Day: October 16, 2014

I am very fond of the concrete head we bought in Provincetown, Mass., perhaps because it reminds me so much of what goes on inside of my head.  I look at the Mums sprouting up out of our head, and I think “that’s what my head feels like.” I have a sense of what some other people think about what goes on in my head, but I am really the one who has to live with it. Earlier this year, I struck up a friendship with a creative and interesting man I really liked, and I sensed after a few talks that he was uncomfortable with me.

I asked him about it, and we talked about it over a cup of coffee. He said I made him uncomfortable, I had a lot of strong ideas about things, and none of them were things he liked or were especially interested in. In fact, he said, I made him uncomfortable every single time we got together, he felt he wasn’t being heard. I was sorry, I felt badly for him – me, too – but we agreed that while we liked and respected one another, it was probably best that we not pursue our friendship too intensely. I told him that at a minimum, friends I make ought to like each other more.

I am making friends, new friends and good friends, and they seem to accept what’s inside of my head.  I have never had so many friends, and so many good ones. Scott Carrino has as many passions as I have and we love the fact that we are both crazy, our heads spinning around like the girl in The Exorcist. We are both always on the road to somewhere, we never quite seem to get there.

I suspect if I were tested, I would have enough learning disorders to fill a therapist’s calendar for months. I have never been able to learn math or long division or multiplication, I have no sense of any possession that I can’t see, when Maria moved in she was stunned to find many shoes, boots, jackets, shirts everywhere that I didn’t know I had. When I couldn’t see something, I forget it was there, I just ordered another one. Amazon owes much of it’s early success to me. Now, I don’t order anything without asking her.

My head is full of passions, memories, hopes and resentments, ideas and impulses, it is like a busy subway platform in New York City, trains and people rushing and thundering  everywhere. Maria has learned to interpret me, odd and random thoughts coming out of nowhere, and going nowhere much sometimes I am equally astonished by what comes out of my head, it seems to function independently of me. There are fireworks in my head, ideas I call my little angels, they are always sailing out into the world, some soar, some fall, some return, others are never seen again.

No one who knew me as a child thought I would ever live outside of an institution, let alone write books. I never did well in a single class in school, most of the teachers I had thought I was dumb or disturbed – one math teacher wept when told I was being held back for the third time –  and I didn’t make it through a single semester of college. I just didn’t go to class.

I was a problem child, then and now. I guess now I am a problem adult.

I am fortunate no one came and through a net on me for most of my life and locked me up. I might have gotten shock treatments or been put on mind-numbing medications. I think it was my crazy head that drove my heart crazy.

It is important for me to come to terms with my head, it is the only one I have and I spend a lot of time with it. It my only substantial resource. I’m lucky to find Maria, she isn’t put off by my head and the way it works, she thinks it is fascinating, “you have a wonderful head,” she told me, “I am always curious to see where it goes, you start one place, and go another, there are always new ideas coming out of it, I never know what you might say, but you always seem to bring it around and land somewhere.”

I have known a lot of people in my life who were not so generous about my head.

I’m glad she feels that way, her head is not really all that different but it more solidly put together than my head, I think. My head on the porch is a mirror of me, I think, he reminds me to love and accept the head I have.

What We Want

“In a poem

people want

something fancy.

but even more

they want something

inexplicable

made plain,

easy to swallow-

not unlike a suddenly

harmonic passage

in an otherwise

difficult and sometimes dissonant

symphony-

even if it is only

for the moment

of hearing it.”

 

Mary Oliver, Blue Horses

There is photographer’s light and there is writer’s light. Today, writer’s light, a day of heavy and continuous rain, I rode my stationary bike instead of walking, Maria and I went out to take care of the animals together, wading through the muck and manure. I went out to take some photos and Maria waited for me. In our relationship, we always respect creativity, we never get annoyed with one another for stopping to take a photo, make a sketch, look at the light.

When I headed back to the house I saw the photo I had been looking for, the one I take every morning to capture the feel of the day. It was my love, my life, waiting for me in her $8 imported (Thrift Store) French boots. She was holding a dish she uses to bring treats to the donkeys and sheep and chickens every morning – every morning.

Walking to the porch, I wondered, “can you love someone too much?” Sometimes, my heart just overflows with love, this is the light for me. I imagine you can love someone too much, and without reservation or boundary. We do have boundaries. This morning, she will vanish into her magical studio and me into my study and we will not see one another until much later, when we get to share the news of the day. We argue sometimes, get annoyed, see things differently.

I’m not sure what it means to love someone too much, but I don’t think it feels good or healthy. Maria always feels good to me, nourishing and uplifting. I hope she feels the same way, I think she does. A good love is not a perfect love, a good love, like a good spiritual life, is as much about handling problems as it is handling affection. We have traveled along road together, it feels as if our journey is just beginning.

I think we both have learned what to do when something feels unhealthy. Quite often, someone in a marriage will look at us and say pointedly, “oh, you’re just newlyweds, just wait a few years.”  I’m never sure what they mean by it, it sounds cynical to me, although I know what it is to be in a marriage for a long time. That can be a beautiful thing, I know many long-married couples who are happy and in love, who are an inspiration to me and to Maria.

I won’t speak ill of marriage anymore than I will speak ill of my work and my life. I don’t know if one can love someone too much, or if I do love someone too much. I am grateful to get the chance to wonder. Love is the point.

I’m holed up in my study, Red at my feet, Lenore on the couch, two candles going, the sound of rain off of the slate roof. The horses did not come to me this morning, I get a day off from the Twisted Ballet, I am itching to get to New York City and see them. I am basking in writer’s light.

Our Dahlias waited until the Open House was over, then they chose to leave us, they have begun to die. In a few weeks we will dig them up, sort them by color and height and put them in the cold storage room. It is a rainy day in Bedlam, I wanted to capture them as they left and thank them for the beauty and privacy and comfort they gave us all summer, after my surgery I sat for many hours in the Dahlia garden. We will expand it again next year, we want to have one of the most inspiring Dahlia gardens around.

I will miss them until Spring, but I am not sad to see them go. This is a part of life, and I am nothing but grateful for having them. In their honor, I will work all morning on my “Talking To Animals” book. I feel like they helped get me from there to here.