Ed Gulley had a good weekend as an artist who is coming out. He spoke at the Open House and sold the first four pieces in his art career. A lot of people loved his work which he calls “junk art.” Today he showed up with some baling wire that reminded him of the rabbit in the old cereal campaign, “Trix Are For Kids.” Ed thinks like that.
We all got to talking and we had an idea. At our Open House next year, we’ll team up with Bejosh Farm. We thought Ed could pair a cow milking demonstration with an art show at his Bejosh Farm. He said he could also make some good hamburgers, courtesy of one of his beef cows. Pasture fed and fresh.
Maria loved the idea, and so do I. I think Ed might consider bringing a couple of cows to Bedlam Farm and doing a demonstration there, and then after the Open House is over, people could go over to his farm. It is worth the trip, filled with cows, art, and all kinds of original sculptures.
The artist in Ed is coming out, Maria and I are both excited to see where his creative spark goes. It is on fire.
Last week, I wrote a piece about growing old, and I mentioned that many young people don’t believe that older people want to have sex or do have sex. And older people are too busy talking about their pills and health care to talk much about sex. The very idea is considered creepy to many people. I said I do want to have sex, as often as possible even though I rarely talk about it, since I grew up in Puritan New England where sex talk is discouraged, even punished. Today, the Gulleys came over to the farm to pick up the art work they didn’t sell at the Open House (there wasn’t much left) and Carol came out of her truck wagging her finger at me.
I thought I was in trouble.
Carol and Maria were having a great time, smirking and laughing and wagging their fingers at me.
“You,” Carol said, “you’ve caused me a lot of trouble writing what you did about sex.” Her husband Ed was laughing and smirking, Maria cracked up. I explained to the Gulleys that sex was absent from my life for a very long time before I met Maria. I was pretty closed up – very closed up. My farm was like a moat around my life, nobody much ever got to enter.
I kept telling Maria that I didn’t like to be touched much, I didn’t like massages or even foot rubs. This was a bit of conceit of mine, this idea that I didn’t wish to be touched. It wasn’t even true, I was just terrified of being touched, for all sorts of ugly and complex reasons. I missed being touched, my body and soul were hungry, love-starved.
When I started hanging out with Maria, it was made clear to me that she wasn’t about to get involved with anybody who didn’t wish to be touched, she had experienced some of that, and she wasn’t buying it again. I knew I had to do something different. I don’t remember much of this, but Maria says that one night I came into the Studio Barn at Bedlam Farm where she was working in the night, and we were both divorced then and beginning to recognize that something was happening between us – my daughter Emma spotted it instantly, pointing out all my treks to the barn carrying fresh popcorn, chocolate and tea.
Maria said I stunned her when I suddenly began talking suggestively – well, talking dirty – about what we might do if we got together. I remember being stunned, I have never uttered such thoughts aloud in my entire life. I don’t know where they came from, I remember thinking demons had gotten ahold of my tongue, I was sweating and near to fainting.
I have never had a good image of myself or my body, ever thought of myself as attractive, surely not sexy. I didn’t really know that sexual attraction is not really about the body – that is a biological thing. It is about the mind, heart and soul. Never give up on love. Never give up on sex.
I was, at the time, over 60 already and you just don’t think of people that age saying the things I was saying. I did notice that rather than slapping me or throwing me out of her studio, Maria had this strange and wicked kind of gleam in her eye, like, “oh, this is a good thing to hear, this is okay.”
I have no memory of what I said, but Maria says I went on for a good long while, and then blushing and looking pale, I fled. Whatever I said, it was the right thing to say. We got together soon after. And sex reentered my life, it is like riding a bike, not something you really ever forget how to do, even if you haven’t done it for awhile.
I explained all of this to the Gulleys, and then I blushed all over again, although they were both laughing out loud. You might notice that my wife does not ever mind this talk, she is beaming ear to ear in that photo above, I recognize that gleam, I first saw it that night in West Hebron. She looked just like she did that night in the Studio Barn. It is okay for me to talk about sex now, in fact, it is a good thing.
Carol’s comments about my blog post brought all of this back to me, and I thought it was something that was important to share, if for no other reason than that it was hard to do. And that older people need to hear it. They are not disgusting or shameful if they think of sex, they are alive and beautiful. And for me, talking about sex is not as hard to do as it once was. That is progress.
I didn’t tell Carol that I made a promise that night. I would never again live a life without sex, not at any age.
This morning, Maria took Chloe out for a walk in the front yard. Fate came along, she doesn’t seem to want to rest much after her surgery. Fate loves just about everything she does, and she was excited to go for a walk with Chloe, found some disgusting things to wolf down along the way. Chloe like the front yard grass.
Fate was busting a gut to get out the door and to the sheep – we have started every morning that way for months – and she was giving me the most piercing looks. Even Red was unusually restless, eager to get out there, as we always do first thing. This is a bad idea, I thought, I don’t want her busting any stitches, but why not bring her out to the pasture with Red, let’s see if her training holds and she will stay still?
I wouldn’t have been surprised if she pushed open a window, climbed out and dug a hole under the gate.
So against my better judgement, I went out and opened the gate and let her and Red walk through. “Walk up,” was the command, and I knew Red would follow it, and so did Fate, a bit to my surprise. But not so much. We have been working together for a long while, and she does listen to me, at least about some things.
We saw Maria, the sheep and Chloe out in the back pasture and we walked about 100 yards to the top of the hill. “Stand,” I said, giving the command we have been working on to stand still. They did. Maria brought the sheep all the way back to us, and I called them off, “that’ll do,” and both dogs turned and walked out of the pasture with me.
Fate was transformed, she settled, sat peacefully in the house resting all morning. I was right I think, although I wouldn’t recommend walking out into the pasture with a border collie 48 hours after being spayed. But you know what?, my training philosophy is this: give them a chance to succeed, not to fail. And with a good working dog who trusts you, that will work.
Fate does trust me, and I am learning to trust her. She needed to get out there, and yes, of course, she would have survived if she had not gone out there for a few days, but I took a dubious moment and it was transformed into something about trust and obedience and understanding. Now I know I can trust her to stand when I tell her to stand, that was a tough thing for her to do.
Fate and I are learning to talk to one another, as Red and I have learned to do.
Instead of being bottled up in a crate for days with a big cone around her head – I dislike those cones, she did something equally healing. She was reassured about who she was, and what she does. This is her identity.
Give them a chance to succeed. Give me a chance too. Fate looked but did not herd.
Fate was spayed – serious abdominal surgery – 48 hours ago, but nobody seems to have notified her. She spit up her pain pills soon after she got home, and demolished her soft cone in minutes, that was that. Recovery over. She rocketed out of her crate this morning, pushed open the back screen door and was digging a hole near the gate when I cornered her.
She has not bothered her stitches – she is too busy wreaking havoc in the house, flipping her toys up in the air, chasing after Red. I brought her into the pasture this morning with Red to keep her from driving me completely insane, but no running her herding. She lay still with Red watching the sheep, and then calmed down a bit when I took them both out.
One of the sweetest moments in the life of any border collie owner is when the vet says “I want you to keep the dog absolutely still for about 11 days, just a couple of leash walks for very short distances.” The border collie puppy owner can then laugh, which is nice after surgery. No way, I said, no way.
Fate is a gift, she cheers us and inspires us, she is not wasting a moment in recovery or feeling sorry for herself. If anything, she has more energy than before. I just took her to Battenkill Books where I had books to sign and she rushed up to everyone in sight, jumping up, quivering, eating garbage off the floor, trying to grab stuffed animals. The monster is back, she was groggy for about two hours.
The scolds and alarmists on Facebook are out in force, warning me that her stitches will burst, her internal organs will rupture, her stomach will swell on the fifth day, she is in grave danger from my cavalier attitude about things. She should not even be outside, I am told. Nuts to that. We are watching Fate closely, one of us is with her all day, I think she’ll get through it fine. I think she already has. I just hope she doesn’t get her paws on any power tools.
Fate will be back at work by the middle of next week, if not sooner, once the stitches come out. She is very much larger than life.
I was touched by one image this morning.
She started to chase Minnie outside, but Minnie wised up and yawned, and Fate, puzzled, lay down next to her. Peace at last.
