Day: April 29, 2014

I used to be on the one side of life, now I am approaching the other. It is neither a good or bad place, it is both good and bad, it is just where I am. I am reminded all of the time where I am, and the one side of life is very different from the other.

– My health insurance provider keeps calling me up to ask personal questions about me – have I  had this test or that, do I need help getting to a doctor, can I reach all the way down and touch my toes? I tell them thanks, I am fine, I will contact them if I need them.

– Once in awhile, some person on the other side of life will ask me if I need help carrying a bag of feed to the car. On a recent trip to New York City, hauling my 90 lb camera bag around, a young woman stood up to offer me her seat. No thanks, I said, how nice, I don’t need it, not yet. She smiled and sat down.

– People sometimes ask me how my health is, and it seems a strange question to ask someone who is not a very close friend or a member of my family. I do not discuss my health with strangers, and I do not ask them about theirs, I quite often wonder is something wrong with me, or is this not their business? My health is good, it is not the conversational lodestone of my life. I cannot be around people who only want to talk about their health.

– People like to do what I call “old talk” with me, to joke about “our age” and “this point in life,” and about the dangers of buying green bananas and laugh at their knee replacements and tell stories about their doctors. I don’t do old talk, I know where I am, I am as old as my head is, and as young. They like to talk about the good old days, how school used to be, how well-behaved children used to be, before their texting and cellphones and games. I don’t do old days talk, the old days were not so good, they were just worse than the old days before them. We live where we live, in our own time and space.

I do not speak ill of my life, and I will love it, wherever I am.

– People talk to me of their losses, their lost dog, their lost cat, their lost mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers and friends. I am a hospice volunteer, I know what it means to be on the edge of life. I do not dwell on what I have lost or might lose, I choose to celebrate what I have. The Quakers taught me that when I ran to hide in their meetings so many years ago. I thank them for the greatest gift. I do not give other people my losses.

– I have learned that there are many people in the world who wish to give me their fear, their panic, their anger, their junk. I have learned not to take it from them, and not to give them mine.  Put it in the cup, I tell myself, I don’t have to take it. We all suffer, we all have sorrow and loss and pain and struggle. Nobody needs mine, I do not need anyone else’s. They call it a boundary, it is the foundation of a healthy spirit.

– Everywhere I look, there are stories, reports, testimonials, interviews, narratives and story lines that speak of pensions, retirement plans, IRA’s, wise savings accounts started decades ago, plans to retire, things to buy, places to move, mortgages to pay off, schemes to take it easy, go to that second home in the woods,  travel the country. It seems sometimes that everyone in the world has done this except me. It makes me feel strange, sometimes uneasy, as I don’t have these things or don’t want them (except for traveling the country in a trailer with Maria, I would love to do that). I feel guilty, embarrassed, strange. What is wrong with me? What is wrong with them?

Am I out of touch? Becoming a curmudgeon?  Retirement is unimaginable to me, taking it easy is beyond my comprehension. How is it that I ended up without these things, even as I know the answer: this is the choice I made, I would do it again in a heartbeat.

But here are the things I do have, the riches pouring into my life:

I like so many things about the one side of life, it has been so good to me. I am more honest than ever now, I cannot bear to be dishonest, or to be around people who are dishonest with me or themselves. If something or someone makes me uncomfortable, I say so, I talk to them, I have nothing to lose, I will not ever hide from my life again, live in fear and illusion,  or forget who I am. I have left the army of enablers, for better or worse, it is my life now, and I like it better.

I don’t judge people, have no quarrel with them, I will not argue with them,  I am just tired of dissembling  and denial, I have lived with those things inside of me all of my life, they nearly cost me my life, they are a cancer just as deadly as any, it just takes a little longer to kill your soul, then the rest.

I see that I am not of much value to the market-driven economy, how much time do I really have to buy a lot of expensive things, how many more books can I really write?  They are forgetting me, as if I am turning translucent. Maybe I am. My health insurance company loves me, government money will do that, but I don’t hear from too many of the others. I am no longer the prized demographic. That is a relief.

Acceptance is a gift. There are things I cannot do on the farm that I used to love doing, and often feel helpless not being able to do. But I know who I am, I know where I am, I accept my life. I have to think about what I pick up, how far I can take it, how long I can kneel down and bend over. My legs and knees are the voices in my ear, they remind me where I am.

And here is the most wonderful lesson: I am acutely aware that the very best things I have experienced in my life have come to me in the last few years, and I believe more will come to me in the next few.

I lived a loveless life, and have found love. To be loved is the greatest gift I have ever received, to love fully and with all of my heart is the next.

I have lived to see my daughter grow and flower, find herself and be recognized for her great gifts.

I have lived to take photos and open up my soul to the light and the world. I have freed the artist inside of me.

I think I have found the editor and the publishing house to take me from here, I have a bunch of good books left in me.

I have lived to work hard and establish my blog, my great work, my living memoir, the centerpiece of my creative life, the found of my individual expression, the most creative thing I have done.

I have lived a life with animals, writing about them, learning about them, coming to understand them. I have so much to say about this, so much to share, I look forward to it with great enthusiasm and excitement.

I am learning what it means to be a partner, to appreciate my life and my love every single hour of every single day.

I have lived to understand the meaning of friendship, to find friends, to be a friend, to love my friends. I have so many hopes and dreams for tomorrow.

So this is life, isn’t it, a potpourri, a mixed bag, the good and the bad, the river of change flowing through our lives, one stream that never dries. The one side of life is a time of some wisdom, some humor, some perspective. I am a teacher now, a mentor, an encourager. I see I had to wander first, I had to suffer first, I had to hurt things first. You have to live a lot of life to know anything about it.

I am in a good place.  I have no apologies to make and no regrets to share. I have done the best I could, I will do the best I can. Just like every one of you. The one side of life is not one thing, but many things, and I would not wish to be anywhere else in life, I know I had to be there to get here.

I seek a life in balance, a mix of work, spirituality, freedom. It is a difficult thing to have, life is always tilting out of balance. I seek a life free of argument and hostility, it is everywhere. I seek a life free of labels, they stunt the mind and separate us from one another. I seek a creative life, but not a life of isolation. I wish to understand the marketplace and come to an understanding with it.

I seek love in my life, and new experience. And friendship and connection – the desire, I believe, of every human being? This photograph is important, I see it is very much in balance, Red, the sheep, the barns, Lulu’s crossing, it suggests to me the symmetry I seek in my own life. What is it that I seek in life? What does it mean to me to be a human being?

Our world, every world perhaps, throws us off balance almost every day, as does life itself. The spiritual life is about knowing the center, finding it, returning to it. It is not about never having to find the center, but rather about how one does it.

Life intrudes. I am frightened sometimes. I am angry sometimes. Argument sometimes pursues me. Life is complex and challenging. Every day, I return to myself, I am always there, getting stronger and more certain and more honest every day.

I haven’t seen this before, but Red decided to herd the notoriously independent donkeys this morning, and they decided to be herded. Sometimes, the donkeys decide to enter into the spirit of things. Red didn’t seem faxed by it, he just did his usual outrun and escorted them from the back pasture to the front.

One of my great passions as a photographer is taking photos of the real farms of real people. Real farms are not like the ones  you see in galleries and calendars, or driving through many towns in Vermont. Real farms are stinky, smelly, crowded with junk, pallets, fading barn wood, boxes, rotting old hay, drums filled with mysterious liquids, silos and outbuildings. Nobody wants to buy photographs of real farms or put them on their wall, but they are quite beautiful if you get used to them, maybe because they are the most honest buildings in the world.

Some of the storefronts of Hoosick Falls – this one is the Health Mart downtown – are quite brave, they do the best they can. The buildings and beautiful old homes of Hoosick Falls speak of a different time, a bustling downtown with diners and department stores, garment shops and boutiques. The old homes are often quite grand.

This is the second in my series of photos, “The Storefronts Of Hoosick Falls,” a struggling mill and factory down to the South of me, a beautiful, rich and evocative place. Most of the storefronts are empty now.

The storefronts tell an important story about America, a country that perhaps had too much space and too much money, it leaves so many things behind, abandons so many others. The storefronts bear witness to a time, that was, perhaps they are calling us to a new time, another time to come. They are still there, waiting for us to notice them.