10 October

Grandfather Chronicles: Robin’s Future In Our World

by Jon Katz
Robin Sticks Her Tongue Out
Robin Sticks Her Tongue Out: Photo By Emma Span

I’ve met Robin three times in her short life, and I’m told that today was the first time she stuck her tongue out at her parents. It will not be the last. I don’t know Robin well yet, and I’m not yet moved to carry photos of her around. I have never bothered anyone with a photo of hers (they would just pull out one of theirs), although I have been putting her up on the blog, and am well aware that an awful lot of people like seeing her spirit emerge. Looks like a strong spirit, she has a habit of going viral.

Having a granddaughter has brought about one change in me already, I am thinking about her future, what kind of world she might live in and how she might be treated. Honestly, this was not something I thought much about  before Robin, I am not inclined towards romanticizing the past or gloomy predictions about the future.

Her mother and grandmother are both strong women and know how to take good care of themselves, I imagine she will have good and strong role models to follow. Still, I know a lot of women and every one of them has at least one horror story to tell about men.

Saturday, at the Open House, I was standing by the rear gate and a young couple were standing with their young son Robbie, a middle-school student from Westchester, N.Y. Readers of the blog, they had come up to see the Open House. Robbie had a younger sister, she was six or seven, I guessed,  and I heard her turn and ask her parents, “what does it mean to be a “pussy. Robbie called me a pussy, and he said he was going to grab my pussy.”

They were startled, as I was, but I think we all knew what had happened as soon as the words came out of her mouth. I wondered for a second if he meant a pussy cat, even though I knew better as soon as I thought it.

It turned out Robbie was required to read his local newspaper – it is published online – and report on the news for his social studies class.  He has been monitoring the presidential elections. He came across the story about a presidential candidate’s comments on an audio recording about women, and he also saw a link to the tape itself, which he listened to several times. “It was homework!,” he explained hurriedly to his suddenly angry father.

I could see in some sort of way Robbie knew he was in trouble, that he had done something wrong to his sister, and his parents took him off to the apple tree to have a talk with him. They apologized to me, assuring me Robbie was a good boy. I didn’t doubt it. They were mortified.

I work hard to resist this left-right thing of hating the other, I see it as a cancer, a disease that no patriot would really want to catch, it hurts our democracy. I don’t need to be hating Donald Trump, I just don’t care to vote for him or see  him running my country. I am the grandson of immigrants, the choice is not hard for me, and I care about facts and truth, but I understand it is a hard issue for many people.

I hope no one ever sees Robin in that way or treats her in so assaultive and frightening a manner. I a sure Donald Trump is a good man in many ways, he works hard and loves his family and has strong and compelling ideas about how working class people have been left behind in America. I know from living here in upstate New York that many of the things his supporters are enraged about are true, I see it every day.

I’m sorry Mr. Trump is so disturbed and broken that these arguments are  lost in his dysfunctional and angry way He just doesn’t seem to know how to talk normally, and within the normal human spectrum of dialogue. He could have done a lot of good.

What, I wondered, would I tell Robbie if he asked me why it was wrong to use that word? I’m not sure, I would try not be angry and make him feel small. Clearly, he knew not of what he had done, but he had seen a presidential candidate do it. How confusing would that have been for me when I was in middle school?  I guess I would tell him that it is a hurtful word, and hurtful words should not be used on anyone, male or female.

As a man, I know the young pay attention to what others do, especially older and powerful men. I did. I paid attention to the words and deeds of  Clarence Darrow and Thomas Merton and John Kennedy, and then Martin Luther King. I listened to them, and modeled myself after them and use their words and thoughts to this day.

I quoted them often when I was looking for words.

After his talk with his son,  the father, a registered Republican, came up to me and said he was disturbed about what he had seen. We can’t control the world, he said, not with computers and cell phones, he was very concerned that Robbie would assume that if a powerful and much-admired man (he was planning to vote for Mr. Trump) said that, why shouldn’t he? Could it really be wrong? Could that be undone, he wondered, by anything he might say? Was it now implanted in his son’s consciousness, this awful way of thinking about women, even his sister?

Would Robbie take his world against the wider world? He did not ever want his son to be treating women in that way, or thinking of them in that way. This is an awful thing, he said, I fear for what is going on in the minds of so many young men. Who are they to follow in our world?

I told this good man for being so thoughtful about this, on behalf of my granddaughter in particular. How said, I said, that this was not part of the conversation we all should be having about women right now, everyone is thinking about it.

If someone said that to Maria, she would break a bowl over his head, at best. He might never walk straight again. The father asked me if I thought this was locker room talk. What might Robin say or do?

Did I ever hear these words, he asked?

And I said no, I never heard this in a locker room, and I did hear a lot of  raunchy stuff. I knew right away that those boys were just mimicking their fathers and older brothers, it never sounded natural to me.

I never heard that kind of talk anywhere, I said,  I never spoke it or had it in my mind. I never heard my father, uncle, grandfather or brother ever say anything like that, in private or anywhere else.  Thinking that way about a women was utterly alien to me, and I confessed to the father that  it did concern me on behalf of my granddaughter. But it was not my business to tell this man anything about his son, and I had no words for him that he did not have for himself.

I don’t know who this father will vote for, and that is none of my business either.  I don’t need to hear who everyone is going to vote for.

Hearing the words and watching that debate made my stomach sink, it made me sad for our country, and embarrassed that the world’s first and most modern democracy could have plunged, into my lifetime, to such depths. I love the idea of America, and this breaks my heart a bit.

I wanted to apologize to the world, to my granddaughter. I guess we messed it up this round, I want to say. I believe women are on the rise, they may just save us.

I think Robin deserves better and I hope she gets what she deserves, a better world, and when I saw that she had stuck her tongue at her parents – and not for the first time – it gave me hope for the future. I think I will go and talk to her this week or next.

10 October

Red And Hunter At The Open House

by Jon Katz
Red At The Open House
Red At The Open House: Photo by Candy Cuthbert

Red is an amazing dog in so many different ways, he is the first dog I have ever had that I would totally trust in any situation with any human being, he is patient and gentle and calm. Sunday at the Open House, Joshua Rockwood’s son Hunter came over to Red and lay down with his head on his back. Red never moved, tensed or grumbled.

Hunter llay there for five or ten minutes and someone nudged me – I was part of a talk at the time – and Candy Cuthbert, a member of the Creative Group At Bedlam Farm, took this photo. I am ever grateful for Red and the good work he does for so many people, especially me.

10 October

Angel Dog

by Jon Katz
Angel Dog
Angel Dog

Sometimes Fate is the Joy Dog, sometimes a full scale hellion, smart and determined to have her way. Walking in the deep woods, I turned and saw her lying in a sea of golden leaves, and I almost saw a halo over her head in that beautiful forest, the leaves lit up by the sign. Today, she was looking at me curiously, wondering what I was doing. Today, in the forest, she was the Angel Dog.

10 October

Welcome To Bedlam Farm – The Rewards (And Challenges) Of The Open Life

by Jon Katz
Welcome To Bedlam Farm
Welcome To Bedlam Farm: Maria takes the Open House banner down.

The trouble with having an open mind, said one writer, is that many people will insist on coming along and putting something in it.

Maria took down the “Welcome To Bedlam Farm” banner we hang on the porch during our Open Houses.

This one was the best for me, the right scale, the right purpose, the right time.

It was, of course, about sharing our lives, enjoying the rich stream of good and warm people, sharing our art and creativity, advancing the idea of encouragement.

Maria brought some wonderful artists together, some good friends, and the dogs and animals all did their thing, showing off, welcoming strangers, getting hugged, rubbed and kissed within an inch of their lives. Our humble little farmhouse seemed a lighthouse, right in the middle of farmland and hills.

They came all day Saturday and Sunday, in a stream, not a flood. It was comfortable, easy, it felt good. It was nourishing.

This year, we wanted the show to focus on the art and the animals, we dodged a hurricane and some showers, had hundreds of people coming from as far away as Canada and England and Idaho. We loved it, we are exhausted. We are always amazed at the work involved, we always forget before the next Open House.

Every Sunday night after an Open House, we collapse and look at each other, one of us will ask: “do we really want to do this again?” Every year we do. Next year, two Open Houses, one in June, one in October. Details to come. The only promotion we ever do is on our blogs. Everyone who comes, comes from them.

I did a ton of herding demos,  donkeys tours, shook hands and listened to many stories. Maria was on her feet and in her studio explaining and selling art all day for two days. Now she has to settle all the accounts and re-arrange the studio. She has the most astonishing energy.

in a sense the Open Houses are a celebration of our wish to lead (within reason) open lives. To share one’s life doesn’t necessarily mean to share all of it – we rarely share what happens inside of the farmhouse. We keep the private parts of our souls private. .

We have often been warned about being open. It is out of fashion.  Don’t you read the news? Somebody will rob us, or sue us, or stalk us, or steal our identity of personal papers, or insult or alarm us, or hack into our e-mails. What about the Internet? It is considered dangerous to be open, to share feelings, let alone farms.

I suppose there is a risk to anything, but the Open Houses have been rich, warm, connective, celebratory, affirming for us, and we are told, for others. We chose to be thoughtful, but to never live in fear.

Being open is not just about inviting people to see our farm and art and animals. It is a state of mine, a cause, a philosophy for me, and also Maria.

“The world is full of people who have never, since childhood, met an open doorway with an open mind,” wrote E. B. White, and that is true. A closed mind often leads to a closed life, and I have written several times that the closing of the mind is the first death, and the real one. The rest is just biological matter.

I do not wish to live a substitute life, as Joseph Campbell called it, or a hollow one, as T.S. Eliot named it.

There are joys and challenges. The vast majority of people approach us lovingly, openly and in good faith. There are those few with needs we cannot meet, and whose boundaries are too fluid and indistinct. We sometimes hear more than we need, or want, or should. Those encounters are very rare, a handful out of many hundreds. Some people want more than we can give, we have learned the power and value of boundaries.

We seek to share our lives, we cannot give them to people, and no one can ever  have someone else’s life. And no life is perfect.

Sometimes I want to cry at the good people who drive hours to hug a donkey, buy a potholder, watch Red herd sheep or Fate run around, tell me about a book they read, show me a photo of a donkey or a dog, or even a grandchild. Or just shake my hand or hug me. The word is still powerful. (And then there are people who carry albums of their grandkids (and dogs) around, I look at one and run away.)

Some people have been coming to our Open  Houses for  years, and we have come to love and know many, they are part of our family, part of our community, they support and sustain us as much as we try to support and sustain them.

They visit the Battenkill Book Store, eat at the Round House Cafe, visit Heather and buy her beads and socks, go and see George Forss in his gallery. They often come to love my town in much the same way that I do.

I am sometimes drawn to tears when I see Helen hugging a donkey, or Janet brushing one, or young Jacob resting his head on Red, who is happy to oblige, or Sam sketching our hay feeder. I love the laughing and clapping at foolish and joyous Fate, who races from gate to gate, looking for work, and then lap to lap, looking for hugs. Silly dog. I love Mary Kellogg reading her beautiful poems, or the gruff artist Ed Gulley talking farms and art.

We have our traditions by now, they are rich.

I do not ever tire of the sight of Maria, in full Curator mode, glued to her table in the Schoolhouse Studio, fighting for her artists, and her art, mulling for days where each painting, pincushion, scarf, tote bag,  potholder or cutting board ought to go. She is so at home in there, in her element, eyes shining with excitement and passion.

She loves her life, as I love mine.  She is so alive in that studio. That is such a beautiful thing to share.

But E.B. White also wrote to his readers “that there are 10,000 of you and one of me,” and he couldn’t, he said, remember them all or be open to them all. Or reply to all of their letters. I used to be able to. At the Open Houses, people tell me how much it meant to them when they messaged me five or six years ago, and I answered. Sometimes, I remember them.

People often assume that I know who they are when I don’t, and the people you most want to see and talk to are the shyest and most reserved – they dread being pests.  The people who are sometimes intrusive are never fearful of being pests. I am a master at figuring it out quickly. And openly: “who are you?”

There are people who wish to fill my open mind, online and off, they tell me how I feel, what I’m thinking, what I will feel, they project their lives onto mine, and mine onto theirs. Sometimes they are right, sometimes not. I cling to the idea of Walden Pond, my successes and mistakes are mine to make, I share my life, I don’t give it away.

I never like being told what to write or think, I have never learned to be gracious about it. Being open is much about acceptance, you get the good me and the bad me, but you will always get the real me.

The joys of the open life are much richer than the trials. I have no secrets for the first time in my life, my story is open to the world and told authentically. I have nothing to hide, thus nothing to fear.  Openness drains panic out of the psyche, like a toilet flushing.  I make no false claims, and have no pretense about myself, I am no better than anyone, and everyone has it worse than I do in some ways. I do not speak poorly of my life.

I have heard and listened to the worst things about me, and survived. I try to meet every doorway with an Open Mind. It is my faith, even though I often stumble and fall. I am learning what it is to be human. Most of all, I share my love for Maria, without whom few things that are good in my life would have been possible.

Maria is the color and light in my life, the hope and the meaning, the inspiration and the companionship. The love. We live our open lives together. And so many people come here to tell me that is the reason they come, to see and feel the openness of love that emanates from our work and our farm. It is, I promise you, unconscious, I never think about what I write, which is sometimes obvious. And I never know what I think until I write it.

When, in all of my long life, would I ever have imagined such a thing, to be so lucky and blessed?

Openness is a choice. I respect that so many people dread it, for many reasons.

I am proud and happy to live an open life, it is a much a way of life and state of mind as anything else. Openness, like light, kills fear and opens doorways. It is the spiritual underpinning of the Open House.

 

10 October

Gulley’s Goose

by Jon Katz
Gulley's Goose
Gulley’s Goose

Ed Gulley’s goose has a new home – right out in front of Bedlam Farm. I think the Gulley Goose, as I call it, represents a milestone for Ed on his march to making his original folk art, and on the lawn, everybody driving by will get to see it. Ed and his wife Carol are dairy farmers and the creators and co-authors of the very popular Bejosh Farm Journal.

Maria wants to get one of Ed’s wind chimes and is negotiating with him for it. He sold a number of his outdoor farm art sculptures this weekend at the Open House. I am very excited to get this goose and for now, at least, to give the many people driving by the farm something new to see. Ed is the real deal, check out his blog and his art.

P.S. Our You Tube sales channel experiment is a success, Maria sold all of her beautiful yarn in just a few minutes. Thanks.

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