I am learning to understand my angina, it is a part of me now, my heart is very much alive and sensitive. Angina is a curious thing, I feel it differently every day, sometimes not at all. I am learning it is sensitive to stress, to the cold, to the damp. Some days I can charge up the hill, some days I have to stop a couple of times.
But I can walk, and I do walk, and I am grateful to Red who seems to know my heart well and is patient about my struggles to figure things out. Too often, I am determined to prove that I can walk up any hill with no trouble, too often I do not wait as long as I should to rest my heart and then walk.
It’s like training a willful dog in a way (yes I am the willful dog), you have to be a better human being, you have to learn patience and curb frustration. Red is very helpful, as I come up the hill he just stops when he senses something is off with me, and sits. He waits for me to stop also, and we stand together for a few minutes while my heart settles down.
An instantly obedient dog, Red will not resume walking until he decides I am good and ready.
Nobody knows exactly what Red is responding to, it might be my heartbeat – the heart races when it is stressed, it might be my expression, or breathing or posture. Dogs can smell emotion, and he is perhaps reacting to mine, Red and I spent a lot of our lives together, I am sure he knows my breathing and heartbeat very well.
In any case, he slowing me down when I need to slow down, moving along when we need to move along. I am walking as much as ever, just in a slightly different way. I shoveled snow today, cleaned off the car, fed the animals. My heart knows when it is cold and damp.
Red knows when I need to stop. I think my heart has become more sensitive, more feeling, more true. It picks up so much outside of me, I am so very much alive.
Mary was sidelined for awhile with a bronchial infection, it was good to see her up and walking around, she and Red had a reunion in the hallway. Mary is one of the stops on our rounds, which are growing weekly. We will be at the Mansion Christmas Party on Thursday – me, Red and Maria.
Red is like a beacon of light and warmth as he moves through the mansion, he understands his role now, knows where to find his friends, has a sixth sense for knowing who needs him and who does not. Mary enjoys letters and messages, if you wish to write her, you can do so at this address:
Mary (Or Residents) c/o The Mansion, 11 S. Union Street, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816. You are an Army of Good, your letters and gifts matter more than you might imagine.
Walking down a nearby road, we ran into Quinn, a new puppy belonging to my neighbor and friend Tom Wolski, a retired and much loved and respected veterinarian in my town. Quinn is a Yellow Lab, and one of those puppies that could melt a glacier. She terrorized Fate, who growled and nipped at her, and then ran away. Red was, of course, his usual patient and accepting self, Quinn chased him and chewed his tail.
Fortunately, I had my new portrait lens with me on my black and white camera, and it proved itself once more. I will be seeing a lot of Quinn, we walk by her house often and any dog that lives with Tom and his wife Jan is a lucky dog bound for a great life. Fate will figure out soon that Quinn is a dog, and then things should get lively.
When Maria and I first got together, I was living in a different reality, financial and otherwise. Our first trip together was to a first-class hotel in Boston, men in red uniforms bowing and scraping, a gorgeous room with a giant bed and a hotel with wonderful and expensive room service.
Maria, who had never had hotel room service, was a bit stunned. It was fun, but also rang a bit hollow, I recall.
Today we are living in a different reality, and a happier and healthier one. Our ideas of fun have evolved. A month ago we toyed with the idea of staying in a lovely and expensive Vermont inn for a couple of nights, it would have cost about $600 for food and room and fees for two nights. We scrapped the idea.
It just didn’t seem like us.
We are always looking for ways to survive the holidays, to make them fun and meaningful rather than depressing and intense. More and more, we have drifted away from ritual and obligation. Family is many things, but it has always been a struggle for both of us. I know it is a wonderful thing for many other people.
Then, we were driving by a funky old 50’s kind of hotel, it looked simple and clean, like something Norman Rockwell could have painted. (And might have, for a while he lived just a few miles away.) I loved the old neon sign which read “vacancy.” It looked like a peaceful little haven, unpretentious and welcoming.
So I had this very strange idea that we should spend a night there, it was a kind of throw-away fantasy, I thought of it as a joke. The motel is just over the border in Vermont, about 20 minutes from the farm. We’ve passed it a thousand times.
I joked to Maria, let’s go stay here in this motel one night during the holidays. We’ll bring good books, we’ll go out and eat something simple, sleep and read and come home the next morning. I’ll bring some earphones and listen to some Norah Jones and Leonard Cohen albums. We’ll sit up and talk.
That would be a neat holiday. It can’t be expensive, I said.
Maria, who gets things and love signs that I am mad, thought it was a wonderful idea, different and interesting.
I told her I thought it was really a dumb idea, and then I dismissed it. What kind of person stays at a motel 20 minutes from home? But it kept coming back. I kept thinking of it, I kept mentioning it. We love traveling together, we love reading, we love getting away for short trips. We could do all of those things and be home the next morning in time to work.
Let’s do it, she kept saying.
We both woke up early this morning thinking about it. I went online and saw there was a special on for this motel, after New Year’s I could get a room with a King-sized bed for a little more than $70. The room had nice reviews, but also made clear this was not a first-class suite in a Boston hotel.
It was near some good family restaurants that were inexpensive. It was near a diner that served good breakfasts. The room looked fine, we saw it online. There was not much more than a big bed and a dresser with a big screen TV (which we never turn on.) The booking service said the room offer at that price – it is a quiet week for motels and hotels – would expire tonight. We can cancel anytime until the day before the reservation.
I booked it. We are going in a couple of weeks.
I guess the bottom line is that we are not only re-inventing our lives, we are re-inventing our holidays. Neither of us could care less that this is not a first-class hotel or an expensive and lovely old inn. We will be as happy to have a hamburger or a salad as a gourmet meal that costs $150 dollars.
I think we both need simple holidays, we need to be with just us. We need to be safe and feel safe and pause to be grateful to the many wonderful things in our lives. The next few years will challenge us, in a number of ways. I have to take care of my heart, Maria is building a wonderful artistic business, we will have to work hard to stay grounded and positive and do good in a country where ever single day seems to breed turbulence, anger and controversy. And so many people love it.
To some extent, we both will interact with the world and work for our values, we must also built our own world and take comfort and nourishment from it. Somehow, in ways I don’t fully understand, the motel is the beginning of this phase of the journey. Think of all the small trips we can take, the places we can see.
What we love is being together, being free to be ourselves, and celebrating love and connection rather than the heavy traditions and obligations of others. We know so many people who slog through the holidays because they always have, and always must. We don’t wish to be those people.
I still think this whole trip is a bizarre idea, Maria think it’s a wonderful idea. I am excited about going. If it all works out, this could open up a whole new idea for holidays and getaways. Our estimate of the cost is $125, tops, unless we order a lot of drinks at the restaurant.
I doubt that any of the women in this photograph, taken on my Iphone in Brooklyn two weeks ago, have any idea how important the picture is to me. All of the most important women in my life are gathered in one place, sitting with one another, talking to one another, comfortable with one another.
To me, and perhaps only to me, this photograph is worth a thousand words, and holds many meanings. It was not conceivable to me just a few years ago. I had gotten divorced, Maria and Emma did not know one another very well, the divorce had shattered my other family, and Emma was not married, let along expecting a child.
Life goes on and takes its own path. Emma and I, disconnected somewhat, are close and easy and open with one another, I credit Robin and Maria with some of that. Em and I never gave up on one another, we kept at it Maria has always grasped the importance of this relationship to me, and encouraged me to keep working at it.
I had to change, Em had to change. We both did. Robin has turned out to be a glue that ties my daughter and I together. Emma loves this child so much, it has opened her up. Me too. And I could have sat there in Brooklyn, watching the three of them so easy with one another, for days.
Robin was happy to be in Maria’s lap, Maria was happy to have her, Maria and Em chatted so comfortably and warmly. Maria is such a warm person, she looked so at ease with that baby in her lap.
The photograph and scene are epic for me, it brings up so much feeling and wonder. I will never give up on life.
Life has its own power, its own magic. This is as meaningful a photo as I have ever taken, some of you, those who have been following this blog for awhile, will grasp it’s importance. It was a long road from there to here, sometimes so difficult I did not think I would survive it.
I have learned to never give up on love as well as life, it is more powerful than almost any other thing. Some images capture more than the photographer knows.
