding us to work hard, follow the rules of the world, do good and accept the nature of life with grace.
Labs like Lenore are easy-going, genial creatures, loving and grounded. I tend to forget that they are also a hunting and working breed, they are in their own way killing machines given the chance. Out walking on the path, Lenore saw a rabbit and took off after it and she went streaking through the woods and across a stream, and for a few minutes, I got a glimpse of the wolf in here, it is in every dog’s genes, especially the Labrador. It was touching to see this and be reminded of it, and this image caught the feeling I think.
Every week this year, I’m going to a neighbor’s cornfield to take a photo of the corn growing.I’ll see it through to harvesting, and thanks for the very many messages appreciating it and asking for it to continue. It will.
I’m recording a podcast for my e-book “Listening To Dogs: How To Be Your Own Training Guru,” out Tuesday morning and I did three versions. One was scratchy, another had blank spots, and in one, I just sounded flat. One problem I am having is that I am used to speaking before audiences and so talking to myself seems strained. I figured to keep at it until I got there. So I decided to build my own podcast studio. We went to Bedlam Farm yesterday and we brought two Adirondack Chairs. I put them out by the pasture and decided my animals would be my audience. Minnie is there, Red and Lenore, the donkeys out grazing. I talked to them for seven minutes about “Listening To Dogs” and I think it went well. I’m getting the hang of it. Be natural. Be spontaneous. Be yourself.
Whenever I go to the other farm I get a bunch of messages asking me if I miss it. Fair question. Lots of people say they are said that I moved, and they miss it. (Does this sound familiar?) I take it as a compliment that the Bedlam Farm I wrote about was enchanting enough for people to miss it. I must have been doing my job. It was a wonderful place and I do miss many things about it – the big pastures, the path in the woods, the big airy rooms, the screened-in porch. I feel sometimes as if live in two places, a part of me represented in each, each farm a part of me.
Bedlam Farm was the home of the successful New York Times Bestselling author, he just had a movie made about him, he had a big contract with Random House, he gave tens of thousands of dollars away, spent whatever he wanted, was disconnected from friends and family. He restored barns, acquired goats, a tractor, two steers, a beef cow, 35 sheep, four donkeys, three or four dogs. He had a full-time assistant on the farm and his books tours last weeks taking him all over the country. He was the darling of NPR, fussed over in the New York Times, profiled on CBS Sunday Morning, interview by newspapers all over the country.
It was a different world in so many ways then, Bedlam Farm fit me like a glove. It was a gorgeous, dramatic, expansive place, it could accommodate anything I wanted it to – herds of animals, move crews, 3,000 steers. A book a year, sometimes two, they just came pouring out of me. What a ride, what a view, what a wonderful place for Rose and Elvis and Lenore and Red. Big enough for all of the dramas and adventures, big enough for a score of books. And thousands of photos on the hill, the fields, in the woods. I never imagined leaving. The world changed and my life changed – divorce, the recession, publishing, and free of any discipline, boundaries or perspective I eventually overheated up there and melted down as inevitably happens to people with connection, discipline or perspective, people who rationalize every foolish and self-destructive thing in their lives.
But I needed to be there. It was where I went to find what I was looking for: love. Before I crashed, I restored four barns and a Civil-War era farmhouse and tore through the money the big shot earned. Too many things hit me at once, some my fault, some not.
It was clear to me after all this that I needed to move, it became clearer by the day. It didn’t fit me or my life anymore. It would take me a long time to change my writing life to reflect the times, and that is underway. Bedlam Farm was never Maria’s place, it was mine, and we both wanted our place, not my place. Some people get this, some don’t. I was never a question of what I liked, but what reflected the next phase of my life, our life. For many years, there was no us in my life only me. That is a selfish and unhealthy way to live. You can’t have everything you want, you can’t rationalize behavior that is not healthy or considered, you can’t swim in a sea of delusions.
The two farms sometimes make me feel schizophrenic. Who am I? Which farm is really me? When I am Bedlam Farm, I feel at home. When I am at our new farm, it always feels precisely where I belong, the perfect phase for the next phase of the hero journey, returning to community and sharing what I can.
So I don’t miss that kind of warped reality and pain and fear, as wonderful as Bedlam Farm was for me. The new place fits me now, it is who I am, who we are. It reflects the reality of my new life, which is quite wonderful, in almost every respect better, more creative, happier than I have ever been in my life. Missing things is like grieving for me, some of it is instinct and biology, some of it is choice. I rarely look back. It is painful and unproductive. I would love to have a screened-in porch again, a bathroom on the second floor, enough rooms to change offices every time I wrote a book (it was sweet writing the Frieda book on that porch, I can tell you.) Life moves forward, not backwards, the moving finger writes.
Who am I? My doctor asks me every time I see him if there is anything I love about my life. I always tell him the same thing: I love everything about my life. I don’t think I could ever have more than that. I never did have that, not even at my beautiful farm. And that means more to me that big pastures and screened-in porches and windows that go up to the sky. Podcast and new book go up tomorrow.
Every Memorial Day I go take photos of the parade with George Forss, the legendary New York landscape photographer, and Donna Wynbrandt, the outside artist. She sketches, George and I look for shots. I learn just from being near this brilliant and gentle man. He is always learning, growing, teaching. Donna always looks exotic, she dresses like a true artist.
