Day: July 6, 2016

An outlier is someone who stands apart from others of his or her group, as by differing beliefs, or religious practices.

In science, an outlier is an observation that lies an abnormal distance from other values. Synonyms for outliers are nonconformist, maverick, original, eccentric, dissident, dissenter, iconoclast.

In statistics, an outlier is an element of a data set.

In the broader sense, according to dictionary.com, an outlier is “something that lies outside the man body of the group that it is a part of, as a cow far from the rest of the herd, or a distant island belonging to a cluster of islands.”

You can perhaps see where I am going with this.

I have always been an outlier, this is a label I happily place on myself: The eccentric, the iconoclast,  the outsider, I am the cow far from the rest of the herd, and I belong to the tribe of outliers.

Some people hate me for this, some people flee from me for this, some people love me for it and keep me in their light. We connect with one another, we see into one another’s souls.

Since the police came last week to shoot the badly injured bear who crawled into our pasture to hide, I’ve been dreaming about him. Not every night, but several nights. And last night. He was, of course, an outlier himself, cut loose from his mother’s care, alone and wandering in dangerous territory to find his place in the world, running tragically into the human place in the world.

In the dream, this beautiful bear is walking down a path in the forest, and he sees me and keeps walking, and I see him, and keep walking. The sun cuts through the thick forest and lights upon his beautiful and shiny coat.

He is proud, strong, on his way to new territory, and he pays me no mind, other than to look at me and nod. We pass one another, and we are not afraid of one another, and then, he is gone.

Is this dream before he died, or after? I don’t know.

We don’t speak to one another. But I know there is a reason for this encounter.

Somehow, I had the feeling he came to  remind me to be human, to continue my search to learn how to be human. We all have our troubles, our challenges, our trials, this binds us together, even if we don’t know it. All of my life, I have run from people, and people have run from me.

Why would I feel this way? I can’t say.

I knew how to do many things, but I did not know how to be human. I had not seen it around me, I had no one to learn it from, I grew up trying not to drown in a river of anger, hatred and fear. I did not drown, I learned how to survive, even to prosper, but I did not learn how to be a human either.

I lived among people, but not with them, and I never knew the difference.

Today, I am celebrating the feeling that I am learning how to be a human. I see it in the friendships I am making, in the love I have with Maria, in the writing I am doing, in the pictures I am taking, in the way my heart is opening up to new experience and in the way people are reacting to me. They are not running away from me, I am not running a way from them.

This is a new experience, disturbing, challenging.

This week, an extraordinary experience.

I had to decide what to do about another outlier, someone who was throwing herself away out of shame and humiliation, who other people were  throwing away and judging. She had done something wrong, she knew it,  yet I knew her to be a good and gifted person. I could not bear the thought of throwing her away, or letting her throw herself away.

I offered my hand to her, and she took it. Then, many others offered their hands to her, and she took it. How to be a human.

It was a turning point, and it helped me to see myself in a new way because I saw her in a new way. She gave me and others the great gift of responding, or giving a new birth to herself, as I have given to myself. It is so easy to judge and condemn people, I have often done it in my life. It is so hard to shed righteousness and judgement, envy and anger. But I have been shedding it, it comes off me like the coat of a dog in the summer.

I’m not free to share the details of this experience, that is for  her to do if she wishes. She will not be thrown away or throw herself away.

I can and will share the remarkable experience of learning how to be a human and what it means, that is what I do.

And to discover the humanity that lives in so many people, perhaps in all of us, even if it is buried under layers of life. The outlier is often cast out of the ordinary world, he or she must find their back or perish alone. The outlier is forever seeking his or her place in the world, he lies an abnormal distance from the common values.

Suddenly, I am seeing things I never saw, feeling things I never felt. I am not running from people, I am running towards them, and they are running towards me. We met on our paths, just like me and the bear.  We stay together. Perhaps the bear was showing me how to walk on this path, how to stay on it.

Keep walking, straight and dignified and proud, right through the clouds of travail and joy.

It feels so good to be human, it is not like anything I have experienced before. I want to drink from this cup, and learn more from it, I believe is at the heart of life, it is the essence of spirituality and the beginning of wisdom. I’m not there yet, but like the bear, I can sniff it down the path.

I am not looking to be a saint, or a perfect man, or a noble one in any way. That is not what being human means to me.

The news from the other world has been a teacher for me this year, albeit it a disturbing one.  It teaches me what it means to be human. It teaches me every day who I do not wish to be.

Being human is not being a saint.

There is a kind of sweet joy and purity in being human, in not having only to be good or bad or happy or sad.

Being human is about being able to embrace all of those things, of being broken and whole, sometimes at the same time.

That, I think, is the song and the message of the outlier. Perhaps of the bear.

For the past several months, I’ve experienced what I thought were hives, welts and bumps on my body that itched relentlessly.

I thought – for no real reason – they were a side effect of the medications I have been taken since my open heart surgery, or perhaps the medicine treating my diabetes. I don’t know why I didn’t go see Karen Bruce, my nurse practitioner, I have sort of gotten into the habit of toughing these things out.

My pharmacist said she doubted they were a side affect, it seemed my body was rejecting something.

I am oddly healthy, low blood pressure, great blood sugar, low cholesterol, great heartrate and I like to go to doctor’s offices and pharmacies as infrequently as possible. So I just bought some cortisone cream and Benadryl cream and have been applying them. The itching and swelling made sleep difficult and kept me intensely uncomfortable.

Finally, I realized I was in over my head, and the anti-itch creams were not going to work, or not long enough, for sure.  The house was filling up with tubes. I was  not sleeping well. I was uncomfortable almost all of the time.

Today I went to see Karen, and she looked at me and smiled. “These are not hives,” she said, “and they are not insect bites. They are scabies.”

Scabies.

I’ve heard of scabies, read about them, they occur all over the world, especially virulent in poor and underdeveloped communities where people are crowded closely together. And also with people who walk in the woods or spend a lot of time around animals. Scabies are microscopic eight-legged parasites, said to be  highly infectious, that burrow into the skin and trigger a strong response from the human immune system, whose cells rush up to attack them, thus the awful itching.

Despite the idea that they are an affliction of the poor – and they are – they occur everywhere, to all kinds of people. Especially to people like me, who walk in the woods every day and hug donkeys, brush horses and sit around with dogs. Sometimes they are infectious, sometimes not. Maria, who has had a lot of contact with me daily, has not had them. Neither has Karen Bruce’s husband, who has gotten them a number of times.

Karen cracked up when she diagnosed me, so did the nurses. So did Maria when I told her. “I don’t know,” said Maria, “there’s something funny about a New York Times Bestselling author getting scabies, somehow I just don’t think of people like you getting them.”

Karen could hardly contain herself, and her laugh was infectious. I started laughing too, as did the staff of the health center. I imagine I am a ridiculous character in some ways.

And then I headed to the pharmacy to get medicated shampoo and body cream. We have to wash a lot of clothes and linens, I have showers to take, lotions to apply, more trips to the pharmacy.

Oh, and the best part? “They love cortisone!,” said Karen. “They eat it.” So I’ve been feeding the little buggers.

Tonight, a war on scabbies. Another lesson to be learned about getting help, taking care of myself. Karen didn’t  have to say it, but it evoked my long denial about my heart, gasping for air when I walked up the driveway and writing it off to ageing or asthma.

Once again, Karen to the rescue. She is great, a health care system all by herself that works. Once again, another bovine male gets a dose of mortality and reality. That’s probably why all the women were laughing, otherwise they might cry.

I have some work to do, but I greatly look forward to sleeping again and not feeling like a giant mosquito bite.

Ever since I have been taking pictures, I have been drawn to leaves, they are symbols of life for me in the way they appear, lush and perfect and then gradually begin to wear. A month after they appear, they show the first signs of life – sun, bugs, worms, some ageing. But against the sun streaking through the forest, they are quite beautiful, in the prime of their lives. There is beauty in small things.

Summer is flower time for us, the time of color and light. We have full gardens and hanging plants all over the farm. I loved taking this photo with the horse and a donkey hovering in the background, it makes the farm feel like a whole.

Every morning, Maria meets with Lulu and Fanny. She crouches down, and first one donkey, then the other, edge closer to her and lean in, as if they are all whispering to one another. They talk without words, a connection beyond understanding.  I love Maria, but more than that, I discover more and more every day what a remarkable person she is, how many gifts she possesses.

The can  talk to the imperious and independent donkeys, they share much with one another, she can repair a fence, make a quilt, curate an art show, put an air conditioner in, garden, patch a roof, read a book in a couple of days, open her heart to people and animals. She is astonishingly versatile and competent.  It’s odd, but I didn’t really know all of this when I married her, yet I saw it inside of her, as she saw so much inside of me.

I get a morning meeting too, like the donkeys, I relish it every day. Donkeys don’t just talk to anybody.