26 February

Restoration Rumbles, Cont: A “pukey” Green?

by Jon Katz
A "pukey" green
A “pukey” green

We went, as predicted to the hardware store, Maria said if we got the paint today for the living room walls, she could get started early, when I went off to teach my writing class. The staff at Ace Hardware knows the drill, Red has seen this so many times he went to sleep, just looking over his should a few times at the biscuit jar by the cash register.

As we looked at the paint, Maria wavered. It looks “pukey,” she said, “does it look “pukey” to you?,” she asked. I mumbled inaudibly. “I’m not sure what “pukey” looks like,” I answered. But by that time, she seemed okay with it.

We took a gallon home. Maria spent some time staring at the living room walls, muttering to herself tonight. I hope it doesn’t look pukey.

26 February

The Fiber Chair As Artistic Mystery

by Jon Katz
Fiber Chair As Mystery
Fiber Chair As Mystery

The fiber chair is a mystery and a riddle. It has secrets, but no one knows what they are.

Maria doesn’t know why she began working on it.

She doesn’t know when she will be finished.

She doesn’t know what she will do with it when it is done.

She doesn’t know if she will sell it.

She works on it almost every day,

but she doesn’t have any plan for it.

She doesn’t know if she will used different colors of baling wire.

Art sometimes occurs for its own sake, and cannot be explained.

Eventually, it reveals itself, and it’s secrets become evident and

understood.

Once upon a time, this would have confused me.

Now, it makes perfect sense.

26 February

Strong Women: Kelly At The Bog. Can Women Save The World?

by Jon Katz
Strong Women
Strong Women

I have this fantasy sometimes that strong women, sensing the earth at a crossroads, will rise up, seize control and save us.

I have this idea that women, in their own way, are much stronger than men, and are beginning to sense their power. I look at politics and commerce and the state of the earth and the people in jails, and the people who hurt other people, and I imagine a world without men, it would perhaps be closer to God’s idea of what humanity ought to be.

Not perfect, not without travail, but still, not on the edge of extinction, either.

I understand that a world without men would not have wars, would not need many courts or prisons, would not have CEO’s intent on conquest and the ravaging of the world for profit. They would love and nurture Mother Earth, not insult her with denial and immoral technologies.

I understand that women are not all saints, are not all perfect, have their own particular issues and their own kind of violence, I have seen both and experienced both. But I can’t shake the idea that strong women are rising up and coming to save the world from the horrific mess men have made of it, in Washington and all over the globe.

Women seem less angry to me, less focused on conquest and domination, less cruel. More tolerant of differences. I do not fear them so much. Strong women seek to break the corporate barriers that dominate our culture, but I hope they don’t break these barriers, I hope they tear them down and build some new ones.

The old narratives seem spend and bankrupt, filled with rage and hopelessness. We need a new way of thinking about work, money, politics. Men don’t seem to be offering any.

Women are more likely to find friends, to listen, to negotiate, to empathize, to seek solutions, to avoid conflict. I think men have simply not evolved yet to the modern world, they are still primed to fight and acquire, they seem to me to be unraveling the principles of the country and despoiling the world.

So my idea is that women are rising to save us, and I will be ready to applaud and support them. This may be a fantasy, or maybe a prophesy, we’ll have to see. Some women seem to mimic the worst traits of men, others are challenging us to look at the world in a different way.

Men seemed ill-suited for change, for the things the world needs.

I love taking photos of Kelly at the Bog, a waitress, bartender, mother. She has the most radiant smile. Like all strong women, she is happy to pose, and to look the camera in the eye and smile for it and dare the photographer to take any photo  he wishes. She doesn’t check the mirror, straighten her hair, present a good side. Her smile reflects her comfort with herself, the hallmark of the strong woman.

26 February

Speaking Sorrowfully Of Dogs

by Jon Katz
Dogs And Grief
Dogs And Grief

Working on a book about animal grieving a few years ago, I was struck by the sorrowful language people often use when talking about dogs who die. On my Facebook Page this morning, someone wrote about their dogs, saying “no matter how long our dogs live, it is never long enough.”

But wait, I thought, that isn’t true for me. If dogs lived as long as we did, or forever, we would only know one or two in our lives, they would no longer live the lives of dogs, but of humans.

Facebook and other social media pages are filled with mourning and grief, photos and memories of dogs who have died, some years ago. “Sandy, we miss you every day and think of you all the time, we will never stop missing you.” There are countless messages of grief and sorrow all over the Internet and the language of grief when it comes to dogs is almost unrelentingly sorrowful and regretful.

In seems in our world we can only think of death in this one way, as something of great pain and loss, not something tied with life itself.

I often look at these messages and feel detached from them. Perhaps something is wrong with me, perhaps something is missing in me. But I don’t think so. I have plenty of issues, but I love my dogs very much and often think of the ones I have lost – Orson, Izzy, Lenore, Frieda. I had a dream about Lenore the other day.

But I think the difference in my view is that I do not ever think, speak or write sorrowfully about my dogs.

I always smile when I think of them, and feel gratitude for their time with me. They are a joy, not a sorrow, and I will not turn them into a misery because they die. That seems selfish to me, it is about me, not them. I don’t wish to die and cross any multi-colored bridge to see a whole flock of border collies waiting for me to throw balls and find work for them for all eternity. I wish for them to find peace and freedom, not celestial bondage to me.

I do not think dogs ought to live forever, part of their magic and mystery is that they do not live as long as we do, or suffer and decline nearly as much when they go.  And when they die, we can get another, something we can’t do with people.

The animal world in nature would not tolerate such pointless pain and wastefulness as that we inflict on human beings in America as they grow old.

A friend posted a long blog post last year about her German Shorthair, whom she adored, and it was all about how hard it was to put him down, how much she missed him, how devastated she and her husband was by her loss. She said nothing of all the fun, all of the love, all of the companionship had had brought her, there were no happy memories. In remembering him, she seemed to have lost or set aside the joy of having a dog, it was drowned in a sea of sorrow.

I asked her why she had never mentioned all the good days, she said she never thought of it.

For me, having a dog is about joy and love and connection.  They make me a better human, they make me smile, they draw me into life not sorrow. I do not mourn the death of my dogs or ever speak sorrowfully about them, not because there is anything wrong with that – not for me to say – but because I rarely, if ever, feel that way about them. I think speaking sorrowfully about dogs is a habit, not always a genuine emotion for me. I never wanted to get into it.

I don’t speak poorly of my life or of my work, there are enough others happy to do that. Dogs are a gift, and I am grateful for everyone. It seems selfish to me to wish them to stay with me forever, they are spirits, they come when they are needed, they leave when they choose, I am not God, it is not all up to me.

And I do not care to see them live as long as people, to grow as old, to suffer as much, to be as costly and mired. I see them as freer spirits than that, angels who come and go, who touch one soul, then go and touch another.

Love is a gift also. I am grateful for every minute of that. Grief is an individual thing, we each feel it and process it in our own way. I am not writing to tell anyone else what to do, but to try to understand what I feel and why I see these rivers and grief and feel so apart from them. Perhaps I’m just a freak of nature, that has been suggested to me.

No matter how long my dogs are with me, that is enough, and I appreciate it and give thanks for it. And as soon as I can, I start thinking of how soon I can do it again.

26 February

The Bejosh Farm Journal Blog: Life Itself. The Death Of Ms. Uggie

by Jon Katz
The Bejosh Farm Journal
The Bejosh Farm Journal

Ed and Carol Gulley had to put down their 15-year-old spaniel, Ms Uggie this week. I was fortunate to take a photograph of Ed holding his old dog a week or so ago. Looking back at it this morning, I was shocked by its power.

In many ways, a farm is the greatest teacher about life and death, farmers live with both every day. The Gulleys are one week into their new blog the Bejosh Farm Journal, and they both say it has changed their lives and made them happy. Something inside both of them needed to come out, and it is.

I admire Ed for many reasons, one is his focus. They went out and bought a computer, a new Iphone and learned to use both. Our friend Deb Foster went to their farm and helped them set up their blog in just a few minutes.

Carol and Ed are both writing up a storm. They are doing everything good bloggers do, write well, write often, write honestly.

I told them when we first discussed a blog – neither of them knew what a blog was – that blogs are about many things, but one of the most important is the idea of giving voice. For the first time in the history of the world, anyone can raise their voice to the world, free their inner spirits and find their voice.

Voice is, I believe, essential to identity. In our modern world, media and messages are all in the hands of giant and greedy corporations, they are vampires in many ways, they feed off the conflict, hatred and misery of the world and profit from it. The more divided the world, the greater the arguments, the bigger the profits.

People like Ed Gulley – he has a lifetime of wisdom, thought and experience to share – had no way of doing it. Only the media was supposed to do it, and they have too often squandered away our trust and faith in them as they became corporatized profit centers. Farmers like Ed Gulley became voiceless, forgotten by the very society they feed.

Now, we have new tools, new ways of finding our voice, affirming our identity. We don’t need gatekeepers and big media. Tthe Gulleys have already shown a genius for telling their stories and writing in their own distinctive voices.

Carol Gulley imagined a conversation between her beloved goat Sadie and two young calves who will grow up to be oxen. it was creative and inventive and funny. Ed shares the shape and feel of his days on the farm, the chores, surprises, the animals, the weather, the dates on the calendar, his passion for passing gas, in words and deed.

Their blog is real, touching, funny. You can see it for yourself. It is the authentic voice of an American farm family, they are supposed to be extinct, but the Gulleys are very much alive. They have not yet written about the death of Ms Uggie, I imagine they are still learning how to share grief and reality and life and death, it is so common to them they don’t always see the value of it to others.

They will. They already have many loyal followers.

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