I saw a video of the singer Demi Lovato this morning, she was explaining why she decided to pose nude for an article in Vanity Fair, no clothes, no make-up, no re-touching. It was important, she said, for her to live in her own skin.
I loved that statement, I thought about it all morning. This was an exciting day for me and a difficult one also. It began with a beautiful walk in the meadow with Maria and Red and Fate, who vanished into the meadow and had her secret life out there, and then came flying back to us, as she always does.
A new and beautiful ritual in our lives.
We had some visitors. Todd Mason, who built the farm’s sturdy fences, and his growing family stopped by to visit the farm and say hello and see Fate and Red do some work. Regina and Gramm, two artist friends came by to talk – more sheep herding – and for some tea. We had the nicest time with them, but it was also a kind of goodbye, they are going off to race around the world and go back to their New York City home for the winter, they love Cambridge, but not our winters.
There are people here who just can’t abide the winters, they love the town, but vanish from November to April. Lots are writers and artists, people who work online, they take their work back to the city and try to stay warm.
We went to say goodbye to the good people at the Moses Farm, who have fed us all winter, and are getting read to close, and have become our friends. We went to see Ed and Carol Gully and Maria chose some of Ed’s art pieces for the Open House. We had a great time all afternoon, we met their newest calf, talked to them for hours.
Then the painful part, the other part of life, the Internet once again intrudes in it’s difficult, sometimes angry and particular way.
There was a conflict on an online creative group I started. Politics is banned there, somebody wrote something I thought very political. It grew angrier and more disconnected, the dispute was about whether political pieces should be allowed, just what a political piece was, and also whether my writing about the carriage horses of New York was political in nature, thus hypocritical for me to publish there while stopping others.
In a few minutes, I could not remember what the argument was about, or who said what, or what meant. Nor could anyone seem to understand me. Why are we doing this in this way, I kept wondering? Why don’t we stop? We couldn’t, of course, not right away.
A couple of people ended up leaving the group – I kicked them out – some angry things were said, one person messaged me that I was too blunt and people thought my messages not gentle enough. Some harsh things were said about me, some by people I respected and thought of as friends. I said some angry things back. How easy it is for that to happen online, no matter how hard one works. It is especially difficult if you live in your own skin, and not in the skin of others, it will happen again and again. All you have to do is exist.
I can tell you that there are many people out there who do not like the idea of living in your own skin, especially if your own skin is willful or strange.
All day long I was with people (Maria, too) – at the vegetable stand, talking to farmers, fence builders, writers, academics, cafe owners, neighbors, we talked so easily. And so warmly.
I feel as if the world is sometimes a big pool of tar and quicksand, no matter how you want to get around it, you end up in it.
I often beg people who have conflicts with me – I plead with them – call me, talk to me on the phone, come see me, don’t send me angry messages over the air. You can’t see me that way, you can’t know me, I can’t see you, I can’t know you.
But more and more, these pleas are ignored, they won’t talk to me, they can’t or won’t do it, I think sometimes people no longer know how. They pull me into this ether of rage and confusion. They never seem to hear me say I don’t want to talk in this way, not if there is trouble or differences.
I hate it, I wonder if it isn’t eating up our country in so many different ways, I see it all over the news every time I look. I see it eats me up sometimes, it almost never enters my life in real time, with real people, face to face.
And so I thought as I walked away from this pointless conflict of this brave and admirable young singer, she is 23, she already knows what I am learning, how to live in her own skin. That is who I am, take me or leave me. I cherish the ability of the young to see life clearly, before they get so tired and jaded.
There is a lot that is wrong with me, a lot I have to learn, but I have also learned that the more authentic and honest I am, the more some people will resent it. How dare I reject advice I didn’t want? How dare I challenge people who are rude and unfeeling towards me? How dare I try and set boundaries around my life and my work?
No matter how hard I try, I cannot quite escape this lesson, I learn it again and again. It never happens with the people who know me and live with me and see me. Almost never. It often happens in the cold new world of remote messaging and communicating. There is something fundamentally unhealthy and disconnecting about it, something toxic and corrosive. Round and round we went this afternoon, everybody talking nobody listening, angrier and angrier, frustrated and confused.
A good therapist once taught me when people in a conversation keep wondering what was said and what it means, then it is not a good conversation, it is a good sign to stop and get out of it. You will get nowhere, and neither will they. You will be a dog chasing his tail, it never ends or can be resolved. Nothing but poison and frustration. This was the truth.
I experienced so much warmth from all the people I saw today, those who came to see me, to talk to me and Maria, to visit the farm. A score of people, at least. But the people out there, behind their screens, sending frantic messages through the ether, that was something else. And the curious thing, they are all good people, just like I try to be. I wonder if I will ever get used to it, I hope I never do.
So it was a good day, and it ended in a hurtful way for me. I imagine I hurt some others as well. Isn’t it always like that, I am so easily pulled into the dark spaces of the soul, to my hurtful and angry past?
A step backwards for my idea of being human, and then, this idea of living in one’s skin, a step forward. A reminder to live in one’s skin, a gift. Really, what else can one do? I am not perfect, far from it, living in my own skin has taken many years and lots of blood and sweat. I stand with Demi Lovato, it is about who one really is. Living in one’s skin iis worth posing nude for, and arguing form, and much more. It is worth fighting for in every way.
So I thank Ms. Lovato for her very inspirational nude photo shoot, and what it means. I thought that this is me, I am learning to live in my own my skin, I am speaking my truth, and I am comfortable with it. I am more comfortable with it every single day. I am sorry to those who do not like it, or are made uncomfortable with it. .
Living in one’s skin is a sacred thing, a monumental land post on the hero journey. If I am not easy with myself, no one will be easy with me. If I do not love myself, no one will love me.
My skin is not as soft or pretty as Demi Lovato’s. But it is my skin, and I will live with it.
