The Mansion hosted a Mardi Gras celebration Tuesday afternoon, and there was a cracker contest. Whoever got a small cracker to stay on their nose for the longest time won a stuffed rabbit. Peggy walked away with it. It was a prettty wild party there was also some punch, cookies, pantomime and a chicken dance. It was wild.
You must have a place. Find yourself a room, or a certain hour or so a day, where you don’t know what was in the news, who your friends are, what you owe, what worries you. This is the place of creative incubation, in your work, in your life. The place where ideas are born and live inside of you.
Today, a rest day for Maria, we walked out into the woods. We waded over the Gulley Bridge, awash and underwater, we sat down on the wooden bench together, held hands and listen to our waterfall. Can you believe life, we now have our own waterfall to sit by, small and beautiful but loud and proud.
We sat in our place, and reveled in being together. Come along.
A French author and Holocaust Scholar was detained for 10 hours at a Houston Airport and nearly deported, for reasons that were never fully explained to him. He said the United States was somewhat less than the United States used to be.
Immigrants are still arriving in my area, ahead of the ban our country is eager to impose on immigration. They are confused and frightened at the fear and controversy that a waits them here. They are afraid to be photographed or give out their real names.
My goal is to show them that my America is still very much my America, and that there are many good people who not only welcome them to our land but are eager to help them. I am going to work hard for the kind of America I believe in, a welcoming place, a beacon for the weary and oppressed.
This weekend, I am meeting some of the other immigrant children – I call this child Hope, but that is not her real name – and hope to get to know them better, and to write about their live. Perhaps to help or mentor them. Most of the newly arriving immigrants are from Asia or the Middle East. They are here legally, have been thoroughly investigated, they work hard and are grateful to be here. They are no threat to you, your family, or our country.
My daily prayer is to send them something from the Amazon Gift Page set up by the U.S. Committee On Refugees And Immigration (USCRI). The page suggests inexpensive and practical items that the refugees need when they arrive. Most have lost everything and need everything. Many have languished in refugee camps for years.
They just want to life freely and safely and offer good lives to their children.
My donation today will be a pre-paid phone card that costs $10. They need toothpaste, socks, blankets and comforters, silverware and pots and pans. The stuff of daily life.
Hope’s donated soccer ball (above) was important to her, it connected her to her home and made her feel welcome in this strange land. She already knows too much about suffering and fear.
I am not a political person, I do not belong to the “left” or the “right” two simple-minded labels I reject for myself. I do believe in a country that is compassionate and empathetic to those in need. My family would not be alive today if not for that country. Your donations have been generous, and I thank you for them
You can check out the Amazon Gift Page here. I don’t believe in arguing, I believe in doing good.
Maria hung my Lou Jacobs wallboard image on my study wall, this morning, and I love having him there. His spirit will be an inspiration to me and my work, I cannot think of a better muse. The Lou Jacobs hanging – he was perhaps the most famous and much loved of the Ringling Bros. circus clowns, and one of the most popular clowns in the world. I saw him whenever I could, he was a wonderful performer and he understood the power of magic on kids like me.
This magic will be lost to future children. The animal rights people have achieved their seminal goal of killing off the circus, and they will kill off many of the elephants in the process in the name of saving them, but all the people who worried so much about the elephants are no longer paying attention to them or what happens to them.
They are looking for magic to kill elsewhere – the carriage horses, pony rides. Children will never again know the wonder of seeing Lou Jacobs speed around in his little card with his show stealing Chihuahua Knucklehead popping out of his clown costume to kill the show.
Jacobs was born in Germany and started his clown career barrel-jumping and at age seven, appearing as the rear end of an alligator. He was a clown for 60 of his 62 years in the circus. I first saw him in Providence, R.I., walking ahead of the circus parade that marched from the train station to the arena.
His small pork-pie had, bulbous nose and wide lips became the symbol of Ringling Bros. for many years. He inspired clowns all over the world. Jacobs had a genius for making children laugh, I never laughed so hard in my life (and I rarely laughed) as when I saw Lou. I saw him every chance I could – in New York, Boston, Philadelphia. Once I ran away from home and took the train by myself to New Haven to see him. I was 10.
I hate to see a world without magic, a self-righteous world that claims to be sensitive but is actually just self-righteous and thoughtless. I am so grateful to have Lou Jacobs hanging on my study wall to remind me of the power of magic and mystery in the world, and the ability of animals to touch our hearts and imaginations.
Sadly, most children will never seen a clown or an elephant again either, or the wondrous love between some elephants and some human beings.
Ringling Bros. is closing its circus in May, worn down by years of court fights with the people who say they support the rights of animals but do not. RIngling Brothers never lost a court case but just ran out of money and energy to keep fighting them.
There is little magic left in our increasingly joyless and self-righteous world. It seems it has become a crime for clowns and elephants and chihuahuas to make children laugh and touch their souls. We are banishing animals from our world, even those we love and that have worked with us for thousands of years. It is now an awful thing for them to uplift us. Many elephants will pay for this new sensitivity with their lives.
Almost every day, I get another heartbroken message from a circus worker or elephant trainer. They miss the elephants so much, and it seems the elephants miss them as well. Very few places can afford to keep them or care for them, it costs about $65,000 a year for each one, says Ringling Bros.
Elephants, like dogs, become deeply attached to the people they work with. Like big horses, they need work to be healthy. That is lost to them. I hope the domesticated animals of the world can survive the people who love them.
The “lucky” elephants will get to stand idly by in crowded preserves for the rest of the days, they will not be seen or known by human beings again, and the people who took their work away will feel noble and virtuous. It is a curious and inverted world sometimes, Lou will keep me company, a slice of magic on my wall to drink in when I need it.
I am grateful to Jack Metzger of Outback Jack’s for finding this Lou Jacobs image and selling it to me. For once, I think I got the better of him. I teared up when I saw him. Now he will be with me for good.
Lenore is going to the living room, a wider showcase for her.
Cassandra is nothing if not conscientious. Every morning when she came, she figured out how to wear Fate out so I could work in the morning with a clear conscience. A dog like Fate needs to run. Cassandra goes to the bottom of the pasture hill, tells Fate to “go to the sheep,” and Fate charges up the hill, circles the sheep and then runs down to Cassandra.
Five or ten minutes of this leaves Fate with her tongue hanging on the ground, she sleeps for much of the morning. I walk Fate twice a day with Red and work her with the sheep, in her own odd way. She needs things to do and she definitely needs to run.
Cassandra figured that out.
