Day: May 8, 2016

I’m three months away from being a grandfather, and I’m thinking a lot about what it might mean for me and how I wish to do it. I am well aware that life takes its own course, and my own plans are meaningless in many ways. I don’t know how I will feel, or how it will work out precisely.

But I believe in thinking about things, and in a positive way. I don’t wish to alter my life and inject myself into the life of my daughter and her husband, they are happily married, engaged in work they love, and surrounded by friends to whom they are and should be more connected than to me.

To me, the best thing a parent can do is live their own life and let their children live theirs. She doesn’t need to be worrying about me at this point in her life.

But I am clear on what I wish to be as a grandfather. Mostly, I want to be  helpful. I love the baby stuff, I’m a whiz at changing diapers, I wake up at 3 a.m. anyway, and I love helping my daughter when I can. She will need it, obviously, this is her first child,  and I am thinking the farm may be a great place for her to get a way from New York City for a few ways once in awhile, get some rest and some help.

New York City is a rugged place to navigate with a newborn baby, my town and farm is simple place to navigate, she can get some rest and help 24 hours a day. I’d equip the place with crib, wipes, etc.

I have no trouble getting up in the middle of the night, bottle-feeding a baby and checking temperatures, changing diapers, cooing to a new born or taking long walks in the woods with a baby sling, walking in the pasture to show her the donkeys and sheep.

I’m not sure what role Maria will choose to play, that is up to her. But she is both loving and nurturing and always helpful. I imagine it is wonderful having a baby around for a few days, loving it and then sending mother and child back to New York refreshed and reinvigorated. I don’t care for a greater role than that.

This is something I can do, something the farm is well suited for, something I think my daughter will need, a way I can genuinely  be helpful without interfering or crossing boundaries. And I am very clear on the boundaries of this. I will love my granddaughter and help out in any way I am asked, I have no desire to dictate anything about the child’s care, from her name to her daily care. That is up to the parents.

I also do not wish to be in New York every day or every week or every month. My daughter and her husband will take beautiful care of this child, and they have their own good and full life, as I have mine. I don’t want a chunk of theirs, I imagine I will love this child and hopefully will be some kind of positive and loving presence in her life.

I have a friend to recently moved to Texas to be near his grandchildren when they are born in the next few years. He gave up work that he loved, and friends that were dear to him. I imagine he will be very happy in Texas, and i hope he is. But I don’t wish to give up my life, I have worked hard for it and it is precious to me, my life is here. My granddaughter will work it out in other ways.

But that is down the road. For now, I just aim to help, when and if asked, and however it is possible. I hope the farm will offer some respite and support when it is needed, I am eager and happy to do that. It would also be a great way for me to know this new person in my life.  For me, that is a great first step into being a grandfather of some meaning.

People talk with great intensity about the tsunami of emotion they feel as grandparents, how it is an overwhelming, even biological love. I am uncomfortable when I hear that, it seems a formula for neuroses and tension and smothering, I hope that is not what I feel. With people as with animals, you can love too much sometimes. But I’ll have to see. People laugh and way, “just wait,” but I have learned some hard lessons about the boundaries of life, and I mean to keep them. If I can’t, I will be honest about it.

My daughter knows what she is doing, she is smart, loving and wise.  Her life is balanced between work and love, just like Freud suggested. She has managed  her life well and much sooner than I did, she does not need advice from me, nor has she asked for any. That feels right to me.

She is much in love with her husband, they are together in all things, and I know how important that is. I  remember a famous pediatrician, a guest on the CBS Morning News when I was the executive producer, telling me the best mother is a happy mother.

Emma will do fine.

I saw this beautiful sunset today on the Green Mountains of Vermont, visible from our road and the back of our pasture. At first, I regretted not having my color digital camera to catch the fading sunlight on the hills and the beautiful and emotional sky. But I thought, let’s see if you can capture the soul of something in black and white, if you can grasp the power of the color on this country road at dusk after a stormy and windy day.

I plan to use color more than black and white, but I am struck by the idea that black and white sometimes evoke color so clearly that you can imagine it, which is powerful in and of itself. They say if you want to take a good photo, shoot in color, if you wish to capture the soul of something, try black and white.

One day I’d love to have a photo show, I’d call it Kelly Nolan’s smile. I wasn’t sure how Kelly and the blog would take my love of portraiture when I started, but she set the tone. “Sure,” she says, “go for it.” Her smile is a beautiful and natural and radiant thing.

I went up to the barn tonight with my black and white monochrome camera, and a woman was sitting in front of her. When I approached, she ducked, and I said “thanks for being so gracious about my photo-taking.”

“Oh, no problem,” Jon, “I read your blog every day and see the pictures of Kelly, we love her smile as well.”

Kelly is a strong woman, she does not pose of bow to the camera in any way, she is just herself. I live in my own loop, I think, I’m not aware that people see what I do and talk about it, but I meet people every day who see the Kelly photos and look for them.

This has become a weekly thing, this portrait of Kelly at work at the Bog (Foggy Notions). The photos are a celebration of smiles, graciousness, community and courtesy.

Smiles are connecting, and healing. Kelly works in a vortex, behind a bar in a crowded and popular restaurant, taking care of things by herself. She never loses the smile, and it is the most beautiful smile.

 

Once you get to know farmers, you see quickly that they are the world’s greatest animal lovers. It makes them (and me) a little crazy when the secret informers of the animal rights movement seek out farms to spy on and think they care more about the animals than the farmers do.

In truth, it ought to be the other way around. Farmers ought to go teach the secret informers how real animals live, and how to tell abuse from normal life. Ed is very fond of Mongo, the two of them snuggle and wrestle and rub foreheads. Mongo literally dances for joy when he sees Ed or Carol Gulley.

Farmers love their animals, but do not necessarily see them as pets. There is a great schism in America right now between people who have pets and people who have animals. More and more, the people who love animals are unable to distinguish between one and the other.

The farmer knows his animals better than almost anyone knows animals, and no farmer can make a good living by mistreating or starving animals. But they are not pets, and Ed and Carol know that some of the calves and other animals they breed and raise will have to go to market or the auction or to be sold to other farmers.

So Carol doesn’t get too close as they get older. Calves are investments for farmers, in a year or so it might be necessary to sell them for needed cash in a bad year or when milk prices drop. Mongo will stay at Bejosh Farm, but I have never seen greater animal lovers than farmers, who live with their animals, help birth them, see them every day and know them well and individually.

I love watching the Gulleys and seeing how they know and care for their animals. Farmers can teach every animal lover what it really means to love an animal, and how essential animals are to our survival and well-being on the earth.

Sadie, the much loved goat in residence at Bejosh Farm, loves to sit on a pile of hay outside of the cow barn. She has pulled a handkerchief out of my pocket several times and eaten it before I noticed, she has her own bed in the milking barn, she supervises the proceedings. She is a sweet creature, she loves Ed and Carol and almost every human being. She is not lucky in love, trying to entice the bulls on the farm to have sex. So far, nobody is buying it.