Day: December 23, 2016

Photo By Maria Wulf

“Home is the place that, when you have to go there, they have to take you in…” Robert Frost

This is perhaps the most famous and oft-quoted line about people and families, but I want to be honest and say that I do not believe it is true. It is certainly not true for me. I never had to go there, and never would go there, and if I did, they would not have taken me in. They never did.

At Christmas, I wrote to write about families for the people who cannot accept such romantic notions of them, especially during the holidays, where the pain of family can be searing. In the Corporate Nation, we are spoon fed the idea of the happy, perfect and accepting family gather at Christmas.

I am happy that this is true for so many people, but also know that it is not true for so many people, and many need relief from that stereotype, which makes many feel inadequate or worse. I call it the Unattainable Family, the marketed family, the Disney Family. Real life is not a marketing idea.

This is a joyous time of year for many people, and a painful time of year for many people. Maria and I have struggled with the promise and reality of family all of our lives, and this struggle is never more clearly revealed than during the holidays, a time for families to gather, and a time for some of great difficulty.

I believe family is a complicated issue that can never fully be  resolved or understand. We can’t really discharge our families, but we can and do replace them. We can also, if we have to, leave them behind and go off on our own to heal and find real connection. When family works, it is a beautiful thing.

When it doesn’t work, it can be a nightmare. The holidays seem to bring on the nightmare for some people.

I think the real problem is a question of expectations. The Disney idea of Christmas is perhaps the dominant one, the idea of the perfect, peaceful, loving and wholesome family, portrayed again and again during the holidays eating, talking, sitting in a beautiful living room.

My family portrait in the holidays would be quite different, a gathering of angry and hurt people, often tearing one another to pieces. It seemed that nobody who was there wished to be there, and nobody ever seemed to grasp that they didn’t really have to be there.

I became one of those people. I left my family behind, except for one member of it, and resolved to protect my new family from what I believed to be a contagion. I left my family behind, I could not be with them. It is not something I could or would ever recommend to another person, these things are personal, but I often think of the depressed and troubled people who tell me they dread family gatherings and wish they never had to go to one.

I don’t tell them what I am thinking. They don’t have to go. I know a lot of people who break away, and they live and survive, even thrive. That’s the thing about taboos, they exist to be broken. But that is not something for me to tell other people, one has to come to it internally, on their own.

For people with troubled families, people like me and Maria, the holidays can be a raw wound. I can’t speak for  her but for me it is a reminder of my broken family, and of the pain and sorrow we caused one another. Family casts a shadow over the holidays, and it sometimes darken the skies.

I believe that in the real world, I don’t  have to go anywhere, and if I do, it is not family I would turn to, there are other people in my life – my new family, I guess – who would happily me in, and not because they have to, but because they want to.

Liberty’s foundation is free will, and when we have to do things we don’t wish to do, we are not free. I am truly happy for the people who find the holidays meaningful, loving and restorative, I wish them every bit of happiness. For those who don’t want to go, and dread going, I am thinking of you this weekend. You are not alone.

Free will and choice are the things that separate human beings from every other living thing. They are sacred gifts, many  believe they are the manifestations and revealed gifts of God. It is a tragedy to throw them away.

Maria and I are learning to make our Christmas and other holidays meaningful and precious to us. They are about love and compassion and freedom and authenticity, about being ourselves and caring for one another. About the freedom to be honest and true.  For us, anything else is about obligation, a kind of social slavery. I do envy the happy families this holiday, I often wish I could be one of them. But I also know that I could never go back, only forward.

Home is the place you go to because you wish to go, because it is a safe and loving place. Nobody has to take you in, it means nothing to me if they have no choice.

Brother Pete was a monk at the New Skete Monastery  before coming to the Mansion, he spent more than 40 years there and helped raise the German Shepherds for which the monks are widely known. He showed me photos of the dogs he had lived with and helped raise.

If there is a common denominator among the Mission residents, it is a love of the dogs and cats they lived with for much of their lives, and their pain at having to let their animals go when the moved into their home. It would not be manageable to have animals here, I can see that quite clearly, although some elderly facilities do permit it.

Red’s presence evokes beautiful stories that tell about the power of animals in our lives, and of our need for them to heal and love and comfort us.

I hear dog and cat stories every time I go to the mansion, I also hear the worry and pain about how the animals fared after they were  separated. This is difficult stuff, and I’m thinking of putting together a video where people there can talk about the dogs and cats they lived with and left behind.

Dog and cat lovers are notorious story tellers, I hear many animal stories in the course of a year, they are a rich part of the tapestry of people’s lives. I think Red can fill some of the holes these animals left behind.

The Mansion Tree

The Mansion staff, astonished by the outpouring of gifts from you to the residents of the Mansion (even the mailman asked what was going on, he is bringing in truckloads of packages), started saving them last week, locking them up in a staff office so that every resident would have something to open, everyone would have a present under the tree.

There are presents in a ring all around the tree and under it, every one of them came from one of you and I wanted you to see what you have done. You have utterly transformed a number of lives with your generosity.

Today, the New York Times reported on a research study revealing an epidemic of loneliness among the elderly, especially those with health problems. Lonely people are far less healthy than people who are not lonely, and do not live as long. This study was painful to read, and I could feel the truth of it, I see some awfully lonely people at the Mansion, despite the heroic efforts of the staff to lift them up and connect with them.

Other facilities I have visited are not as lovingly and attentively run as the Mansion, sometimes the ache of loneliness is palpable. At the Mansion there is one resident who is suffering loneliness and depression this weekend, there has been much loss in his life. He is loving the letters he is receiving. The staff is working to ease his sadness.

But even dedicated caregivers – and loving dogs – are not miracle workers. The elderly are often isolated from the rest of us and live out of sight and often, out of our consciousness.

This will not be a lonely Christmas for anyone at the Mansion, everyone has gotten letters, gifts, cards, photos, everyone has something under the tree.

Thank you again. There are many good people out there, you are an Army Of Good.

I have, as promised, a list of first names of the residents. It’s not appropriate to provide more information than that. The first names are Jean, Mary, Gerry, Sylvie, Diane, Alice, Jean, Madeline, Joan, Allan, Carl, John, Aileen, Christie, Helen, Constance, Alanna, Barbara, Peggie, William, Dennis, John  R., Bruce, John Z.

If you wish to continue your work with the Mansion residents, their address is 11 S. Union Street, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816.

“Who are all these angels you know?, Peggie asked me yesterday. Angels are mysterious, I said, they come and go as they please, they do have hearts of gold. They often appear at Christmas.

Morgan And Red

Morgan works as an administrator at the Mansion Assisted Care Facility. Like many caregivers, she is also an animal lover. She goes home every day to have lunch with her Great Dane, a rescue she hates to live alone too long. She and Red are good friends, and Red now has a number of good friends at the Mansion.

I sometimes talk to the staff while he goes off and visits his friends and sits with them. I am moved by how much they love him and how much  he loves them. This is, I think, what Karen Thompson wished for him when she gave him to me, and i am happy to keep my promise to her and also to Red. I try very hard to give my dogs the lives they deserve.

This Christmas, it feels like the people in the Mansion have become part of my family, and I want to spent some of the weekend with them. Maria feels the same way. I think we are going there with Red Christmas morning, many of the residents will be out with their families, some have no families and it seems a good time to visit with them.

We can see a movie another day. Morgan and the other staffers have much love in their hearts, the world is lucky to have people like that in it. It gives us hope. As Connie said, there are good people out there.

Life with an artist is never simple. This morning, when I came downstairs for breakfast, Maria looked at me with a kind of predatory gaze that has become familiar, and no, it’s not what you might be thinking. She was looking at my pants.

At some points in my life, this might have had particular implications, living with Maria, I recognized the look.

Usually, it means she has had a dream, is making a quilt or hanging piece, and wants something I am wearing. I have lost countless shirts, pants, even underwear, articles of clothing that have made their way into her fiberworks and out into the country.

You do not want to get in the way of one of Maria’s creative visions, believe me, there is only one path to take.

If you have a quilt of Maria’s,  you are probably hanging some of my clothing on your wall. Once I was taking a nap, and Maria approached with some scissors, she said she was just checking out an old sweater. She had a funny look in her eye, sort of like the wives in those old Dracula movies.

I have no doubt she would have cut it right off of my body if I hadn’t given it to her. Immediately.

Why are you looking at my pants?, I inquired, wary.

“I was wondering if you need them,” she said.

“They are my pants,” I said, “of course I need them”

But I knew. “You want them, don’t you? You want my pants.”

She professed shock and some indignation, suggesting she would never take my pants unless I was completely done with them.

But I am wearing them, I said.

I’d like them now, she said.

“No,”I shouted puffing myself up. I have some pride. “You can’t have them while I was wearing them.”

Maria has a slightly different account of this exchange and you can read it here. She denies threatening me with scissors.

It was an uneasy day, Maria kept looking at my pants, she asked if she could photograph them. She was trying to spook me, and she was succeeding.You don’t want someone staring at your pants with a scissors.

She said she had a spot in a new quilt that needed some worn light blue denim, my pants would fit perfectly. Besides, she said, I had a half-dozen pants. Weren’t these getting old and worn? Wasn’t I tired of them? No, I sputtered, I am wearing them. I made a note not to take a nap today, I couldn’t sleep knowing she was out there with an unfinished quilt and some scissors, it was like a horror movie dream.  When she is making a quilt, she is capable of anything.

She routinely confiscates my things and claims they are hers – undershirts, nightshirts, shirts and pants, even scarves. You don’t wear them or need them, she says, you don’t care about them.

I said goodbye to my pants this afternoon, for dignity’s sake I am pretending to consider this, but I know this story very well. Tomorrow my pants will be in pieces, she will probably get up early to rush to her studio and shop them up and put them or parts of them into her quilt.

I will never get to see my pants again after tonight, and they have been good pants.

They will end up on somebody’s bed or living room wall.

Life with an artist is not like life with other people. At least she didn’t wait until I took a nap.