Day: September 3, 2014

We are one month away from my next book, “Saving Simon: How A Rescue Donkey Taught Me The Meaning Of Compassion.” As always, the book will be offered for sale by Battenkill Books, my local bookstore. I will do a reading there, on publication date, October 7. Tomorrow, we are ordering 2,000 signed postcards with a photo of Simon and a signature by me to go to the first 2,000 people who pre-order or order a copy of the book through Battenkill Books, my local bookstore.  You can also call the store at 518 677-2515 or e-mail your order to [email protected].

You can support my work, of course, and also support a wonderful independent bookstore with a dedicated, professional and wonderful staff. People love dealing with them, they are incredibly nice and efficient. In addition to the postcards we will be giving away some potholders, free bags of dog food and some of my notecards. We have a limited number of these things to offer, every person who buys a book will not get a potholder or a notecard or bag of dog food, but they will get a signed postcards. These give-a-ways are now an essential part of marketing books, they work. I am happy to offer them.

The postcards – each showing a photo of Simon taken by me –  will be sent to buyers along with a signed and personalized book. “Saving Simon” recounts Simon’s rescue from a farm where he lay grievously ill, was nursed back to health and shared and shaped our adventures at Bedlam Farm, including the awful period where refused to accept Rocky, our blind pony, into his pack.

I will sign and personalize all copies of books purchased through Battenkill, they ship anywhere in the world and they take Paypal. This year, I am seeking to sell 2,000 books at Battenkill by Christmas, I am certain we will do it. Simon will be with me as I sign books at the farm and at Battenkill on Columbus Day Weekend, the weekend of the Second Bedlam Farm Open House (details on Maria’s website events page.)

Saturday morning I leave Bedlam Farm and head out to the ocean for five days of reading, rest and coming back down to earth. This is the first time I am leaving the farm since my open heart surgery on July l, I will be far from my doctors, my pharmacist, my cardiac rehab, my friends. It is a little frightening. In many ways, my life is beginning to return to normal, in many ways it has not. I am very much in recovery, I still experience sudden fatigue, issues with my heart pumping, adjustments to new medications. I  have not ventured from cell or easy driving reach from the vast community of doctors and nurses who have supported my recovery.

Saturday evening, I will be five or six hours away. I will need a small suitcase to pack my medical supplies – the pills, vitamins, insulin pens, balms, needles. I have a list of my doctors and their phone numbers, my pharmacist Bridget has given me her home telephone number, she and I went over my medications today, all my prescriptions are up to date and/or refilled. She even gave me some seasick medicine for the Whale Watch I expect to be taking. I might not need it.

I’ve gone over the things that might go wrong and the things I should and can do if they do go wrong. I need to rest on my vacation, but as importantly, I need to know that I can go on vacation and function. I have a strong back-up system in my nest, and I have not wandered far from it. It’s time.

For me, recovery is returning to normal life safely and persistently and gradually. Next week I will be on a normal vacation. I will walk miles every day, rest, read, talk, love and think. My rented wide angle lens should arrive tomorrow and photography will, as always be a huge part of my healing.

One of my nurses asked me to write down in order what was most important to my healing, my recovery. This is my list:

l. Maria.

2. Walking.

3. Patience.

4. Writing on my blog, including the Recovery Journal.

5. My photography.

6. Red and Simon, then Lenore.

7. Good health care, my nurse-practitioner Karen Bruce who watched over me with vigilance and patience (sometimes.)

8. My friends. Who called me, visited me, brought me food, walked with me, took me to lunch, told me every day that I was getting better, looking stronger.

9. Mandy Meyer-Hill, a massage therapist who has done energy work with me in my home every week. I have never rested more deeply and comfortably, I could feel the healing power of this work very clearly and strongly.

I’m sure the list could be longer, but that is a good start. I am excited, thrilled to be heading out of the next and into the world. Ultimately if things really go wrong, I have to dial 911, those are my instructions, and you can’t mess around with a healing heart.

If recovery is living a normal life, that is my intention. I understand that the days are gone when I could simply put a jacket, sweater and jeans in a bag and jump in the car. I have a big checklist of things to bring. But when I return from vacation, I will know for sure that I can fly.

I don’t know what took me so long, but I finally found a place to show and sell some of my photographs – George Forss’s Ginofor Gallery in Cambridge, N.Y. George is not only one of my closest friends, he is a famed photographer known all over the world for his brilliant work. George said he would be honored to show and sell my work in his gallery, it’s the perfect place for them.

George will choose three photos – he has discs filled with them – and print and frame them, then he will put them up for sale in the Ginofor Gallery, a place I love and visit regularly. George will decide how much to charge for them. You can check George out on his very eclectic blog. When one sells, he can replace it with another.

I love George and trust him and I love his aesthetic sense, he is a pure creative, through and through. Finally, a gallery I love to show my photos. I’m very excited about it. And three at a time is just the right scale. Maria will sell some photos from time to time, but I’m going to have fun with George and his funky, wonderful gallery.

Since my surgery, I am sleeping less, I am getting up early, to walk to work. It is an enchanting thing, the morning sky is full of emotion, of symbols, of meaning, in the early morning it is churning, changing, the sun pushing the night sky out of the way. This, I discover suddenly, is my time, to think, to work, to get excited over the opportunities life presents me every single day to grow, learn and change. This is my news.

I got up at 4 a.m. this morning with Red to work on my book “Talking To Animals.” Saturday, Maria and I head off to Cape Cod for a five-day vacation, I have to say we have never needed one more. I always have mixed feelings going away – I am leaving my computer home, you will have a respite from me, my life and thoughts for a few days, and I hope to read a dozen books, walk a hundred miles with Maria, take some good photos to share with you.

For the first time, I’m renting a lens for my camera, I’ve rented a 14 mm wide angle, a lens I don’t really need most of the time, but will be perfect for the sand dunes and oceanscapes of the Cape. A new way of thinking for me, instead of trying to buy a $2,300 lens, which I can’t afford, I can have one for two weeks for a fraction of that and send it back when I am done. Hmmm. We’ll see how this goes.

I’m bringing my camera and some books, not much else. Walking, loving, photos, eating, reading. My vacation plans, perhaps a whale watch, Maria would love to see a whale. I’ve bot a satchel full of pills and vials, I am a walking pharmacy for the next few months.

We do not worry about leaving the animals and neither Maria nor I has any need of taking dogs with us on vacation. Our friend and house-sitter Deb Foster will move into the farmhouse, the animals will be spoiled, cuddled, walked and cosseted for days, they do not seem to notice when we leave or are gone. The other day Deb showed up with a basket full of sliced apples (God forbid the animals would have to chew on a whole apple) and handed them out to the donkeys and sheep. Everybody got something.

Red nearly melts into the ground when Deb is around, and Frieda now lets Deb rub her belly, an absolute first for anyone but me and Mara. We do not think much about the animals when we are gone, we need a vacation from one another. I love writing on the blog, and I miss it when I am away, but I need a break from it, I need to gain some perspective, think about things, get some distance from my life.

I am reluctant this year to leave off writing about the carriage horses in New York, they and the drivers need some attention right now, but the campaign against them seems stalled once again as the mayor and his colleagues in the animal rights movement are hiring consultants, marketers and PR specialists and spending hundreds of thousands of dollars in a frantic campaign to get the City Council to ban the carriage trade. I am not a political insider in New York, but I have a sense this campaign isn’t working, if the mayor had the votes he would have introduced the ban.

Since it makes little sense and is almost completely unjustified, it is not really all that surprising that they are having trouble getting it through. I am all for the rights of animals, and have always been, but this movement in New York is not about that, it is about something else, something angry and disturbing, and New Yorkers are not buying it, according to a new poll which shows that there is no race, age, gender or ethnic group in the city that supports the carriage horse ban. I wonder how the mayor will rationalize ignoring that.

Perhaps this is wishful thinking, I don’t wish to abandon the horses or the people who drive their carriages.

Sometimes, the good guys really do win. We’ll see, it is far from over. I wonder if the horses will be talking to me on Cape Cod.

Maria and I cherish every second together, even more so this summer, when my heart was stopped and re-started. Definitely a perspective-altering experience. I have been working hard to recover, Maria has been working hard to help me recover. We hope to use this time to get our feet back on the earth. The plan is to bolt Saturday morning and return towards the end of next week.