I call them the Queens, the farmhouse is filled with powerful women. Red and I are tolerated here, as long as we behave. Red always behaves, me not so much. But I haven’t been tossed out yet.
Maria and Fate and Flo the barn cat are tough and independent women, they are dominant spirits in the house. Tonight I looked up and saw Fate on her dog bed and Flo on her throne on the red chair, her favorite porch when she resides inside. These two are wary of one another, Flo terrorizes Fate with her hissing and swatting.
Above is the ghost of our small screen TV which we foolishly ordered two years ago, used once or twice, and last year we canceled the cable. We just don’t watch it, and we just don’t miss watching it either. I love the sight of two of the Queens in repose.
As many of you know, Maria and I declared bankruptcy last summer, we were swept up in several storms, from divorce to the recession to the collapse of the real estate market. It was painful and shocking to us, but we knew we had to face it squarely. As part of this trouble, we also faced the loss of our farmhouse, as this mortgage was tied to the other mortgage, the first Bedlam Farm, which we could not sell for four years.
Neither we nor anyone else imagined we couldn’t sell Bedlam Farm, even as we kept lowering the price, but the fates did not care what we imagined, they write their own story. For most of last year, we thought we would lose the old farmhouse we bought just three years ago. As it turned out, we were able to re-negotiate our mortgage, we had a bank that actually wanted to work with us, and we are keeping our home.
And we love it. We couldn’t afford to remain on the other farm, but beyond that, we wanted to live in a house we both choose, not one suffused with so much of my own life.
For most of the year, we held our breath. We didn’t dare work on the farmhouse.
I think we were bracing ourselves for having to leave it, and we both love it very much.
I love writing in the old parlor, Maria loves her old Schoolhouse studio, the animals have shelter, pasture and room to roam and graze. They are nearby and easy to observe and care for.
We love old farmhouses, but they are often plain and drab.
Farmers in the era when our home was built – the early 1800’s – did not have money for the expensive pigments that made colorful paints and wallpaper expensive. They used cheaper mixes of whites and reds for their barns. The interior of our home was drab and dark, although it had wonderful woodwork and big rooms with tall ceilings.
We were nearly broke when we moved in, we scraped wallpaper for months and opened up the windows, most of which were frozen and rotted shut. Maria is the artist in our home, the restorer, the restoration wizard, I came from a culture where other people were always hired to work on homes, I never painted or scraped anything before coming to this house.
Adversity can be a gift, it almost always is in one way or another, it forces us to look beyond suffering and pain. There is another side, the road back from bankruptcy will take some time, and is not always smooth. But it is challenging and liberating. Because we could only do work we can do ourselves, Maria stepped forward once we knew we were staying and began re-imagining our home.
Since we reached our agreement with the bank to keep our home and cleared most of our debts, we have begun bringing color and light and style to the farmhouse. I have to say this is almost entirely Maria’s doing, I would not have known how to start, let alone how to execute her dreams. I have done little more than go to the hardware store, paint a bit and cheer from the sidelines and share the experience.
Our little old ratty bathroom has been transformed, with bright new tiles, colors, fixtures and artwork. The only labor we paid for was bathroom tiles. It is a bright and cheerful room, I call it the Frieda Kahlo bathroom, she is an inspiration for Maria, and her colors are full-blooded and daring. It is fun to take a shower there, bright and warm and cheerful.
The kitchen, built in the Betty Crocker 1950’s, has a new tile floor and is about to be re-painted. Colors are under discussion. We have taken the paper off of the dining room walls and painted it yellow with a blue ceiling, and a mural from Maria still in progress. Last week, Maria painted one wall of the living room salmon pink and today, the other three walls a light green.
The house has been opened up, warmed up, brightened. Florence Walrath, who was well over 100 when she died, could not do much maintenance in her later years, the house had been closed up for years to save money and her energy. It was dark. It is opened up now.
We are rocking the farmhouse, it is a bright and cheerful place.
And ironically, it was the lack of money – the “financial fragility,” as one reader put it – that opened up this creative impulse in us and challenged us to do it ourselves. We didn’t have to wait years for our recovery, we just needed a few cans of paint, some scrapers and rollers. And Maria’s imagination and energy.
Creativity, it seems, is a powerful force.
The truth is, I mostly get in the way if I tried to help too much, she works efficiently and quickly and happily by herself. I respect that and accept it My gifts lie elsewhere. As always, there are many ways to support the team even if you aren’t on it. I love the bright and somewhat Latin feeling coming to this old farmhouse, an energetic and beautiful mix of the severe and the hot-blooded.
If the bathroom is a Frieda Kahlo bathroom, the house is becoming a Frieda Kahlo house. I hope one day we will have the money to do the more serious work the farmhouse needs – gutter work, new shutters, work on the roof. I believe we will get there, recovery is a process, it takes time. We are managing our money carefully and well, restoring our credit, planning as best we can.
But our bright and open farmhouse – we are scheming to open up the arch between the living and dining rooms – is in many ways the gift of adversity, the child of bankruptcy. We would never had done it this way if had a lot of money. And we love it all the more for this. The house is personal, a reflection of us.
I am blessed to live with a partner who has so much drive, skill courage and energy. Believe me, this would not have happened with me alone. But she does drink from the cup of encouragement, and I can at least offer that.
We all face adversity and challenge. I have learned to see beyond it, to the other side. Nobody ever accomplished anything by whining, self-pity or lament. Life is what you make of it every day, and if you don’t get to suffer defeat, you don’t get to experience the joy of victory.
From St. Paul, Minnesota, an important and thoughtful letter in my Post Office Box (P.O. Box 202, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816) for me from a man whose life was upended, and then restored. He sent a contribution to my blog, which was generous, and typed it carefully and neatly. It is rare to get a carefully typed letter any more.
It is his birthday this week. Six months ago, he became a discarded human being, let go after 30 years of work at the same non profit, he was told his staff was being assigned to a new manager and this position was no longer needed. He was urged not to take it personally, as if the loss of one’s life-time identity is not to be taken too seriously.
This very new idea, the tossing aside of a lifetime’s work so someone else can save money, is no longer confined to the corporations who invented it, it has become all too commonplace. It is becoming an expectation. It is always cruel, always a violation, always a kind of rape of the spirit.
There was a happy ending, he wrote. In a couple of months he found a new job with a former colleague. Although it is half of his former income, it is “energizing and even fun work.” Good words to read, I like this man already.
As a culture, we are forgetting what people are for and instead worshiping what profits are for. No wonder the people are so angry.
“The consistent presence of your story was helpful to me during that time,” he wrote. “Your confession of financial fragility has given me perspective. Lately I have felt your work has deepened – I especially noticed this with your Christmas posts and your discussions of masculinity, friendship and mortality/aging.”
I was struck by the tone of the letter, even, thoughtful, perceptive. I appreciate the idea of my work deepening, I think there is some truth to that. The subject matter of the blog has broadened, and as I navigate through life, it has deepened as well. What it means to be a man. What it means to be mortal. What it really means to find meaning in Christmas. What it means to live.
I have always believed a writer helps and touches others the most when he or she is authentic, is truthful about their lives.
In the letters to my P.O. Box, I am moved again and again by how many people have stuck with me these years as I have undergone my own hero journey, seen my own life upended and restored. This is the story of a life, and it is a beautiful thing to think of this thoughtful man reading my blog every night before he goes to sleep. It is the last thing he does before he goes to bed.
Godspeed to you, Mr. P. You have give me just as much, if not more comfort, as I have given you, and I thank you for the payment but more than that, for the time and care it took to send me that latter and share a bit of your life.
I have not been blessed with the support of a brother, but I feel like you and I are brothers in a sort, we are walking side by side, thousands of miles apart and forever out of sight. We are even having fun. Thanks for thinking of me and taking this trouble. It means the world to me.
___
You can write me c/p Jon Katz P.O. Box 205, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816.
As I predicted, Maria finished the first coat of the living room painting before I got back from my writing class. One of the walls is salmon pink, the other three have the first coat of a light green paint, we both like it but are not 100 per cent sure. We’ll have a better idea after the second coat, which is going on right now.
The new paint definitely brightens up the room and warms it up as well. We both think it will work.
Maria begins every morning with a hug for Minnie, who sits outside waiting for her.
The weekend agenda seems clear. I teach my writing class at Pompanuck Farm this morning at 10, Maria is launching her re-painting of the living room. Looks like a brightish green (she worries it is “pukey”) for three walls balanced against the salmon pink for the fourth wall. I’ll post some photos when I get home.
We have to go to the dump with the garbage.
My head is filled with ideas of community. Last night, farmers from the area gathered at the American Legion Hall to raise $23,000 for a dairy farmer injured in a tractor accident. At the Round House Cafe, there was standing room only for an Irish folk bank.
Community is alive. People do not forget each other. They want to share values and experiences. I imagine the painting will take up the better part of the movie, I have some writing here I want to do and some reading. It’s sunny and cool. I am always excited to go teach my class. Later.
