Carol Gulley reports that Shivers is a Hellion – “full of the Dickens”, she says – recovering rapidly from freezing and starvation – he was abandoned in a storage barn, his sibling died next to him trying to stay warm. Today, he pulled a roll of toilet paper out of the bathroom and dragged it into the kitchen. He started swatting Carol’s cactus plants and knocked them and the watering can off the windowsill and onto the floor. He rushes from one part of the house to the other, tormenting the Aussies and trying to poke them in the nose and get them to play. They growl at him.
After all this, she says, he was exhausted and climbed up on the windowsill in the laundry room to sleep. At night, he likes to curl up in Ed’s long beard.
So this is what life is like, truly, and I can either be stunned by it or in awe of it. A few months ago – it seems like years ago – Simon helped me launched the book tour for my new book about him, “Saving Simon: How a Rescue Donkey Taught Me The Meaning Of Compassion.” Connie Brooks of Battenkill Books got hold of hundreds of these book bags and gave the to every person who bought the book at her store. Simon sold more than 1,100 books there.
Simon had a gleam in his eye when I asked him to pose with the book bags, he did have a sense of humor, as many donkeys do. He seemed to get things, and he loved human attention. Then, one Saturday morning, I looked out of the bedroom window and saw him standing oddly near the feeder while the other animals ate – I’d never seen him ignore food before.
His head was shaking, and the second I looked at him, I knew he was having a stroke. I messaged a video to our farrier Ken Norman and he cried the second he saw it. He knew also. Two hours later Simon was dead.
So that’s life in a nutshell, really. Light and dark, triumph and loss, connection and emptiness. The challenge lies in how I respond, not in how much I lament, mourn or complain. Every time I look at a photo of Simon I smile. He was a piece of work, I am grateful for every minute of our great ride together. I had always wanted to be one of those strange writers who hung out with donkeys, and Simon gave me the chance, too short a time, perhaps, but I’ll take it.
(Connie Brooks is still selling copies of “Saving Simon” and I am still signing and personalizing them (517 677-2515). We have run out of things to give away, I think, but the book and the story lives on, as it should. In a week or so I will be resuming the “Saving Simon” Orphans Book tour, going to libraries in the Northeast. I’ll keep you posted.)
This photograph was taken several weeks ago, it was the usual part of winter, there were two or three inches on the ground, it almost seems like Spring now, we are buried in deep snow, the farm is criss-crossed by paths. Others have it much worse than we do. I like this shot though, it speaks to the beauty of the winter pasture.
Flo spent many a storm on the other side of the window, she had a next high up in the wood shed where she curled up in rain and winter storms for two or three years, she showed herself to Maria in one awful storm, and that was the beginning of her journey to the other side of the window. Flo meditates during storms, she loves to watch the snow fall from her warm and dry perch.
I heard this morning that there are two more storms heading our way – the return of Pickles – and Maria was buzzing about a new quilt, so I went off to a corner of the living room with Red early in the morning and had the most beautiful meditation with Annie Lennox, Bob Dylan, Frank Sinatra, Red and me. I was thinking this winter would soon be over, I see it will not be over that soon.
I plugged my big earphones into my Iphone and listened to two Annie Lennox songs (I have a big crush on her, and yes I know) from her “Nostalgia” album, “I Put A Spell On You,” and “Summertime.” I wanted to dance with Maria, but she was off in her Studio, I didn’t want to bother her.
Then I went to Bob Dylan’s new album, “Shadows In The Night,” a collection of Frank Sinatra’s best love songs. I remember seeing Bob Dylan in Greenwich Village when I lived there as a young reporter and messed up kid, he was electric then, I knew I was seeing something extraordinary. The world has changed, him and me, he is 73 now, I am 67. He is still inspiring, he has this amazing drive, he keeps writing, singing, performing in his eccentric and individualistic way, his time in the world is coming to an end soon, he will be creating to the end.
I think we have this in common, he and I, we are driven to create, for better or worse, it is an integral part of our being. He is a genius, I am not, but I believe I will be creating to the end as well.
This new collection is beautiful, he brings so much emotion and feeling to these songs. I was never a Sinatra fan, but Dylan brings so much experience and emotion to them, the album is quite beautiful. I called Maria, and I said “we have to dance” to this song, and she said “ok” and came into the house.
Maria is always a sucker for a dance, or for music, or for love, and she came into the house and I put one earbud in her ear, one in mind, and we danced to this very beautiful song, sung so poignantly by this brilliant artist. The song filled me with warmth and hope and love.
“Some enchanted evening, when you find your true love, when you feel her call you across a crowded room, Then fly to her side, And make her your own, For all through your life you May Dream all alone.”
Dylan captured the sadness and power of the song, and of the power of love. All through my life I did dream alone, and when I found her, I flew to her side, and I made her my own. I do not dream alone any longer, and I thank Dylan for speaking to my heart in that way, for helping to remind me in this time of storms and cold, of what is truly important in life.
“Who can explain it? Who Can Tell You Why?”
It is so true of our time that the fools are always giving reasons, and the wise men know better and never try. Dylan is getting older, he is getting wiser. Wise men and women know that what they can’t explain and don’t know is so often more important than what they can explain and do know. In our world, the fools have been given the gift of Washington and of media blogs and cable news, and they give us reasons all day and they explain nothing.
The wise men do not go to Washington, they are not on cable news, they do not tell us why.
I understand as I begin to get old that I do not know, so much of life cannot be explained, cannot be known. That is the key to acceptance, to humility, to listening, to a spiritual life, I think. The older I get, the less I think I know, the fewer answers I think I have.
Answers are the currency of the arrogant and closed-minded. The smart people learn how to listen, not to talk. Listening to this song, it is clear that Bob Dylan knows that. It is a liberating thing for me, to never try, today I felt that it is making me free, and somehow, it opens the door to love. I think I will dance again tomorrow.
