In all of the years I’ve been writing, I’ve never had a lamp I really loved, a lamb that had character, that shone in the right place, that wasn’t too hot or too dim or too bright. I’ve been through a lot of lamps, every house I have lived in is littered with them. My office is a nest of old farm tables – the newest is 150 years old – candles – my desk is like the altar of a Catholic Church or Tibetan Temple, camdles burning all around me while I write.
Last week, Maria and I were browsing through an old second-hand shop in Brattlelboro, Vt., when I came across this lamp, it was a black old industrial desk lamp, a black lamp with a neck that moved, a curved black hood that cast the right amount of light in just the right place. “Oooh,” I said and before I could say anything else, Maria swooped it up and bought it for me as an anniversary present.
The wires were as old as the lamp and were coming apart. I called my friend Jack Macmillan who is able to fix just about anything that does not involve flying or climbing up a tree and he took it home. Two days later he brought it back, re-wired and safe and ready to go. I am very lucky to know Jack, he is the Godfather of Bedlam Farm.
The lamp cost $50, it was the cheapest lamp I have ever bought and it is the best, and there is a lesson there, for sure. I can not tell you how happy I am with it, how it has changed the whole feeling of my office, how it has inspired me to write in a joyful voice. When I got home from Vermont, I did something I have not done in two years, I cleaned off the three old farm tables that form one beautiful horseshoe desk for me – the wood was buried under papers, books, discs, magazines. I threw everything into two or three big bags, threw them into the garbage – I had ordered and read a score of books about horses, I was shocked to see – and made room for my lamp, I put the lamp right on my desk where I needed it to be.
I learn almost every day that good things happen when I am ready for them, not necessarily when I decide I want or need them. I have waited for my lamp for decades, it reminds me that the things I really want will find me when they – and I – are ready.
The hospice social workers call it “life review,” the point in a hospice patient’s evolving space a patient begins to review his or her life, to look back and sum it up, and see if there is any last thing or two they wish to see or do. Often, it’s connecting with a long-lost relative or friend, making piece with an enemy, smoothing over some hard feeling, many times I have been asked to find a long-lost relative, not heard from since some forgotten feud decades ago.
In hospice work, we volunteers learn to look for this review, it is a sign the end is near, and it is important to listen carefully, as it the last chance for this person to make peace with themselves.
As they near the edge of life, people get reflective, they review their lives and try and make sense of them, summarize them. I hear many regrets, and then resignation and acceptance. I think the people Red and I see who are dying are the freest and most authentic people I ever meet, they are truly in the throes of a liberation that is almost incomprehensible to the living.
The stories they tell me have affected me deeply, I listen carefully to them and often replay them in my head – their memories, regrets, proud accomplishments. This was never depressing for me, but inspiring and uplifting. For a story-teller, what could possibly be more compelling than stories told at the end of life from people with no reason to be anything but open and honest. I have had the warmest moments of friendship, laughter and love out there on the edge. It has changed me in so many ways and helped me to begin to see what it means to be a human being.
One of the lessons that I learned is to make peace with my life. I find myself reviewing my life. I had occasion – an important occasion – to review my life for someone today, to explain my move to the farm, my life there, my divorce, my breakdown, the collapse of publishing and the recession, the swirl of storms that engulfed me, the great and wonderful things that happened to me. How is it, he asked me, that you came to this happy and fortunate place after all of that suffering? I don’t know, I said, I will perhaps never know, but I think that is what is too for me to wake up and get where I needed to go.
I know that I have some things I need to do in my life. That are very important to me. And they can’t wait until the end.
I expect to live a good while, but not forever, I intend to face death, look it in the eye, figure out how to do it as best I can. I am beginning to be old, that wonderful twilight time of understanding, acceptance and limitations that the great thinkers – Marquez, Merton, Cheever, O’Connor – wrote about so skillfully and poignantly. It is haunting and sweet and humbling. What do I want to do with my time.
Well, for sure, I don’t mean to waste it on drama, regret, struggle stories, whining or lament about the great old days, the quirks of the young, the times that are changing too quickly. I have been thinking about the things left to me that need to be resolved. I think about my daughter, about the first Bedlam Farm, about getting my personal house – shattered by so many storms coming to close – in order. One day I imagine I will leave Maria behind and while she is strong and can quite easily care for herself, I don’t want to leave any messes behind or loose ends.
I want to leave the world as a complete and aware human being.
It has taken me so long to understand how to manage life, take responsibility and figure out who I am, I am determined to do it, it one of my great remaining goals, along with writing a dozen great books, taking Maria to Florence, taking a million great photos, publishing the best blog ever, getting to 100,000 likes, visiting Gee’s Bend, Alabama, spending a week at Disney World.
I realized this week that I have begun to review my life in earnest, sum it up, take care of my business, another step in the long and winding road to fulfillment and a life with meaning. I don’t know if this is the hospice work or getting older, I suppose it doesn’t really matter.
I had a dream about it the other night, I was lying down in bed, an old Red dog was lying at my feet, Maria was sitting in a chair reading, holding my hand. I was looking back on my life. I was at the edge of life, I had that look. I think I was a good husband and partner and lover to the end, I said, I think I learned how to be a good father, I think I took responsibility for my life, I wrote my best books at the end of my life, took my best photos, had the best friends and loved them. I hope I encouraged you every day of your life and never tore you down or made you feel small or ignored your voice. I hope I have thanked every day for the great joy you have brought to my life.
I smiled. And I even figured out what to do about handling money, didn’t I?
There was music in the background, a breeze coming through the window, the scene was on our farm, it was peaceful and bright and green, the curtains stirring in the wind in that magical way they seem to do in old farmhouses. Did I really do all of those things, my sweet love? Did I really figure out who I am?
In the dream, Maria took my hand and squeezed it. Yes, you did, you sweet man, yes you did all of those things. In the dream, I was smiling from ear to ear. And when I woke up, Maria was looking at me, and asking me why I looked so happy.
Jay Bridge got the tiles up in the bathroom today, it looks great, he does the best work. No more tiles falling down during the shower. Next we have to replace the bathroom wallpaper. No shower or bath today, perhaps none tomorrow. I get a root canal in the morning.
Borrowing from Waldo, I’m starting a new series, “Where’s Red? chronicling his travels, girlfriends, adventures around town. It started at the Stannard Farms Greenhouse on Route 22 just down the road from the farm, the greenhouse is hot and bright and stuffed with flowers. Maria was looking for something in the back, Red just dropped down in the aisle and wait. He looked like he was grown there. Then he went out to find Melissa by the cash register.
Maria has been sketching as long as I’ve known her, I saw her do it on the road while I was taking photos, on the book tours where she drove me, in hotel rooms and on quiet evenings. Six months ago, she decided to sell her sketches, and every one of them has sold the minute she put it up for sale.
They are simple, personal, intimate expressions of affirmation, voice and individuality. This week, for the first time, she had some notecard/sketches made up in packs of four, they are all signed and sell for $20 plus shipping. They are going on sale on her website, and Saturday and Sunday, at the Bedlam Farm Open House.
