Day: August 24, 2013

For me, a good photograph is often one nobody would imagine being a good photograph. We rarely see the things around us as being worth recorded, yet they often are the most powerful photographs for me. Garage sales are one of the rituals of death, they are often filled with the pieces of someone’s life, being sent back out into the world. In the country, they are a part of the new macro-economy, a kind of portable sidewalk antique and dollar store. I love what these things say about the woman they belonged to, lined up as silent and voiceless witnesses to a life.

Life and death are the same thing, different ends of the same string, I think. One goes with the other, one is never far from the other.

I often wonder if Maria or my daughter Emma might one day hold a garage sale of my things, my belongings, the pieces of my life. What would they be? My hard drives, lenses? My voodoo and beeswax candles? My statues and muses, my photographs and photos by George Forss? Perhaps my first Ipad, or perhaps my last, the paintings I love, the collars of dogs? Old paper books pulled out of the attic and wondered over by small children?

I hope people will look at these things and scratch their heads over them, piece together the life of the person who owned them, I hope they will say, he must have been interesting, he must have been a dreamer, he must have not been afraid to be strange.Oh yes, I imagine someone saying, my grandmother used to love his books, my Uncle Harry hated him, disagreed with everything he said. I think he was a writer back then, we can check him out on Amazon, they’ll have a link to his books there.

But by the time they get home, they will have forgotten about that,  and why wouldn’t they, the dead have had their turn at the wheel, they might take my little Homer Simpson statue and give it to their teenage son, it might be cool. He was after all, my role model as a father.

We went to a garage sale some friends were having, they are a fixture here a ritual as they are in many places. Some are poignant, in that they often follow the deaths of parents and grandmothers, whose loving heirs gather their things and send them back into the world. Here, I was struck by Sadie who was drawn to this fountain in the garden, her great-grandmother’s things lined up in the driveway. The power of time is always clear in garage sales, the pieces of a life offered to to the world.

This road changed my life, it was at this spot, on Route 30 that I looked up and saw an old white farmhouse sitting up on a hill overlooking the town of West Hebron. The farmhouse looked old and grand, it was surrounded by four beautiful red barns and pastures.  It seemed a different world then, it was only 2003, I called a realtor on the phone and asked her if this old farm was for sale and she said it wasn’t. Two weeks later, she called me while I was on vacation in Wellfleet, Mass and she told me it had just gone on the market. I bought it over the phone and upended my life and my work. I have learned recently that only dreamers and wanderers on the hero journey buy properties like that any longer.

People don’t really lunge after their dreams, there are too many lawyers, journalists, politicians warning them to be careful, go slow, be wary, mistrust everyone. Times change, I’ve changed. I hope I will always lunge after my dreams. If I had not pursued this one, Maria would not be in my life, I wouldn’t have this blog, or A Dog Year, or Dogs of Bedlam Farm, or Soul Of A Dog, or Rose In A Storm or Second Chance Dog, or Lenore Finds A Friend. I will still be living in New York or New Jersey, a soul-sucking life, a loveless life. I wouldn’t known Simon, the other donkeys, Lenore, Red or Frieda. I wouldn’t have had my Spectacular Crack-Up, taken off my mask, met my magical helpers, be a photographer or have so many wonderful friends.

I have a hunch I would not be alive at all, I was living so self-destructively I think I would have found a way to leave the world, I think I was trying.

We all have to make our own choices, follow our own dreams, take our own plunges off of our own cliffs. I hope I never listen to the lawyers and journalists and Armageddon-peddlers warning me not to live my life. I hope I will always be a dream-chaser to the end, chastened and humbled and awestruck by the crisis and mystery of life, always around the corner.

Vulnerability is the key to creativity, the pathway to a meaningful life.

What if you hadn’t taken the photo?

What if you hadn’t written the poem?

Painted the picture?

Started the blog?

Begun the quilt?

Written the book?

Taken the class?

Creativity does not begin with strength and certainty,

but with fear and confusion, with insecurity and hesitation.

Creativity does not come from knowing,

but from not knowing.

What if you hadn’t taken the chance,

looked foolish, made the mistake,

taken the leap.

What if you didn’t love your vulnerability,

weren’t grateful for it,

didn’t honor it.

You would be back there,

in the other place,

wondering every day of your life,

what if I had shown up for my life?

Red’s therapy tag came in the mail yesterday and it was good to get it, the nurses and staff at hospitals look for it, and it gives some meaning and symbolism to Red’s work.

For one thing, it honors my commitment to Dr. Karen Thompson to give Red the best possible life when she gave him to me more than a year ago.

Also, it certifies that we have done the work – the training and evaluation – to do therapy work. Red earned it, he has the potential to be a great therapy dog.

More importantly, it helps me take the work seriously. It is easy enough for me to walk a dog through a nursing home corridor, harder to work with hospice and dementia patients. I was shocked at the surprises Izzy and I encountered in our hospice work – noisy machines, screaming patients, wires and cables, hissing cats. No two visits were ever the same, we always encountered things we didn’t expect.

Izzy was a wonderful therapy dog, Red has already taken our work to a different level. Some of the people we see are disconnected from the world, withdrawn into themselves, and Red brings them back, touches their memories and emotions.

My philosophy of this therapy work is a zero tolerance for mistakes. People at the edge of life do not need disturbances or disappointments, a dog’s temperament and grounding is critically important. Red brings the same professionalism to therapy work that he does to herding sheep. Red, like many border collies, has the ability to make and keep eye contact and hold it for long times. He is also comfortable being touched and hugged, even grabbed.

I don’t need bandannas or vests or bumper stickers, but the tag does mean something to me. It is a symbol of this next chapter for Red and me. I said when he came that this was a dog who would take my places, and so he has and is. Symbols are important, they mark the passages of our lives.

Next week at the Bedlam Farm Open House, I hope to do a demonstration of how I am training Red to do this therapy work, all I’ll need is a volunteer.