Day: August 11, 2014

The Pin Man sits in Times Square early in the morning, his legs are festooned with the pins he collects. What do you do with them?, I asked him. They are my art, he said.

I saw the most beautiful thing this afternoon. I went out to lunch with Maria and some friends at the Round House Cafe, I came back and, exhausted, fell asleep. I woke up about an hour later and there was no one in the house – no people, no dogs. Maria did not answer her cell phone. Our friend Lisa Dingle, who was visiting to help out and say hello, but she wasn’t there. I went outside, groggy and disoriented. Lenore was wandering around by the back porch, Red was at the pasture gate, lying down waiting for me, he was lying in a puddle of water from the overflowing animal water tank. I called out, there was no one around. I made my way into the pasture gate, Red leading the way, he led me to Maria and Lisa.

I heard laughter and rounded the corner and Lisa and Maria were talking, laughing, happy to be together, I loved the look on both of their faces, it made me so happy, I was lucky to catch it on camera, it was the face of friendship and connection. Lisa came bearing gifts – toilet paper, paper towels, peanut butter. She saved one of the best gifts for last.

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Lisa had shocked me a couple of hours earlier. She showed up, asked Maria and I to sit down and took out a bunch of envelopes, there were a score of them, they were Disney World cash cards for various amounts, together they added up to a vacation at Disney World, something I had dreamed of doing this year but had no expectations of doing.

After my open heart surgery, I wrote that Maria and I were tired, we were looking for some way to have a vacation, Lisa organized the very creative members of the Creative Group At Bedlam Farm, formerly the Open Group At Bedlam Farm, a community of encouragement (open for anyone to read and see), a community of hundreds of creatives of different kinds – artists, photographers, writers, quilters, weavers, drawers and designers – who share their work with one another and who have formed some of the most powerful friendships I have ever seen, online and off. So many of them contributed, sending what they could afford, for some it was a dollar bill, for others much more.

As I recovered from my surgery, and unknown to me, members of the groups were plotting secretly and enthusiastically, sending money to Lisa so that I could go with Maria to Disney World for a week this winter. There was enough money, I believe, for us to go for a week, fly there and back,  stay where we want, eat what we want, do what we want. I was shocked by this generous and thoughtful gift, thrown off balance. No one in my life had ever given me a gift like that, I had no context for it, Maria started crying and I was speechless. I did not know what to think.

I can think of nothing I have done to deserve a gift like this, I said I couldn’t accept it, I didn’t really even know how to accept it. But Lisa and the group members were way ahead of me, the money was all in purchased Disney cards, they could not be returned or given away.

And I wanted to accept it, so after some hemming and hawing, we did. So we are getting a vacation, a gift of friendship, we will go to Disney World in the early winter, when it is best not to be up here and best to be down there. I love Disney World, I have loved it for years, I am a hopeless romantic, I do see it as a place where dreams come true, a wonderful place to celebrate my new heart, my healing.

I don’t understand generosity like this, I will be awhile absorbing it and thinking about it and trying to make sense of it. The Creative Group is one of the most rewarding things I have ever been involved with, every day the members there share their creative sparks, their paintings and poems and blog posts and refrigerator art. It is a safe zone, no hostility is permitted, this has allowed trust to grow and friendships to deepen. The group has changed lives and altered perspectives, one of the best things I have been around, especially online.

Still, this is a part of recovery I suppose. I do not believe I deserve this, I do not believe I am worthy of it. Maybe I will be one day, these people are showing me how. I think the gift is about accepting love and generosity, bowing to connection, drinking in the cup of humanity that is what it truly means to be a human being. So, Jon Katz, you just had Open Heart Surgery. What are you doing now?

We are going to Disney World.

Our secret garden has become a beautiful, lush and colorful space. I can’t imagine that we have such a beautiful Dahlia garden, it is in full bloom.

When people tell me they want to understand what is at stake in the New York Carriage Horse Controversy, I suggest they go to Central Park and stand by the water fountain installed by the S.P.C.A. at the park entrance and watch the faces of children as the horses come by to drink. Here, every carriage horse driver stops and the horses take long deep drinks of the cold and fresh water.

The children are, to a one, mesmerized. The bold ones come closer, pat the big horses on the forehead, the shy and timid ones simply can’t take their eyes off of them, they look to their parents in disbelief. The lucky ones get to go in the carriages and take a ride.

It is a curious characteristic of this conflict that the people most affected by it – the horse owners, the drivers, the children, the lovers, the tourists, the animal lovers – are invisible in the debate, powerless. They are voiceless, never spoken to, heard from, interviewed or considered. All around them, politicians and millionaires, ideologues and people who call themselves supporters of animal rights talk about the horses – what they want, what they need, how they feel. And they never seem to really know.

But no one ever asks the people closest to the animals what they want, what they need, how they feel. In this kind of twisted democratic process you have to have money to be heard by or talk to the mayor or the members of the City Council who will soon vote on whether or not to ban the horses.

If you asked the children, the tourists, the lovers, the drivers, you would not hear that the horses are abused. Or that they do not belong in New York. Or that they are a dangerous menace to poor and hapless tourists. Or that they are sad or that their lungs are turning black from exhaust fumes or that they are starving, overworked and mistreated.

You would hear a very different story, you can see it in their faces, their wide eyes, their enchantment. The horses are big, beautiful, strong, gentle, at home in on the paths and bridges of a vast park that was built for them. In our world, you either feel the magic of the horses or you don’t. You will either see the horses as piteous creatures in need of rescue or as something more, something much bigger. The people who feel the magic – the kids, the Irish drivers, the lovers who come from all over the world to hug and kiss in the carriages – don’t seem to count in this debate, nobody seems to care what they think or ever asks them. The people who get to talk the most about the horses are the angry ones, there is no crisis and mystery in their voices or tales, only rage and cruelty.

And what of these children? What if the horses are banned? What do the children mean? How much do they count for? The imagination of a child is raw, open, pure, innocent. The sight of a horse can plant a radioactive seed, a powerful memory, an image that can alter a life.

If you stand by the park and wait for the children, their story will touch your heart, their eyes will say what they are not allowed to say or do not yet have words to say. If the horses are banned from the city, so much of the magic and mystery of life will disappear with them, the children will never see them again, never get to stand by the fountain, look into the horse’s eyes, touch them, rub their coats, look up at their parents in wonder. If they are lucky, the drivers will hand them a carrot – almost all of the drivers have carrots – and the children’s lives will change forever. They will pass through a portal to the natural world, the mystical world of the horses, who have been around children for thousands of years and seem to know how to be gentle around them.

No carriage horse has ever harmed a children in 150 years of pulling carriages through the park. It is impossible to know just how much light has been brought into the hearts and imaginations of children in that time.  It is not possible to be know what will be lost if the children of the future come to stand and look instead at vintage electric cars. So many adults have talked to me and messaged me about the first time they saw a carriage horse, what it meant to them, an ecstatic memory in a fragmented and disconnected world.

Just as we must speak for the animals in the world who cannot speak for themselves, so we must speak for the children, who also depend on us. We owe them their imaginations, we owe them magic and mystery, we owe them the presence of things that will open their eyes and hearts to the true nature and promise and history of the world.

If the mayor succeeds in his determined campaign to banish the horses from New York, that light will go out for countless children from all over the world. No one has ever messaged me about the ride they took in a vintage car through a great park when they were young.

 

Minnie is a barn cat again, an outdoor cat who has adjust to having three legs, has safe places to hide in, good spots to sun herself. She will come inside again in the winter, I am relieved and pleased that she was able to return to her old life, it makes me feel good about agreeing to have her leg amputated. She calm, affectionate, at home again in her life.

Cats are controversial these days, like horses and other things involving animals. Many groups are pushing for it to be illegal for cats to be left outside at all – more invasive animal policing in my mind. I believe the barn cats are a remarkable kind of animal, I am happy Minnie is able to return to the life she was meant to live and wishes to live. Animals do not live in a perfect no-kill world, not mice, birds or barn cats, horses or human beings. I am pleased to give her her life. Minnie is always welcome to come inside the house when she wants, it is increasingly rare as her wound has healed and she has adjusted to her new life. Animals do get a say in the partnership that is our life with them.