Day: January 3, 2014

My Post Office Box (P.O. Box 205, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816) has been a great gift, it is always stuffed with letters from all over the country, old handkerchiefs and notes for Maria, cars, envelopes stuffed with $5 bills, some checks, kind notes about the blog and my books. One stood out, it was from Maryland, from a reporter I worked with at the Washington Post, her name is Claudia, she wrote that our paths never crossed, “you were too busy hustling for the next story and I tended to keep a low profile.” There were, she added – “you will forgive me for saying this – quite a few ambitious young men who hustled through the newsroom in search of bigger opportunities,she was very happy there and stayed for a long time and recently retired to “a right-brained life.”

I remember her name, I have no memory of her, Claudia is quite right, I was too busy and distracted to know anybody.

I do forgive her, of course, it was a beautiful note, rich in many mind things about me and my work and true. Claudia heard me much later on an NPR interview, was shocked to realize I was the same Jon Katz and has followed my writing and the blog. “The journey you’ve taken to reconfigure your life and relationships is heroic,” she wrote. Thank you, I hope so.

I get a lot of messages like that, not always that nice.  People who knew me in the other world are quite astonished to see me in this new one, they can’t quite put the two together. Few people who knew me back when liked me much or got to know me well, the most frequently used words to describe me are “remote,” “ambitious,” “driven,” “ruthless.” And “bright,” they always say I was “bright.” I made few friends then, and am in touch with almost no one from any part of my life that is more than a decade old. Like the therapists say, you can’t have a healthy relationship with an unhealthy person. I was not a healthy person.

I supposed I may have seemed ambitious, I suppose I was, from my vantage point was different. I was always terrified, always in a panic, always looking to escape, unable to settle or connect. No one got close to me, and I got close to no one. It was a kind of mad whirl, I was always looking over people’s heads, always for the next thing, always running and hiding, I am surprised that looked like ambition, but I was good at wearing masks. Like a functioning alcoholic, I always hid my fear and confusion, and kept moving all the time, nobody ever quite got to know me or catch up with me.

Those were hard and painful times for me, sometimes I feel badly that I never got to know nice and introspective  people like Claudia who wrote this honest and poignant letter and also sent a $60 as a subscription for my blog.  Looking back is painful for me, and not useful in any way I know. I could spend a lot of time lamenting who I was and wishing I had been somebody else, but I think what really matters is who I am now, and who I am working hard to be. Still, I think Claudia and I would like one another now, I liked her letter very much, I suspect we would connect. Time is unforgiving, you cannot take your life back.

Claudia said she started reading my books because she was a sucker for dog literature, “but the slowly unspooled revelations about your early life have taught me how wrong I have sometimes been to judge bright, hard-working, remote-seeming people as somehow disengaged from the human condition.” Ironic, I have learned the same thing. I was, in fact, disengaged from the human condition, swimming in an endlessly flowing stream of anger and panic.

Much of my work in life in recent years has been to re-engage with the human condition, to find life, to find love, to communicate with my family, to make sure I don’t see past people like this letter-writer, clearly someone I wish I had gotten to know. I would not, I think, make that mistake now. And I have learned to be very careful about judging, compassion is empathy, we are all human beings trying to make our way in the world.

Still, I will admit  it is hard to see these mirrors of me, I am not angry, but  I sometimes feel great sorrow at so many years wasted and lost, the friends I will never know. Claudia is right, compassion is about empathy, it is about withholding judgment,  standing in another’s shoes, even when those shoes are running away. Nobody has it easy, no one lives without struggle.

I suppose another of the many blessings of my blog is that people like Claudia can come across me and my blog and books and find a way to communicate with me, can re-connect over so much time and change. They take the time to write me, it means a lot. It does not alter the past but helps me to understand it and forgive myself for it. I did not, of course,  mean to be that kind of person, in my own mind, I only desperately sought peace of mind, I did not have any idea how to find it, I was seeking approval every minute of every day. I’m glad Claudia forgives me, I would like to forgive myself, I remember waking up much later in life, sobbing on a therapist’s sofa, saying over and over again, this is not the person I want to be, this is not who I am, I will not spend the rest of my life this way.

And I am not spending the rest of my life this way, wonderful people are coming into my life, I connect with them.

I am here to tell you that you cannot change the past, there is little productive to be gained in dwelling on it. You can definitely change the present, and the future too, if you wish. I can promise you that. Thanks for writing Claudia, for finally letting me get to know you, for writing this thoughtful and very loving letter on Christmas Day, I thank my Post Office Fox for that, it is my new repository for magical messages.

The sun came out this afternoon, cold and sun is better than dark and cold. The temperature never got above 2 degrees at the farm today, nothing melted, but color matters, it is much colder in other parts of the country and has been for awhile. I keep thinking of my first winter at Bedlam Farm, there was a series of – 20, even- 30 nights, I was not prepared, I did not have the right clothing or set-up to handle it well, I had to wrap  hose around my neck and haul it to the barn and then back into the basement to thaw, I was much into drama them, I have learned a bit, it was always a part of life here, but this kind of cold is becoming less frequent. I was glad to see the sun, our plow man is building up s good sized hill.

This kind of cold rearranges matter. The winds blow snow into the Pole Barn, they froze buckets and manure to the ground, which is so cold the animals don’t leave the Pole Barn unless they have to. The heated water bucket is just outside the barn, we put hay in the water buckets, sprinkle old hay on the ground so they can walk in something warmer than snow. My camera shutter froze outside this morning, a good sign it was time to get inside.

Flo – named after Florence Walrath, another determined woman, who lived in the farmhouse before us – is one of the most remarkable animals I have yet met in my life with animals. Maria says I am smitten by her, this is true, we definitely connect, but I am also fascinated by her. I’ve been living with cats – barn cats – for years, but Flo’s journey, her story is one of the most astonishing and fascinating to me. I don’t know if cats can plan Presidential campaigns, but any candidate for office would be wise to study her long and calculating travels from an abandoned cat living under the porch and in the woodshed and hiding from us, to the Queen of the farm.

As bitter winter storms rage around us amidst plunging temperatures and blowing drifts, Flo now watches them from her sheepskin rug atop a living room chair, or if the light is right, her cat stand by the window. She has faced a long hard march to get where she is, and I have never really seen anything quite like it, it has brought me deeper into the world of cats and more importantly, the amazing instincts and will of some animals.

Flo is about two or three years, according to the vet, she has been spayed and seems easy around people, my guess is she was abandoned near the farmhouse, that’s the vets idea also. There was another old barn cat living behind the barn, but he vanished after we came with the donkeys.

Flo’s first task was to get our attention, she spent nearly a year hiding in the woodshed, we found her nest, Maria brought bedding and blankets there but we never saw her. Perhaps she was unnerved by the dogs. One day, during a storm last winter, she appeared outside Maria’s window – a smart move, she got fed and began to show herself. I’m not sure how she survived in the months before Maria saw here.

Her next challenge was me. I have never permitted cats in the house, I believe barn cats belong outside and can care for themselves. We always give them shots, make sure they are neutered and spayed, give them kibble when the weather is rough, but I have never really felt close to a cat. Flo changed this, she would sit next to me while I stacked wood in the shed, appearing out of nowhere, giving me the eye. I began to pick her up and scratch her. When I saw outside to meditate or sit with Maria, she would hop up onto my chair, circle around me, never a pest, just a presence. If I was not interested, she’d go away. I noticed her big green eyes.

She often spent the night on the back porch, but showed no signs of wanting to come in. But by now I was worrying about her, bringing her food in the shed, sitting on the porch while she crawled into my lap. Flo is a reserved cat, she is affectionate but not slobbery, she has her own life.

When Minnie came into the house after her amputation, Flo seemed to notice that and sat on the porch looking in. When the bad weather hit, I just picked her up one freezing night. Her campaign inside of the house was just as careful as her one outside. She terrorized the dogs, one by one, found two or three high perches from which to rule. When I sit and read, or take a nap, she appears and curls up in my lap and goes to sleep. She is soft and warm and quiet. I never let her in my study, she never comes in, I never interact with her while I am eating, she never comes near me while I am eating.

She is the monarch of the house now, parading past the wide-eyed Frieda, hissing at anybody who gets too close. Poor Lenore is afraid to go near her. She has even stopped smacking Minnie around. The minds of cats are quite amazing, I will enjoy trying to figure all of this out.

I can’t figure out quite how she did it, or how I let her do it, but every time I see her so comfortable and dry in the bitter cold or whirling snow, I feel good. I think of all of the storms she weathered out in the woodshed, and I marvel at her patient and smart campaign to get where she wanted to be.

I knew the night was going to be different when I saw that the water bottle I keep by my bed was beginning to freeze, the infrared heater in the bedroom wasn’t making a dent in the wind and sub-zero temperatures hammering our upstairs bedroom, which has no storm windows and little insulation. We abandoned our bed and went downstairs to sleep with two wood stoves, two barn cats, three dogs.

Strange but cozy. The farmers around here all say, as I do, that this kind of cold feels different there is something deep and raw about it, I remember my encounters with arctic systems well – I have some frostbitten fingers and toes to show for it – I have learned to take them seriously.

Life with Maria is an art festival that never stops. She is always an eclectic dresser but her farm chore outfits are a wonder to me. Sometimes she does them in pink boots and her wedding dress, sometimes she mixes and matches, as she did today, layering up for the bitter cold – a big nightshirt, boots, two or three scarves, her beloved green hoodie and various vests and blouses. Not the typical garb of the farm wife heading for the barn in winter. I love her outfits, there is something timeless and out of place about them, she is an artist every second of her life, it took her awhile to get there, but that is really the garb she never takes off.

We had a planning meeting, astonishingly rare for us. I know in -15 degree weather with high winds and drifting snow we only have 10 to 15 minutes before the exposed skin starts to freeze, my fingers start throbbing three steps out of the door. Our plan: Maria goes to her car and warms up the engine (mine is in the shop, the mechanism that moves it up and down froze and broke, hopefully the car will come back today.) We are stuck with her little car, a Toyota Yarus, a lawn mower with a windshield,  I call it a toilet bowl with wheels. Last night, we braved the storm to head out into town for dinner with our friends Jack and Kim Macmillian.

I told Jack we are getting to be true upstate people doing a dumb thing like that, there was nobody on the roads. We tried for a neat bar called the Bog, but were tossed out, they were closing due to the weather, like sane people. We made it to Salvano’s, an Italian restaurant on Main Street, which wanted to close but took pity and served us, and  where we had some wonderful homemade chicken soup. I asked Jack and Kim to follow us in the toilet bowl to make sure we got home, Maria got a bit defensive about it.

When we get outside this morning,  I haul the water bucket from the bathroom (frozen faucets outside) to the pasture. Maria goes into the barn where we meet, I bring hay to the sheep feeder, she takes it out to the donkeys. Red comes into the barn to keep the sheep at bay, and in their corner. People keep suggesting I get cleats, I have about a half-dozen pairs of them, they are profoundly useless in a barn or a pasture or deep woods or  anywhere there is deep snow, mud, hay and manure.

Wordlessly, we move on. I get the rake and shovel the manure into a pile, Maria gets a big shovel, scoops it up and scatters it outside. I have to say we are quite a team, we work rhythmically together. My fingers are screaming now, I see that Red is dancing up and down a bit on the snow, the first time I’ve seen that, it is so cold. Maria goes and turns off the car, I shovel around the back door a bit, we call it quits, 14 minutes. I make hot oatmeal for breakfast. We will make some additional short runs. My utility e-mailed me and urged people my age to stay indoors and call neighbors for help. Nuts to you, I e-mailed back, who asked you to tell me what chores I can or can’t do?

Maria keeps saying I should stay inside, I point out that she is just a runt, the water bucket is half as big as she is, we can do it together. She sometimes takes an exception to this approach, tells me to go inside. I tell her the same thing I tell the utility company.

I see the marketers at the Weather Channel have named this storm Hercules, another goofy name,  but I am seeing what is different about climate change this week – giant storms, rolling all across the country, heavy snow in bitter cold, warm air  traveling over cold, which is unusual, wild fluctuations in temperature. It seems most of the country is into heavy weather much of the time, the Midwest is a lot colder than Upstate New York this week. You can’t bitch about cold weather in upstate New York, what could anyone expect?

It looks like we got about 10 inches of snow all together over the last day or so, big drifts from blowing wind, -15 tonight. I think we will be sleeping downstairs again, on the sofas, by the wood stove. The animals are all right, the chickens are huddled together in their coop, the donkeys are irritable and restless, the sheep twitchy and also restless. Here’s my boundary, my approach: I can keep them alive, I can keep them healthy. I can’t always keep them warm and comfortable.

I wonder what Maria will wear for the afternoon chores.