Every few months,when I am in my archives, I come across one of the photos of Simon I took shortly after he came to us at Bedlam Farm. It was a great head shot, the first time he was able to bray in greeting to me, what I named his “call to life.” I focused on the head shot to capture the bray, but I couldn’t focus on his body, it was too gruesome – his skin was rotted, scabbed, infested with lice, sores, protruding ribs – I’ve never shown graphic photos of him, he was such a painful mess, the poor thing, it broke my heart just to look at him.
He is the king of the hill now, affectionate, healthy, fat and happy, loving and curious. I am writing a book about him, and about our curious notions of mercy and compassion. There is so much rage and anger around the animal world, I vowed when Simon came that I would never use what happened to him as an excuse to hate people, I see so much of that from people who claim to be advocates for animals.
The meaning of Simon was quite the opposite for me, I am not angry at the farmer who did this to him, I went and met him, he is a worn and broken man, no one has shown any mercy or compassion for him in all of his hard life. Everyone is quick to show mercy to this donkey. If there is a lesson in Simon’s journey for me, it is to be more, not less, merciful, less, not more, angry, to understand that true humanity comes from empathy, not from fury or cruelty.
As many of you know, I do not use the world “rescue” to describe Simon, he has no use for the term, does not see or understand himself in that way, does not harbor vengeance or self-pity, two very human traits. In different ways, Simon and I came to life at the same time and every time I look at him, my heart softens and I think of mercy and compassion, not fury and righteousness. I know this separates me from much of the world, that is my comfortable space I think, I often seem to be there.
I love this photograph, I have urged Random House to consider it as the cover for my book about Simon. I doubt they will, there is a strong resistance to too much reality in publishing, especially on book covers. I will push for it, but it is not my decision, and nobody wins fights against marketing studies in American publishing. It may also be that I am wrong and they are right, I can accept it either way.
The photo brings me back to his wonderful “call to life,” it reminds me every time I look of it at St. Thomas Aquinas declaration that the reason we need to treat animals well is because it shows us how to be more human.
Life started happening early and didn’t stop, an intense and testing day. I woke up at 5 a.m., and as I had an early dentist appointment I wanted to leave time for blogging and working on my book tour. I drove to Granville to go to the dentist, and then I stopped to do some food shopping on the way back. When I got home, my bank was calling with the unsettling news that it’s software had picked up an attempt to log into my bank account, the IP address of the sender was a known hacker address, the bank shut down my online account and said I need to check my computer and Maria’s – our bookkeeper too – for malware, change all of my passwords, find a security software firm that could check our machines.
Until our systems are checked (this does not affect e-mailers, subscription or social media systems, those are all run apart from my computer on separate systems with many walls and safeguards and no one’s information is ever stored on my computer – I am not allowed to even enter those systems – and they are checked almost hourly for suspicious software. The blog software is protected by Mannix Marketing and they meet the most stringent security standards) we won’t be doing online banking, but the preliminary report was good, or systems seemed clean, so it was probably a random effort to get into our bank account or it came from some other computer that we do business with, or some enterprising hacker – the intrusion came from France – just took a lucky shot.
I found a good protection firm in Glens Falls – they work with Mannix, my blog designer – talked to them, hired them, my computer will be out of service for a couple of hours tomorrow while tech engineers comb it. They said this kind of attack is rare on a Mac, they doubted it was on our computers but would check. Malware – it stands for malicious software – is used to disrupt or gain access to private computer systems, it comes in various forms of invasive and hostile software. We changed some passwords, hired the security company to do regular checks – my computer systems are my lifeline to world, and Maria’s too, we need to be careful without panicking or going overboard.
After we got that sorted out, I had a one hour live chat on Facebook, another new dimension of the new book tour. It was great, got more than 80 questions and Facebook invited all of the people who’ve ever been on my page to come and talk to me. A lot did. I’ve flown all the way across the country to speak to a small fraction of the people who gathered around my Facebook Page for an hour Wednesday to ask me questions about my life and the book. Then we rushed over to Battenkill Books to sign another 100 or so books. More tomorrow, we are steaming towards 1,000 the calls and e-mail orders are coming in. It is interesting, but the book tour seems to be rich mix of the new and the old, one minute I’m on Facebook answering questions to a lot of strangers from all over the country, the next I am sitting in a book store with a pen with Maria, trying to find the cover page and not miss any of the personalization requests.
Interesting the questions were very similar to those I hear at book readings in bookstores.
In between this, interviews, phone calls,farm chores, scores of e-mails and other messages, it was one of those days where there is not a single empty moment, rare in my life.
I am learning over life that there is no such thing as a crisis, not such thing as a bad or good day, life happens all of the time, at it’s own pace, and to have challenges and issues is to be alive and engaged in the world. The tech company said they were sorry I was having this trouble, I said this is not trouble, this is life. This is a hard lesson for many of us, for me, to accept. A few years ago, I would have described this day in a different way: you won’t believe my day, what a horrible and exhausting day, the goddamn bank. But it was not a horrible day, it was just a day.
I think the key to understanding technology is the accept the fact that it brings ease and change, but always takes away control and stasis. That is the deal we make with technology, it’s tragedy and glory. It always brings things, it always takes things away.
I have these machines that allow me to connect with the world in radically new and productive ways, they remain mysterious, unpredictable and sometimes even dangerous. My life is tied up in this machine, I will take very good care of it. I got anxiious thinking about my book tour, could I interrupt it if something was seriously wrong? I suppose so, but it is not coming to that, that is already clear. Tomorrow morning, just for good measure, every bit of data on this machine and Maria’s will be scoured and sniffed and if there is any malicious software lurking around anywhere, it will be ruthlessly rooted out. My new security team says it is highly unlikely there will be this problem on my Apple, they want to make certain.
I’m a little fuzzy, I want to hole up with my book on Jony Ive, Apple’s genius designer and get up early to blog and post before the Digital Secret Service enters my machine from afar and takes it over with remote controls and stalks any evil and gives me an hour or two to walk the dogs, take some photos in the crisp November light.
I accept life on it’s own terms, I will not speak poorly of this day, it was another day of life, and I am grateful for every one of those. I am nothing but lucky and eternally grateful for the gift dealing with true life.
Battenkill got a small shipment of books in today, more coming tomorrow, so Maria and I got over there to sign them in the early evening, Connie had gone home, her mother Marilyn had about 90 ready for us. Connie put aside some for my signing there on Saturday – Cashmob discount day in my town of Cambridge – I’ll be signing copies of the book from ll a.m. to noon, Maria will be there with me, Red too. These short bursts are easier on the hands, it was an insanely full and strange today – more later.
I’m doing a live Facebook chat on my new book, “Second Chance Dog: A Love Story, from 3 to 4 p.m. on my Facebook Page another chapter in the new world book tour. The way it’s supposed to work is this, I post a topic and FB notifies all of the people in my social media community that I am there, and they can come and ask me questions about me, my book or other things relating to my work. Come on bye if you want to join in, this is the equivalent of a traditional talk and book reading, only bigger. We’ll see how it works and if it works it is an exciting new way to communicate with book readers, a new way to conduct a book tour. I’m going live at 3 p.m.
Soon after Frieda came to Bedlam Farm, she ran Minnie up a tree behind the farmhouse and I got a picture of it, a photo I included in my first children’s book, “The Dogs Of Bedlam Farm.” The scene inspired Maria to make two “Frieda Treeing Minnie” potholders to support my campaign to sell 1,000 books through Battenkill Books by Plaid Friday, local businesses answer to Black Friday, the big corporate shopping day after Thanksgiving.
When I took this photo, I never imagined that Minnie and Frieda would be living under the same roof, or that Minnie would be stealing Frieda’s bed and sleeping on it, or that Minnie would ever be in our house on three legs. Life is wondrous that way.
Maria is going to make another 10 of those potholders to sell on her website – several different images, including “Minnie On Frieda’s Dog Bed,” but these two will be given free – Connie Brooks will choose the winners – from among the people who buy “Second Chance Dog: A Love Story” through Battenkill Books. When I said we were going for 1,000, people tended to roll their eyes and laugh but we are already within striking distance – more than 700 have been shipped through Battenkill already. If you are interested in having a shot at one of these potholders, or just in reading my new book, or buying one as a gift for Plaid Friday or for Christmas, you can visit the store’s website or call them at 518 677-2515. They take Paypal and ship anywhere in the world. I thank Maria for offering her fabled potholders in support of the Project 1,000 campaign.
Connie’s had a day or so to rest – new books are coming today – time to swamp her and the staff again. I love the “Frieda” potholders, pure Maria, and they capture something very real in the book and the evolution of life – Frieda can testify to that. I will also sign these and the ones she makes to sell. I want to get to the 1,000 book goal soon, so I can figure out the next goal. Connie is making no plans until Christmas, neither am I. (This Saturday, Maria and I will be at Battenkill Books on Main Street in Cambridge from 11 a.m. to noon to sign books for people who wish to buy them for themselves, for Plaid Friday or for Christmas gifts. On December 6 at 7 p.m., I’ll be reading and signing at Northshire Books, Manchester, Vt.
