Day: October 6, 2015

Sometimes people disappoint me, sometimes I disappoint people. I am deeply touched by what it means to be a human, and what I learn every single day about myself.  Will I always be a work in progress? Yes, I hope so. If I ever think otherwise, my spiritual journey for peace and meaning and identity will be cold and over.

I have come so far, I have so much farther to go. My life is new, I am reborn. My life began six or seven years ago, it was necessary for me to give rebirth to myself in order to survive, and to finally live. There are all kinds of ways to die, many are sadder than the final passing.

Being reborn is a transformative spiritual and emotional experience. My life changed in an instant, almost nothing about it remained the same. In the past five years, very little of my life has changed. That is new.

The idea for an Open House was shocking to my friends and colleagues, especially in publishing. It was unheard of for an author, especially a New York Times Bestselling author, to open up his home to readers and other people, it was considered dangerous, and my editor at the time thought it an awful precedent that would lead to my life being overrun by people, some of whom I might not wish to be around.

“If you open that door, can you ever close it?,” he asked. He is no longer my editor, but I did e-mail him today, and said we were on the eve of another Open House, our fifth or sixth, I honestly don’t remember. I can’t count how many people have come to visit us, how many new people have come into our lives. People from everywhere, they come to meet us, hug us, wish us well, take a look at the lives we share for themselves.

“You were right about one thing,” I e-mailed  my former editor, “once you open the door, you can never close it.  But you were wrong about the people, they are just people really, and so many of them are just open and sweet and very nice to know. The Open Houses are about opening up, sharing our lives and very much about people.

Maria loved the idea and I had someone to share it with. We initially saw it as a kind of art show of encouragement, a chance to showcase the works of artists. It is still that, but it has evolved into something quite different. We moved, it changed to fit our new life. It draws large crowds, but over two days, it stays intimate, close, comfortable. We never want to lose that. It is exhausting for me, still strange and different to meet so many strangers, shake so many hands, get so many hugs. Maria stays with the art, explaining it, mothering it, selling it. I kid her that this week, she is all curator, making decisions, arranging things, using her special eye to fit everything together. Boss Curator, I call her, do not mess with her this week.

I get that blazing Sicilian stare, it freezes the blood.

There is Mary Kellogg, coming this weekend to read from yet another dazzling book of poetry, she is plowing through her 80’s like a tractor through a cornfield. Gracious and inspiring.  And Tyler, we are watching him grow up. He is a friend, a helper, we invited him to bring his girl friend Sunday, Maria was much impressed when he told us she was an athlete, like him, she can run faster than he can. Maria thought it was especially nice that he was pleased about that, some 14-year-old men, she said, might not be.

Tyler got a concussion a couple of weeks ago, he is being sidelined. He is eager to play again against the team that injured him. Take it slow, we urged. He said he might invite his girlfriend on Sunday, we would like to meet her. There are all kinds of people traveling here from the Creative Group at Bedlam Farm, some of them have become good friends. I think we will need them this weekend. From Oklahoma, Canada, California.

Pamela from Blue Star is coming with two giant draft horses, so is Mithra, my young and very spiritual friend who has built a magical garden at Blue Star farm this summer. I bought  copy of Pope Francis’s new encyclical  on climate change for him, he and the Pope are brothers in many ways. Hopefully, we will make time to talk and walk, share some readings. Mithra has the gift of spirituality and generosity, rare in our world. Deb Foster will be here to manage the pony and donkey tours, Ed Gulley will be here to sell his  “junk art.” Kate Rantilla will read from her new book of poetry,  Kate is coming to tell us of her mystical pigs, the weekend is bursting with creativity and good energy.

Nancy from Tulsa, a dog writer and rescuer, I have a feeling she and Fate will know one another, two very determined and energetic women who do not care to be told what to do. On Friday, a creativity conference at Bedlam Farm, 50 people signed up, all organized neatly by Lisa Dingle, who will be here also, maybe helping us get the sheep shorn when our shearer, Jim McRae arrives.

Sunday, our farrier and friend Ken Norman is coming to trim the hooves of Chloe, Lulu and Fanny. I think we need a bigger farm again. (Just kidding.)

And a lot of new faces it seems, the innkeepers around here tell us they are all filled up. People coming to Bedlam. It is curious to be a person who lives in a place people want to come and see. I don’t quite know what to make of it.

People are coming to see, to heal, to enter our lives for a brief time and help us continue our hunger for community. Maria and I have offered wondered where we belong in our lives, we belong right here, with these people. That’s home. I am humbled that people want to see it, it is both affirming and meaningful to us.

People thank me for sharing our lives, but in truth, I really ought to thank them.  They give our lives meaning. I often disappoint people, and people sometimes disappoint me. That is the nature of being a human, I think. We are such imperfect, distracted and incomplete  creatures. I never feel that at the Open House. I always want to do more, it is always enough. I trust it now.

Maria is as happy as she ever is, curating her show, working morning and night to arrange the work of the artists, set prices, put everything where it ought to be, and in balance with everything else. Fate and I and Red and working daily to polish up to put on some demonstrations of the work we do. Red works almost effortlessly, Fate and I remind me of Olympic wannabes, we have been out there every day, several times a day, for months with the sheep, in heat, rain, chill and bugs.

I wonder sometimes what the sheep make of us, plodding around as we do, bothering them every day,  an older man walking somewhat more slowly at times than he once did, careful not to step in the groundhog holes,  a rocket-propelled border collie covering more ground in a second that I can do in minutes.

I know who I am. I am living in my skin. I am proud of it, and liking it there. I wish I could back to the five-year-old boy I was so long ago and tell him that this would happen. He would be very happy. I will try and explain the sheep-herding thing to him, I think he would not believe it.

“Let’s get ready,” I tell Fate in the morning, as we practice for the Open House, “let’s be sure to walk in our own skin.” Or run. A kind of miracle to have so many good and interesting people walking with us.

Good news, Jim McRae, our sheep shearer from Vermont, is coming by Saturday morning, around the time of the Open House on Saturday (ll a.m. to 4 p.m.). We’ll have to figure out the logistics, as Maria will be in her studio selling art, but it would be a neat thing for many people to see, especially those who don’t live around here, where it happens quite a bit.

McRae is a master shearer, and also a well-known border collie trainer, he loves working with Red, let’s see what he makes out of Fate. I think he met her in the Spring once. Shearing is an amazing thing to see, it is a precious craft, there are fewer and fewer people who do it.

It’s an amazing thing to see Jim handle the sheep so skillfully, and preserve their wool so Maria can take it to the mill and sell it as yarn. We are excited that some of the people coming to the Open House will get to see it. We’ll bring some people out into the pasture (I hope they don’t wear shoes they love) and they can get right close to the shearing. Red will keep things in order, I’m not sure if Fate is ready for this yet.

Rachel Barlow has a powerful dream: to live a creative life, to make her living as a writer, blogger and artist. She is doing it, she is just about there. She has worked so long and so hard, but she is living her dream, and in a most brilliant, admirable and inspiring way.

She lives in Vermont with her husband Chris, an actor and her two sons. Her work is being shown at this weekend’s Open House.

I’ve known Rachel for five years, she has been a student of mine for each of those years.

She took my blogging class, my writing class (twice,) she is taking my short story class. I have never had a more open, committed,  or rewarding student.

Rachel has written openly and honestly about her struggles with depression and bi-polar disorder,  it has never stopped her. She goes her own way, makes up her own mind. But she is learning and listening every moment, and I find her one of the most gifted and inspiring creatives I have known, one of the most unusual students. Please visit her amazing website and see for yourself. Rachel gives the lie to the idea that we cannot live our lives and follow our bliss.

Ever day, she writes, she sketches, she makes funny magnets, she writes short stories and cartoons, she figures out the new technical challenges of selling one’s work online. She is always figuring out how to market her work, what to charge, what to write or sketch. In the cold and dark days, she gets depressed, she never quits, she never stops. She can’t, she says, I always tell her that’s how it’s obvious she is an artist. On those very few days when she can hardly get up in the morning, she keeps making her very touching, beautiful and sometimes hilarious art. Every day.

She never complains or whines or judges, as do so many people with fewer challenges. She just does her work. And works to make it better.

Rachel is always listening, learning, growing, evolving. She is a sweet and generous spirit, a loving mother and wife. She is always willing to help anyone, anytime. I am proud of her, she has come so far and is catching fire. This morning, she brought a van load of her magnets, sketches, cartoons and light water colors to Maria’s studio, her work will be on sale at the Open House this weekend. There is no one I am more excited about or happier to see in the studio than Rachel and her work, she will be here to talk about it.

Maria is very enthusiastic about Rachel’s work, she couldn’t stop talking about it this morning. I bought the top sketch above and put dibs on some buttons. I can’t take credit for Rachel’s evolution as an artist, but I am so proud to have taught her. When I first spoke with her, she had been battered by a series of writing workshops and classes that had convinced her she couldn’t make it. She doesn’t need professors and fine arts programs to tell her what to do, she has figured that out.

Picasso said all children are born artists, the problem is how to remain artists once they grow up. I think you just have to do it and do it, to recognize that for some of us, it is simply not possible to not do it. Rachel is that kind of artist. Good for you, my friend. Please go and visit her website. And If you can, come see her Sunday. She is one of the most remarkable people you will ever get to meet.

When I see Red in his stance, I think of the word “resolve.” It means “determined to do something.” When you tell Red to go get the sheep, he goes and gets the sheep, you can take it to the bank.  He is the sweetest and most generous spirit, but when he goes to work, the rest of the world disappears. Red is nine now, he has a bit of arthritis, is a little stiff after herding the sheep sometimes.

If he is uncomfortable in any way, he never shows it and you would never know. The other word I think of when I look at Red is “stoic.”

I grew up in Providence, R.I. I’ve lived in New York City three different times, also Atlantic City, Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Dallas and Montclair, N.J., where we moved when Emma was born. In 2000, I bought a cabin up here to write “Running To The Mountain.” Dogs entered my life in a bigger way and I started writing about them and animal and moved upstate full-time and bought a farm in 2003 so I could exploring and study working dogs, learn how to herd sheep with border collies, have animals like donkeys and sheep and cows and learn about them.

I spent a lifetime in American cities, we moved to New Jersey  because we thought the schools would be good and the town affordable. It was a mistake, at least for me. I never belonged there. The minute I got to Washington County, N.Y., I knew I belonged here and I feel it still. I’ve been here long enough to have some very good and trusted friends, they mean a lot to me.

We moved to our current farm three years ago. We go out every morning to check on the animals, clean up the barn, fill the water tanks and lately I am working to train Fate in sheep-herding. It is going very well. We are planning to show off, Fate and I, this weekend at the Open House.

Sometimes I will look up, see a sight like this morning, Red and Chloe waiting at the top of the hill to go into the side pasture, Red to work, Chloe to graze, and I will have to blink. I’m a city boy,  really, I grew up in the gritty industrial part of New England, that which survives but have now been living on a farm for about 15 years. I should get used to seeing a beautiful border collie and a Haflinger-Welsh pony standing together looking down.

In a way, they are symbols of our life her, our passion for being creative, living creative lives and hopefully inspiring some others to do the same.

I found the sight stirring, it made me feel good about my life. I sometimes wonder where I am, how I got here. I don’t question it, I just give thanks for it.