The clothesline gallery touches my spirit, it speaks to me of memory and the movement of life, especially on a windy day. We have all of these whirring machines to wash and dry out clothes, there is nothing more efficient than the wind, or fresher than the air. These clothes are the tapestry of our lives, they speak of the passage of life, and of it’s crisis and mystery.
Liam challenged Fate today, she was sitting inside the backyard fence on the edge of the pasture, he came over to her got right into her face. Fate, who weights about as much as a pineapple, stood up and walked right to the edge of the fence, and gave him the eye. Red started to move over to stand with her, but Liam backed off, he led the sheep on a run out of the pasture. I’ve already seen Fate give the eye to the barn cats and the chickens, now to Liam. We’ll see what happens. Two strong-willed rascals, my money is on Fate, she is a tough little dog.
Sunday will mark one week that Fate has been in our lives, we met her last Sunday at Karen Thompson’s farm in New Kent, Virginia, we brought her home on Tuesday. They say you don’t find a dog, the dog finds you, I’m not certain of that, I think we looked long and hard for Fate, and with Karen’s wonderful help and heart, we found her there. I do believe dogs are spirit animals, they mark the passages of our lives, they come at a particular time for a particular reason, and they find a way to leave when they are done
One week later, Maria and I looked at one another, and said almost at the same time that we needed this dog, she has filled our lives with love and laughter. The training of Fate has gone beautifully. She is reliably house-broken, is doing her “come” and “sit” well and continuously. She was a maniac for several days, a dervish, but she is visibly calming down, she has powerfully attached to Maria and to Red, and I have to say I am pretty crazy about her as well. She is my other girl.
Maria keeps telling me I have not smiled so much or laughed so hard in awhile. And I do love training, it is a passion of mine, and I am proud that my calming training is already having a pronounced and positive impact on this intense creature. It took Fate a couple of days to figure out that this is home, this morning, I surprised Maria by bringing Fate upstairs and lifting her up onto the bed. It was a joy to see these two burst into joy at the fight of one another, Fate crawled right up next to the pillow and wriggled with love.
This is a challenging time for us. We have fought long and hard to keep the first Bedlam Farm from going into foreclosure, and to do it, we have very nearly ruined ourselves. Bedlam Farm went on the market four years ago for $495,000 and it is now under contract for $230,000. I am happy it has been sold to good people who love it. But it is, of course, a bittersweet thing.
We will have some challenging days ahead of us to figure it all out, we may have to sacrifice much more. We spent all of our savings and then some preserving the farm and the idea of it. Neither of us regrets it, we knew what we were doing. The Bedlam Farm idea was worth preserving, and the farmhouse deserved to keep it’s dignity and structure intact.
But it has been a grinding and difficult process, and it may get worse before it gets better.
I told Maria this morning that I believe this is one of the reasons Fate has come to us. She is, like Red and Rose and Lenore and Orson, a spirit dog, she will mark this time for us, and become a magical helper herself.
Karen Thompson is a mystic and a spiritualist, one of those magical helpers Joseph Campbell writes about, and just as she knew to send Red to me, she knew to send Fate to us. Karen seems to know Maria even before she met her, she knew the right dog for us. Fate has already woven herself deeply into our lives, she has been to the hardware store, to meet Connie and Marilyn Brooks at Battenkill Books, to see Scott and the staff at the Round House Cafe.
We have broken through to her in a training sense, she is almost frighteningly smart, she loves Red and he is gentle and loving with her, the two are already nearly inseparable, although he does go off alone once in awhile to get some peace. Fate is with Maria all day in her studio, she lies quietly while Maria works, an astonishing thing for a border collie puppy not yet three months old. Anything is possible with this dog, she has entered into a sacred communion with us, lifted our spirits, reminded us of the power of our love for one another, and for the animals in our world.
I will celebrate with her the magic of the animals who work with people and join them in the partnership of life, good and bad. We are looking out for her, she is working out for us, fitting into the contours of our life and supporting it, as the spirit dogs do.
Four years ago, I agreed to teach a writing class at the Hubbard Hall Arts And Education Center in my town of Cambridge. I wasn’t sure about it, teaching writing well is not an easy thing to do, and I don’t believe it is done well in too many places. My first class was supposed to be four sessions, it went for two years. I’ve taught Art Of The Blog Twice, and Short Story Writing twice, and this class is wondrous and special a gift to me and to the world.
I have never taught a class as rich and deep and creative as this one, and I have had some wonderful classes. Every person in the class – there are 10 (five are not in the photo this holiday weekend) is working on a beautiful story, something rich and surprising and mysterious or poignant. Jim is writing in the voice of a dead man in the grave, Sandy is profiling a believed friend she knew in Africa who died of AIDS, Cheryl is writing in the voice of a discarded child in a school with no budget for helping her, Nan is writing about a troubled child’s deep love of her farm and of her search for stability, Rachel is exploring the power of family and connection, Karen, a nurse-practitioner, is writing the most powerful stories about medicine and miracles. Alex is a Puritan descendant whose ancestors tried to save the Salem Witches, she is struggling find her identity somewhere between the Puritan Ethic and the hard edges of American life.
I think this class – it was also supposed to be four sessions – will go on a long time, I hope so, I hope we can collect these wonderful stories and find a way to publish them in one volume, perhaps as an e-book.
The class is open, honest, funny, supportive and encouragement, not unlike the first class I taught, the one that went two happy years. Every week, I learn from this creative and courageous people, each one working to find their voice and share their stories. I don’t care to generalize, but I have always had the feeling that many writing classes end up telling people what they don’t do well rather than what they do. We all have stories to tell, the rest is technique and process. Red comes to every class (today they met the puppy too), and we read from one another’s work and then I talk about what might make the stories work better and the class joins in, their suggestions are helpful and cherished.
There is a teacher buried somewhere in me, I love doing it, the rewards for me are immense.
Our Irises were planted by Florence Walrath, the remarkable person who lives in our farmhouse for many years. I see it takes a couple of days for Irises to open, and when they do, the sun dances with them. It is the role of the artist to capture the light and beauty of the world and help people to understand both.
