Day: February 16, 2015

The windowsill gallery, in the cold. – 25.

The old man went to the gym on the day of the great cold wave. It was 3 degrees at 3 in the afternoon, he scraped the ice and snow of of his car, called his dog, opened the car door for him, gathered his Iphone, his e-book reader,  a bottle of water, and some earphones. He went to get his camera bag, he put them all inside, including his camera. He had learned to always bring his camera, every time he didn’t, he regretted it.

He put a bottle of water on the side of the bag, and some lifesavers, in case he felt symptoms of low blood sugar – dizziness, sweating, disorientation. He walked carefully out the back door and through the giant snow drifts and mountains of snow and ice, he knew at least a half-dozen people who had fallen and broken wrists, legs, shoulders and arms.

He drove several miles to his gym, a co-op gym owned by the small number of members who volunteered to maintain the machines, turn the heater on, clean the building every day,  and keep the accounts.

He parked in the lot outside, and walked under the beautiful and giant icycles forming on the building rooftop.

The gym was dark empty when he came in. He punched in the special code, came into the mud room, took off his street shoes, put on the sneakers he keeps in the gym, switched the overhead lights on. The dog, always pleased to come along, knew what to do, he curled up by his favorite spot in the weight room. The dog already has many friends and admirers in the gym, he rarely stands up there, he sits in his spot and receives the visitors who wish to see him, allows himself to be petted. He ignores those people who don’t wish to see him.

Because of the many moving machines, the dog has to be quiet and still in the gym, he seems to have grasped this.

The dog, a therapy dog, is  a veteran of six months of cardiac rehab. He seems to know what is expected of him, the beeping of the machines and the clank-clank of the weights does not bother.

The old man does not always like to bring dogs to places, it is not necessary, but he likes bringing the dog to the gym, it has helped him get comfortable with the experience, feel at ease with it. Until recently, he had never set foot in a gym in his life, he always found the very idea of gyms strange, went by some and looked through the windows, people pumping away on big machines, listening to music, watching TV.  He imagined the noise and confusion and chaos of the gym, he always preferred walking and working on his farm.  He loved being active, gyms seemed forced and artificial.

As recently as the Spring, he said he would never join a gym.

When his heart failed him, and after the surgery,  he knew he had to change. He didn’t need the doctors to tell him, it was critical that he helped his heart stabilize and heal by strengthening it slowly and maintaining aerobic exercise, hard to get walking and carrying water and hay around.

The gym had to be a part of the change, especially in winter when the snow and cold made walking almost impossible.

The old man, in his way, accepted what he had to accept and went forward, he didn’t like to look back or think about these things too much. He hung up his jacket in one of the lockers, unsnapped is suspenders, took off his coat and sweater, unbuttoned his shirt. The room was dark, peaceful, the heat had been turned out, it was warm enough, even on a day where the temperature never got above 10 degrees.

It was not lonely in the gym, it was private, peaceful, comforting. Oddly, it felt like a church or a temple to him, he couldn’t say why.

A young woman came into the gym, she stopped to pet the dog, who lifted his head and wagged his tail, and talked to him.  The old man told her the dog’s name and left them to one another. She talked to the dog for a few minutes. She didn’t speak to the old man, she went to the rear of the gym to lift weights. The old man took out his e-book and sat on the bicycle, he biked for 30 minutes at level 10, he was surprised when the time was up, his legs felt strong, his heartbeat – shown on a monitor on the machine – was good and steady. He had exercised just about every single day since the surgery, and he could feel it in his body and his heart.

He put the e-book away and took out his cell phone and plugged in the earphones, selected Amy Winehouse and plugged in the phones. He wiped down the bicycle and then turned on the treadmill, he set it at level 12 for 30 minutes and set the speed low, at 3.0 The dog got up and went over to visit the young girl, she was happy to see him. Then he came back and curled up on the floor again.

For the old man, this is when the gym became spiritual, when there was music he loved in his ears, when his body slipped into a rhythm of movement, when it was quiet, the TV off, the dog sleeping right behind him, keeping watch over him, as usual. It was almost like being in a trance, like being tranquilized. His body was working, and hard, but it seemed detached from his mind, which was peaceful and very quiet.

After 30 minutes, he wiped down the treadmill and went over to an Eliptical step machine, he set it for 30 minutes at level 13, he went back to his book, a novel by Anne Tyler. He leaned the e-book up on the handlebar, he could read the pages and tap the right side of the book to move onto the next page, it became part of his workout.  How curious, he thought, this mix of things – exercise, books, music, things he liked doing together, they became a kind of quilt, the pieces fit together. Sometimes, when an album finished, or a chapter ended,  he just stared out the window and thought about things. He liked watching the howling wind blow up the light snow, which danced and swirled in the air.

It felt good to take care of his body, to not be afraid of it. The human mind was so odd, when one of the things you most fear happens, you are freed from it, liberated in a curious way. Okay, he thought, that is behind me, I can think about what is ahead of me, I don’t have to wonder.

When the old man got off the step machine – he couldn’t help but notice how much more slowly and tentatively he moved than the other people in the gym –  he stopped and looked around. How was it, he wondered, that something he had avoided all of his life felt so natural, fit so easily into his life. Wasn’t that the message, the point?  You take these stances and positions, settle in your ways, and then life comes along and blows you right into another dimension, another way of looking at the world.

Tomorrow, he had a sad task to perform. He dreaded it, even as he knew it was necessary.  He and the dog would go over to Vermont, to cardiac rehab, where they had learned how to get healthy again and restore his broken heart, and he would say goodbye. He had the gym now,  he had finished his rehab successfully, there was no point any longer in driving a half hour for it. They would be sad, and so would he, they would especially miss the dog, who had come to mean so much to the other patients and the nurses, Patty and Robin, who had watched over him so carefully, helped him so much.

They had all been good to him, taught him what to do, how to take care of his heart, how to be safe and strong.  They loved having the dog there, he meant so much to everyone there.

He had become very close to the nurses and many of the people, it would be hard to say goodbye. They had meant to much to him, they understood what had happened to him, what he was going through. He had learned to walk again in rehab, to breathe, to live with pain, to handle his medications, to exercise his heart and get it working again. He had learned to be confident about moving, about exercising, to learn what he could do and couldn’t do.

It was an important place, one of the most important places in an extraordinary year.

Life is a wheel, it turns and turns, and the old man was pleased that he was learning how to turn with it, rather than to resist and be thrown off and run over.  He turned off the step machine, wiped it down, walked to the dressing area of the gym, tucked his shirt in, put his street shoes on, snapped his suspenders back into place, put his sweater on – it was so cold outside – and zipped up his Carhart jacket. The dog followed him,  as always, walked alongside of him, he first said goodbye to his new girlfriend.

She said she would turn out the lights.

A chapter ends, a chapter begins, the old man never left the gym without shaking his head, he saw himself in the mirror, in front of the weight machines. Who was that guy, he wondered? Come on, dog, he said let’s go home.

Nothing happened at the gym, really, thought the old man when he got into the car, but so much had happened he could hardly absorb it.

In recent years, I’ve seen a period I call “The Rise Of The Nasties.” Anger, rage and cruelty have become an ingrained and growing part of our political and cultural and computer life – look at much of the Internet, our national political system, or all of cable news, each in their own way breeders of polarization, anger and nastiness.

Theologians tell us – Christianity in particular – that we don’t have to be either cynical, that is, nasty, in our dealings with the world, or stoic, turning away from the nasties. It is okay to dislike them and, whenever possible, torture or imprison them, take away their pets.

A former political writer, it is difficult for me to pay attention to political news any longer, there is no dialogue to speak of, the discourse there has become unrelentingly nasty, cynical and destructive. Even our political leaders are nasties. I have no desire to listen to the whining and ranting of the left and the right, and I gave up the poisonous cable news channels years ago, I never watch any of them.

I’ve been writing online for more than 30 years, it is a rare day I do not encounter nasty messages or messengers, although the great majority are quite nice. And here’s the thing, a decidedly non-spiritual confession: I hate nasty people, I viscerally and intensely dislike them. They pollute the very air we breathe, they poison real discourage and communication, they hide between computer screens and keyboards to make their tiny souls larger and more powerful.

I think I have found a good and fun and healthy way to deal with them.

There are many things to like and dislike on social media, one of my true joys in life is to ban the nasties on my Facebook page or other social media when they pop their ugly (they all have warts and sores on their heads) heads up there. It is fun in a strange sort of way, it reminds me swatting mosquitoes.  It used to happen a lot, it doesn’t happen much anymore.  I think there is something to this positive energy stuff, you get back what you put out.

The nasties taught me a great deal, they taught me to understand and see the anger inside of me, once I saw it clearly, I knew I didn’t want to have it inside of me, like a poisonous boil. Mostly, it has diminished or gone away. I think it is true that everything is a gift, if you learn to see it that way.

I make it a point not to go on Facebook more than once a day or so, it is just not how I wish to spend my time, nor do I have a lot of time to spend there. I’d rather be writing something or taking a photo or hanging out with Maria or the dogs.

I am bombarded by private messages I can’t read and personal messages I don’t care to read, stories of grief over dogs and cats, philosophical disagreements over my blog posts, joke videos that are rarely funny, links to raging political sites. Obsessive posting online is a disease, it obliterates boundaries, promotes stress and also is a great boon to the nasties, who can be nasty easily and from a safe distance. They need other nasties in order to live, they feed on nastiness. People who argue with nasty people will find their heads full of loud and chaotic noises soon enough.

When I see a nasty message, I get a sweet pleasure out of banning the poster.  It feels good, I am ridding the world of a kind of pestilence. I don’t argue or complain or warn, I just click on that “ban” button and they go away. What a miraculous thing that is. I grew up around nasty people, I saw the Internet nearly devoured by them, our democracy soiled by them, free speech stunted by them, and there is no question that social media is their playground, their natural home.

Each click of the “ban” button is sweet, a victory for civility and decency.

Social media promotes connection, but it also the great playground of the rude and idle.  The other day I wrote that I wasn’t going to wear a tie to my daughter’s wedding (she is fine with it) and was, of course, instantly assaulted with messages accusing me of selfishness and lack of love and empathy for her. I do not ever answer messages from people offering me advice or telling me what to do, (each time you ignore messages like that you become stronger and clearer in your own life, try it.)

But it doesn’t really matter. Most of the messages were obnoxious, but not really nasty. One was, a gentleman railing at me for not understanding how precious a wedding is to the woman (he didn’t mention the man) in it.  “What the hell is wrong with you?,” he thundered. I did not ask him why he thought I didn’t know that, having been married twice myself. But I didn’t, his tone was snarky, so I just banned him, and it was pleasurable, like smoking a cigarette used to be before I learned it was so dangerous.

I will simply never understand what gives people the idea that they have the right to tell other people what to do because they are on Facebook.  I am so glad poor Henry David Thoreau didn’t have Facebook when he went to Walden Pond, he would have been horrified at all of the warnings and alarms about food and animals and weather and thrown himself into the frozen pond the first day and drowned himself.  I’ve decided to go the opposite route, each nasty message will make me stronger.

I’ve gotten scores of messages this week pleading with me to put booties on Red and the donkeys, although only a couple were actually nasty, the others are perhaps unwelcome but understandable and tolerable.

One woman said I was cold and uncaring not to put space heaters in the barn, I can’t wait to pass that on to the other farmers I know.  I did not ban her, she meant well. Nasty people are a category unto themselves, banning should not be random or excessive or it will lose meaning.

But I can’t say enough about banning nasty people. A balm to the soul.  Nastiness, like anger, is a vibe, a kind of perverted connection. Look what has happened to our political system, the best-meaning people have no choice but to get nasty or be eaten alive. It won’t happen to me. I’m with the Christian theologists, if you respond to nasty people with nastiness, you will simply become one of them, it will eat you up. But you can respond, you don’t have to pretend not to notice.

I wish I could ban nasty people in real time and real life. Every time a politician said something nasty instead of honest or thoughtful, I would hit the “ban” button and send him or her off to Purgatory. Same with the digital nasties, one day there will be a kind of digital phaser button, you can just hit it and vaporize them. Think what a nicer place the earth will be.

I am pleased to learn that my dislike of the nasties will not interfere with my spiritual life, I just read this morning that the Dalai Lama has a wicked temper, he  says he has no patience for nasties and dissemblers. I feel much hope.

When Minnie lost her leg to some animal out near the barn, her life changed. The accident began the process of change, a feral outdoor kitten who had lived all of her life in a barn with chickens, Minnie came inside, where she spends cold and rainy and snowy days.

She is still a barn cat in many ways, she loves to go outside and hunt for mice, but she also loves to lie on the couch with Maria and sit by the fire on cold mornings. On wintry days, she likes to go in the basement where it is dark and shadowy, the barn cat part of her wants to be alone out of sight. This morning, she lay down next to Frieda – something she would never have done in her old life – and soaked up the heat of the fire. Minnie is a curious cat, smart and loving and quite odd. Recently, I think she has developed a more regal side, she was happy to pose for me this morning.