Red went to his second acupuncture visit today at the Cambridge Valley Veterinary Service. He was at ease, he sat with Colleen Flaherty quite calmly as she inserted about 20 thin needles into his head, back and legs. He seemed to know the drill this time, he sat still and lay down for 20 minutes while Dr. Flaherty had to rush out and perform an emergency surgery on a cat.
He lay perfectly still the entire time she was gone, and as was the case last week, he seemed calm and at rest this evening, he is lying besides me as I write this.
He seems a bit more grounded, more at ease than usual, less up-and-down. I have the sense this is good for him, it is helping him settle from all of the intense work he is doing with the sheep, socializing – everyone wants to meet and touch him – and in our increasingly important therapy work with veterans. This week, we are meeting with some veterans from Iraq and Aghanistan, a half dozen meeting in a support group in New York State. I have been warned that this group is intense, angry, mostly unreachable. They do want Red and me to come, so we will. Active listening. Maybe I’ll get some acupuncture next week.
Wanted advice is different, I find, than unwanted advice. It is much better. This is a big round for interactivity. Since I posted the evolving versions of my new header, I’ve gotten hundreds of comments from blog and book readers, the vast majority of them interesting, useful and helpful. They have helped affirm, crystallize and change many of my original ideas about this project.
I have to be honest, the vast majority of comments are right in sync with me and Mannix’s designers. We have all liked each version better than the previous one, although there is a wide range of divergent opinion about things like colors and spacing. The Times Roman type face is a big and nearly unanimous hit. At first, the Mannix designers were wary, even stung by some of the criticisms, but one of the beautiful things about interactivity is that it is helpful. You bring your community into the process rather than exclude, surprise and frustrate them. As we read your comments, the designers and I gained strength and clarity also, even when we went a different way.
Readers overwhelming loved the idea of using quotes in the header to connect the blog with the idea of the book. Some thought the quotes out to be readers comments from Facebook and other social media. I disagree there, interactivity has it’s limits, this is still my blog, my voice, it is still a monologue, not a dialogue. Comments are welcome on Facebook and elsewhere, I read as much e-mail as I can, but I need to preserve as much space in my head as I can so I can write well and take photos. I can’t be interacting all day, Facebook is a disease as well as a powerful communications tool and I am careful and disciplined about how much time I spent there.
So I think this version is very close and thanks for your input. I’m still mulling whether there should be lines above and below the quote to separate it from the Farm Journal. I’m not sure, it floats out there cleanly and well. We decided to put quotes on it, the colors can change, I like the quotes broken up into different type sizes and faces, it is a modern, graphically arresting kind of look. I think the quotes fading in and out will give the blog a living look, much like the Internet around it. Unlike paper books, this one has color and can move, show videos, present podcasts. It should look like a book, but a new kind of book.
This version, 5.1, is pretty close to the mark. I like it. It will connect my blog to words as well as images, to my history, to my themes and words. And it will be colorful and move. I appreciate those of you who are commenting on it, it has been more helpful than you know, and I much enjoy working with Mannix, they have been at my side ever since I began the blog and always come through. So have you, the people reading it faithfully. The blog is my great work, I love it more and more each day.
Sue and Dan Dugard have been a sweet running story since Monday. I ran into Sue and Dan at George Forss’s studio when I went for my photo lesson (which was amazing, more later) and they were in Cambridge because they had read my blog and books and wished to see the things I wrote about. They booked a room on a nearby farm. They had no intention of seeing or meeting me, had not even driven by the farm as they had no wish to disturb me or contact me. I liked them right away, Sue is quiet, strong, thoughtful, an oncology nurse and artist who has seen a lot to be thoughtful about. Dan described himself as a “kept man,” a former bush pilot among other things, he is not kept at all, just self-effacing.
I have a pretty good instinct about people, I’m old enough to have known a few, I sensed two kindred spirits and invited them to lunch at the Round House (they met Scott Carrino) and then over to the farm. We had a great time at lunch pulling out our Ipads and laptops show trade photos and maps showing exactly where Dunham, Ontario is. They met Simon and the donkeys, were duly amazed at Red’s skills with sheep and his affectionate demeanor.
Maria came to lunch and gave Sue and Dan a tour of her studio, and then she went back to work and the three of us sat out by the Adirondack chairs and talked for an hour or, about our lives, our families, technology, publishing and life in America (like most Canadians, they are mystified by America these days). It was good conversation, easy and honest and connecting. Sue’s work as an oncology nurse has clearly burnished her soul and her dignity. Dan’s wild ride’s as a Canadian bush pilot gave him a fairly unique perspective as well. They met when he flew her to medical emergencies in the Canadian wild.
I was right, we are kindred spirits, I was sorry to see them leave, it felt easy and safe to open up to them. I’d love to live near them as friends, these warm, articulate and empathetic people with great plans to grow older together and do some amazing things. The Dugards do not have a TV, keep some distance from technology (Sue was toting an Ipad), they are not planning to downsize, but to do more creative things together when Sue eventually retires. They will do it, Dan is a master craftsman who gave me a metal bottle opener he made himself.
Within seconds of my mentioning their visit on the blog, I got the inevitable dubious messages of warning on Facebook and via e-mail. One warned that I was sending “mixed signals” to my readers by inviting a stranger to the farm while also writing about invasions of privacy. They did not seem to appreciate the difference between inviting someone to the farm and having them pull into the driveway uninvited. One dispenser of alarms, a vibrant Facebook sub-culture, said strangers can be dangerous, especially with the Internet, these innocent people could be anyone, how did I know they were safe and to be trusted? That they weren’t plotting to rob the place or steal my identity (would they get my bills and debts?).
This, I know, is the world we live in where parents are terrified for their children, people are afraid to put their names online, doctor’s offices are filled with warnings and alarms, the media is a horror show, and where it is now easier for disturbed people to buy machine-guns than it is for many Americans to vote.
I do not wish to live that way. Life can intrude at any time, it happens every day. I am glad I took the risk of friendship, I received the gift of friendship.
I understand the realities life, I covered them for years as a journalist. I do not choose to live in fear, I do not see my world as a dangerous place, and I don’t wish to be the kind of person who can’t take a risk for friendship or connection. Forts don’t have to be made of steel and concrete, you can build one right in your head every day, especially if you watch their news.
If I pay for it one day, that is my decision, that is a fair bargain in exchange for meeting good people like Dan and Sue. I told them I doubt I till get up to rural Ontario anytime soon, but they are always welcome at our farm.
Every morning, I go to the ballet, I have the best ticket and the best seat to one of nature’s most enduring and artistic programs. and it is free, the curtain goes up when the sun rises over the Holy Apple Tree in the pasture, and Red and the sheep begin their ancient dance, the sheep, the shepherd (that is me, amazingly), the herding dog.
Border collies have only been around for a little more than a century, but humans have had herding dogs for many thousands of years, the sheep know their part of the dance, the dog knows his or hers, and the shepherd is often between the two, a player in this wondrous drama. I never tired of seeing Red work at this ballet, this dance, it always stirs my heart, fires my imagination and flushes me with gratitude and wonder. This is my favorite show.
