My portrait show will open to the public next Monday, September l2. The pictures are already on the walls of the Round House Cafe, which is closed this week. There will be a reception for the portrait subjects and their families and the public on September 18 at the Round House, 1 Washington Street, from 2 to 4 p.m.
I’m calling the show “Cambridge People: Those Who Stayed Behind, A Celebration Of Work And Community.”
In rural communities all over America, small towns and villages and cities have been left behind, they have seen jobs and community institutions vanish, condemned as inefficient by politicians and economists. Factories, small businesses, jobs and young people have left, many working in jobs they hate for people who care nothing for them.
In the country, many people still have callings, not jobs. Like Denny Yushak, whose meats are celebrated in homes and restaurants for many miles. He loves what he does. So do the people in the portrait show. Here, we still have callings. The carpenter, the massage therapist, the brushhogger, the bartender/waitress, the hair stylist, the pharmacist.
The portrait show is meant to honor the people who stayed. who followed their callings, good people who work very hard in very different ways to form the rich tapestry of community that remains here.
The phone rang just after lunch, it was Julie, a program director at a nearby assisted care facility . They heard I had a therapy dog and they would love it if he could come to their facility and do some dog therapy work. Many people in the facility missed their dogs.
This is familiar turf for Red and I, we have been to many nursing homes, veterans hospitals, assisted care units and dementia units. Red is skilled and experienced in this work, so am I. The call came one day after I decide to retire Red from active sheepherding. Another chapter for him, for me, and I will share the experience if i can.
The facility is looking for a dog who can visit regularly How timely.
This evening, I called Dr. Karen Thompson, the breeder and trainer and friend who sent me Red (and Fate). Karen is busy and checks into the blog every now and then, but she didn’t know the details. She knew Red got stomped by a horse.
There is no one on the earth I would rather talk to about getting a new dog than Karen. And it is clear now that we need a new dog, Red will not be able to actively work the sheep much longer, and Fate does not seem to be developing in that direction.
Karen and I had an honest and interesting discussion about Fate.
She said puppies are always a bit of an unknown, but she wondered if my letting Fate race around too much distracted her from developing her eye with the sheep. The sheep respected Red, she said, it was obvious from the videos, but they didn’t seem to respect Fate.
I’ve never had this issue come up before, but that doesn’t mean Karen is wrong. She knows her stuff. I appreciate her talking to me about it.
I said I appreciated the observation, the problem could well have been my fault. The herding instructors I invited to come to the farm seemed to think Fate didn’t have the eye, but both suggested working her in a smaller space so she couldn’t run so much but had to stand and develop her eye strength.
I told Karen Fate just never seemed interested in making eye contact with the sheep, even in closed quarters.
I’m going over that in my mind.
Fate is Maria’s dog now, and we never really meant for her to be a working dog, and she is happy and so are we, so Karen and I agreed that there is no point in looking back.
Karen suggested that we look for an experienced young herding dog who needs little training for basic sheepherding.
She said I am unlikely to ever find a dog like Red, and I know that. But there are many great dogs beneath his level. And we can find a dog whose skills are known. She said an adult dog would also be much easier for me physically, and that is a good point also. I could not nearly keep up with Fate.
We’ll see what happens. It could be in a week, a month, six months or years.
Karen seemed confident we could find a dog like that so that Red could retire, and Fate could live her life running around and hanging out with Maria. So it looks like I have another dog in my future, and it will be a border collie, my favorite breed of dogs.
Tomorrow, at ll a.m., we will visit this home and begin to expand Red’s therapy work, he loves to work and can do great good. You don’t have to chase sheep to be a busy and valuable border collie, though it does help. I got out his therapy tag, we are both eager to get to work.
Robin is ten days old, the pediatrician says she doing fine, she weighs 7 lbs, 0 ounces and she has a CEO-grade stare. I’m not sure if she is curious, ticked off, or just incredulous. The word is she sleeps very little ate night, eats heartily, is beginning to stare at the wider world. Em is not sleeping much.
I forgot how exhausting it is to have a baby, at least for a month or so.
Pearl, the devoted Lab, is already beginning to circle beneath her in the hope of anything dropping to the floor – anything.
This is the same look Robin gave me when I held her last week in New York. I took her to be saying “who the hell are you and why are you holding me?” She calmed down then and went to sleep. I think she likes posing for photos.
I have the feeling she will speak up for herself, as her mother did. Heh-heh. There is some justice in the world, even for fathers.
I don’t know when I will see Robin again, perhaps not for a few weeks, or even a couple of months. I have the portrait show and the Bedlam Farm Open House looming. Almost every grandparent I talk with says the same thing – if you don’t spend time with them when they are very young, it’s difficult to have an abiding relationship later. When they reach adolescence, they have other things on their mind that grandparents, and they never look back.
To some degree, this is true for parents as well.
I accept that, and I also accept that I am not likely to spend all that much time with Robin, she lives far away, I am busy almost all the time, and I imagine she will be busy all of the time, she lives in Brooklyn and they take parenting seriously there. So we will have to see. I have no idea what will happen, and neither does anyone else.
I will be grateful for our relationship, whatever it is, however deep it goes, and however long it lasts. I certainly enjoyed our hours together last week. I told a friend it really depends on me and Emma, how much trouble we go to for Robin and I to get to know one another.
It’s too soon to worry about that, she has to sleep, eat solid foods and walk first. I like her stare. I told Emma if she can get the baby up here, I’ll make sure she sleeps. I’m up all night anyway, and I’ll be happy to see she gets some rest. I think she likes the idea of the farm better every day.
In all of my readings and searchings, from the Kabbalah to Thomas Merton, I have never found a spiritual solution to being used. The closest I ever came was the Dalai Lama, who said the spiritual life, in part, is about learning to let go. Letting go of hurt and anger is perhaps the most difficult part of my spiritual journey.
Sometimes I think this is a path that never ends, that I simply do not have enough time in my life to fix all of the things that are wrong with me, or broken inside of me.
I hate being used. I hate being lied to dismissed, ignored or patronized. And I hate using people, it is a horrid thing to me.
A very thoughtful man once told me that there comes a time when you have to stop crossing oceans for people who would not jump into a puddle for you. I suppose another name for being used is co-dependence, an ego shattered long ago is often defenseless against people who know how to take but not to give, how to feign sincerity but who are incapable of honesty.
Being used involved boundaries.
Creating boundaries that keep you and others safe.
In my mind, the saint turns a cheek to being used and accepts it as a part of life. We have all been used at times, it is human nature.
I am no saint, and I hate being used. It comes from my own childhood and life, where souls were gobbled up and used nearly to death.
I confess to having used people at times in my life, and I will also confess to being used, sometimes in extreme and unmistakable ways. I believe that very often, when I am used, it is because on some level I want to be, I allow myself to be, it is a way of erasing the great shame and worthlessness that I have often carried inside of me.
Sometimes it feels safe to be used. Sometimes it is the illusion of goodness Sometimes it is delusional, because I assume that because I am giving of myself, I will be getting something back. I must be good if I give. How rarely is that true.
I feel used when people pretend to be my friends but are not. I feel used when people come to my home, break bread with me, seek my advice, ask me for help, and then, when the wind shifts, or their needs change, simply disappear without a word. I am not always generous or tolerant, but at times I have opened up my life, my heart, my world, to people who pretended to care about me, and was absolutely lost to feel betrayed and abandoned.
I hate this because this was how I was raised, in a home where everyone was used by everyone else, and all the time.
I feel used when people come to my farm and drop off giant boxes or tubs of clothing gifts without asking, That they assume I will want and be grateful for, and are deeply offended when I am not. Is this really about me, or is it about them?
I feel used when people insist I come to their homes for dinner and never once ask me or Maria a single question about our lives, our work, or our existence. I am a master at keeping conversation flowing, at asking questions – I was a reporter for a good while – yet I am often shocked that people want me around, but care nothing about me or ask nothing about me. Is this perhaps a consequence of being a minor celebrity? Possibly.
I felt used once when an editor ignored a book proposal for many months and refused even to acknowledge receiving it. When I threatened to move to another publisher, she responded instantly without a word of explanation or apology. I refuse to be diminished or ignored, it is a question of identity for me. I will not permit anyone to make me small. Or to use me.
In recent years, I have felt used many times, sometimes in minor ways. I feel used when strangers on Facebook demand advice on training damaged or neurotic dogs. I believe it is irresponsible and unethical to do that – I am not a vet or animal trainer – and I also believe you get what you pay for.
What kind of fraud would diagnose a dog he never met in a home he never saw as described by a person he doesn’t know? Why would anyone take advice like that?
People with serious animal issues need paid professional advice, not free Facebook messages from a writer.
I feel used when people send me messages of love and intimacy on Facebook and assume I am now a close friend because I can be contacted so easily. I feel used when I see hundreds of messages I couldn’t possibly answer from people who know nothing about me.
I have often been easily fooled by people, I am happy to cross oceans for people who wouldn’t step in a puddle.
A student came to one of my classes for several years, came to my home, took pictures of my animals, sought my advice, sent me expensive gifts and when I asked her why she wasn’t doing any work or writing in the class, she vanished and disappeared, and with a flourish of cruelty and anger. Why did Maria see this coming, but I didn’t?
Because we are too close to ourselves. Friends and lovers can also tell us when we are being used, even if we can’t see it.
After this student left, I felt like a fish tank drained of water. I felt used, even as I know such a thing had to be my fault as much as anyone’s. Surely, I should know better. I take responsibility for myself.
What is wrong with me?
In recent years I have also begun to make real and genuine friends, perhaps for the first time in my life. I look for and recognize authenticity and sincerity, I have become a scholar and advocate of boundaries. As I struggle to become authentic myself, I am learning to feel it – or the absence of it – in other people.
Real friends care about me, and permit me to care about them in more or less equal degrees. They do not use me or make me feel used.
They do not ignore me, or slink away when there is trouble. They do not give me things I don’t want or need and think of this as love. The want to know about my troubles, but not take them over.
Real friends don’t run away and hide behind e-mails. They talk to your face or hear your voice. They do not slither out of sight and duck behind digital messages.
Real friends pick up the phone when there is difficulty and we work it out. I am a complex and often confused human being, no one can be friends with me without considering it or talking about it. Take it or leave it.
Real friendships, like real relationships, do not function in a straight line. They move up and down, back and forth. Real friends pick up the phone. I found myself in an awful and very sad conflict awhile back with someone who claimed to be a friend and admirer of mine, I pleaded five or six times to talk on the phone or in person, to not try to resolve complex misunderstandings in Facebook messages.
It seemed she could no longer do that, I had believed in the friendship, I felt used that she would dismiss me in that way and allow her anger and rage – and mine – to destroy a relationship. It was an important lesson in how to communicate with other human beings. When this happened, I always assumed it was my fault, that there was something wrong with me. That was often true, sorting it what was my problem and what was not took me a long time and required a lot of help.
There are many ways to feel used. And many ways to hate feeling used.
But there are solutions. I have come to think more and more about forgiveness, and what I have learned about it, and I think that is where the answer lies for me. And it is, to some degree, a spiritual solution.
I am learning to accept the healing power and teaching power of forgiveness.
For me, for them.
You don’t forgive for their sake, you forgive for your sake. When this happens, it is always my fault, no matter what he said or she said. And I am sorry for it. And I let go, and I move on, and that is the end of it. That’s where I have gotten with this, that’s where I am going.
To challenge is to shed anger and blame and resentment, to face the hard truths about yourself – there are two sides to everything – to keep your heart and soul open to life, love and genuine friendship.
When you are in trouble, when you have open heart surgery, when you file for bankruptcy, when you get divorced, or lose your home, you find out very quickly who your friends are and who your friends are not.
The truth always reveals itself. I forgive the people who used me, I forgive me for using people.
Gandhi said forgiveness is the hallmark of the strong. The weak can never forgive. Forgive everybody, says Maya Angelou. All the time. Let go.
Our Dahlia’s are late bloomers, they are temperamental, they are at their best when the other flowers are beginning to wither and fade. We have expanded our Dahlia garden over the past couple of years, and next year, we are adding a Cosmos garden and one or two others.
The idea is for the farmhouse to be ringed with flowers, Maria has a wonderful hand at gardening and the Dahlia’s know how to be noticed. I walked around the garden and shot a video of it to give a sense of what it is like now, with the lovely backdrop of dogs, sheep and donkeys.
This is the right home for us, we nourish it, it nourishes us.
