Our flock is gentle and easy, they wait for us in the morning, and follow us to which ever pasture we open up. Red has gotten the flock into shape, they are easy sheep, healthy and content. We are fortunate to be able to give them good lives, green pasture, fresh and good hay in the winter, shelter from rain, wind and snow. It is a gift to see them standing or sitting out there, an ancient sight for humans, a grounding sight for us.
My Petzval Russian lens has its own mind about focus, it picks pretty much what it wants to focus on, I am never sure until I look in the computer. I like the way the lens captured the intimacy of our morning chores, a special time for us. The donkeys love to be brushed and sit patiently while Maria combs their usually dirty and matted coat. They seem to need attention, and then go about their business. Donkeys are loving but not needy, like pets.
There are a number of ways to help the refugee children, now and in the future. You have done a lot.
Thanks to the Bedlam Farm Army Of Good, the RISSE soccer team and some of the RISSE school kids will be spending three days at the Pompanuck Retreat and Farming Center outside of Cambridge, N.Y. Fifteen kids from all over the world will be coming – 14 boys and one man – Ali – and three young women and two women teachers and aides.
The women will sleep in the Round House Building a Pompanuck, the boys will sleep in a big Yurt next to an open pasture.
I am up to my neck in planning – food, classes, activities, things to bring.
Thanks to your donations and generosity – I especially thank one very generous women who chooses to remain anonymous – the kids will be eating well: pancake breakfasts, make-your-own-pizzas, sandwiches, hot dogs and hamburgers, turkey bacon and eggs, campfires at night, hikes in the woods, classes in the daytime.
We’ve given everyone tick instructions. Pompanuck sits on a beautiful 90 acre tract adjoining a state forest. There is a pond for swimming, numerous hiking trails, a wide open field for practicing soccer or running, and beautiful hills all around.
This will be a precious and valuable retreat for these children, I can’t tell you how excited they are. We have raised enough money to pay for this retreat – it will cost about $1,600. Maria will lead one or two hikes out into the woods, she knows them well.
I will be teaching a writing and story-telling class if anyone there wants that. The artist Rachel Barlow will be teaching an art and drawing class (she made the 90 creativity kits we gave these kids earlier this year.) Gordon McQuerry will be teaching a music class to the members of the budding Bedlam Farm Musical Band.
Red, Fate and the new puppy, Gus, will be there. Gus starts working right away.
Mandy Meyer-Hill, a massage therapist and healer, will be teaching a stress and movement class.
I am very excited about this retreat, if any group of children anywhere deserved it, it is these warm and loving kids. They have been through a lot, and deserve some fun and relaxation.
I will be there and will take pictures and write about it, I will make sure you know what your empathy and kindness has done. Ali (Amjad Abdalla Mohammed) will be supervising the kids, along with the teaching aides, and he will be sleeping in the Yurt with them. We are a generous and caring people, I believe these children are coming to see that.
We are doing a lot of things for the RISSE children right now. We are buying new soccer uniforms, raising money so that the team can practice soccer indoors during the winter, funding Saturday excursions and picnics through the summer, raising money for children whose parents can’t afford school fees over the summer.
In a month, 16 of these children will go to the Great Escape Amusement Park, we thank a wonderful spirit from Minnesota for helping make that possible.
I have opened a special bank account to raise money for a scholarship fund for these children to pay for tutoring, English classes, music or art or computer instruction to help them develop their own special skills and interests. There is about $1,500 alreaduy in that account.
We will begin disbursing it in the next few weeks. If you wish to contribute, you can send a check to The Refugee Children’s Fund, P.O. Box 205, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816, or you can donate through the Paypal Friends And Family Program, my ID is [email protected].
The other RISSE children, the 80 not on the soccer team, have pressing needs as well, I will be writing about them more frequently in the coming weeks and months. A number of them cannot afford to pay the summer tuition fees for RISSE’s summer school, it is important for them to stay within their community and have structured activities. And to stay off the streets.
Many of their families are split up, working several jobs, or have no funds to pay the fees. Their community is their lifeblood, especially now. They need to learn in a safe place, and to be with each other.
This program is critical it provides educational instruction – English, math, art – as well as lunch, dinner, recreational and other activities. It is essential to give these children a start on their journey to American life. Many of you have contributed to a number of different things this year, and my idea is that if a large number of people give small amounts, the pain will be lessened and shared.
it is my idea to do good rather than argue about what is good, and an Army of Good has arisen around this idea.
These children are beginning to experience the real America, the true America, a generous and loving country.
I am going to try to raise the money for these kids to attend summer school, the cost per child is $1,400 for the summer and we are trying to determine just how many are in need of tuition support. Friday, I’m going to Albany in the afternoon to meet with some of them.
If you are so inclined, you can support the RISSE Summer Tuition Program, you can donate directly to RISSE using Paypal and major credit cards here. You can also send the money to me at the Post Office Box or Paypal and I will forward it immediately to RISSE. Please mark your donations Summer Tuition. Thanks. The contributions are tax-deductible. I’ll offer as many details as I can about this campaign in the coming days. The only figure I don’t have yet is the total number of kids who need help. But I wanted to get started, this one is bigger than most and we only have a couple of weeks.
I don’t believe we can raise enough money to pay all of the tuition. RISSE officials tell me that no child will be turned away, they will be admitted to the summer program whether or not their tuition is paid, but that will drain the group’s resources. So I want to raise as much money as we can, without putting pressure on any of you out there.
A lot of small donations go a long way. You can donate to that program here. This is a good and deserving cause, RISSE has struggled for a long time to help people nobody else really wanted to help. It is a great thing to see the support you are already giving them, a long way from last year, when their building was burned to the ground by arsonists.
Blessings upon you.
If you are pressed financially, you can also send RISSE a message of support by donating $1 to them with a note thanking them for their good work and cheering them on. It is good for them to hear it. You can do it here.
If you Google the word “cute,” the most frequent use of the terms it is applied to puppies.
For the first time in my life, I used the word “cute” the other day. I referred to Gus, the new Boston Terrier puppy we are getting on Friday. On my social media pages, the most common words used for Gus are “cute” and “adorable.” Every time I put a photo of him, that’s the first word people think of.
Fair enough, puppies are supposed to be cute.
Maria insists that I am often “cute, and I accept the word as a term of endearment and affection. Yet I don’t ever like it, even when I use it, even when it is used on me, and I believe I am about the farthest thing from “cute” a living being can get. Gus, on the other hand, is another story.
What is my problem with this word? I just can’t bring myself to say it, it makes me wince, and I will be careful not to use it around Gus either, I am not really into the term, even around my granddaughter Robin. I have no need of her being “cute” or wish for her to be “cute,” I’m not even sure what the word means.
People like me were not raised with the idea that they were adorable, my father, mortified at my odd ways, my bed-wedding and hatred of sports, didn’t think there was anything cute about me. My mother simply thought I was a genius, there is nothing cute about that.
I hope nobody sees this as criticism, people should use whatever words they want to wish, the term “cute” is not offensive in any way, at least not to me. It just always makes me queasy.
But the term is offensive to many other people, especially young women who see the term as demeaning or trivializing. I have sometimes called Maria “adorable,” but I don’t think of her as “cute”, for me, that is not an apt term for a person who is so beautiful and substantial. And strong.
Dictionary.com defines “cute” as attractive, especially in a dainty way, pleasingly pretty, as in a cute child, or a cute little apartment.” Okay, that does seem patronizing and diminutive to me, I don’t see myself (or my dogs) anywhere in there.
I have never referred to my border collies as “cute,” they are working dogs, they can be beautiful but I see it as a trivializing term for them. I can’t imagine what Maria means when she calls me “cute,” I suspect it means she sometimes sees me as endearing (sometimes not), another of the dictionary definitions of “cute.”
I found an interesting dissection of the term on a website called “Thought Catalog,” the piece explained the differences to some women between being cute, pretty, sexy and beautiful.
Each term has different connotations for different people, and speaking only for myself, I would be very reluctant to call any woman or man “cute” at any age, it seems to focus attention on what is least important and interesting about women. I never call my granddaughter Robin “cute” because that is not what is important to me about her, or what i hope she sees as being important about herself.
Sometimes the things she does – when she dances – are cute, for sure.
I can’t say I have liked the people I know who think of themselves as “cute,” I most often want to slug them or get out of the room.
The writers on the website LovePanky – a great name for a website – have a different point of view, they urge women to never take offense when being called “cute,” it is nothing but a compliment they say. Men love women who are cute, according to them.
There are also many discussions online about the difference between being “cute” and “hot,” but none of these apply to me or my dog, so I’ll just glide over them.
I am a near absolutist when it comes to free speech, and since I use whatever words I wish, I urge other people to do the same thing. I do not tell anybody else what words to use.
I am not sure why I am so uncomfortable with the word, I think I share the feminist point of view that it is trivializing and demeaning in anyone who is over four years old, and even for some who are not.
I realize I will have to come to terms with “cute” when Gus arrives, because he strikes many people as being adorable. This is my problem to deal with, not his. He is on track to be a much-loved dog, and I am happy for him. I will conduct some “cute” exercises in my mind so that I can get more comfortable with the idea.
And I am happy to say that none of the people calling Gus cute online are saying that I am adorable.
I freely admit to being mentally ill, and under treatment for my illness for much of my life.
I am on my own now, and doing well, but when you are mentally ill, it is arrogance and hubris to think you are every 100 per cent well or cured. There is no such thing as being fully healed, only self-aware and in control.
I am super vigilant about my life and feelings, and I never delude myself into thinking I can forget my illness. I am not normal, whatever that is, and will not ever be.
Last year, I met a friend I liked. My friend professed to love me and care for me. My friend asked to borrow money, it was an emergency, and I agreed. Then my friend asked for more, there was another emergency, and I gave my friend more. Then my friend offered to work to pay for the money but my friend did not show up to do the work.
When I needed him, he was not there. When my friend was last here, he wanted to borrow more money. I will not give him any more money. He is not my friend. Each time I gave him money, I said it was fine, don’t worry about it, I trust you. And I did. And I do not any longer. And this, after decades of therapy.
And this, I must also confess, just five or six years after I gave almost all of my money – close to $200,000 to a different “friend” who took it without hesitation or worry and one day disappeared. I told him not to worry too, and he didn’t
This episode let to my breakdown and indirectly, to the end of my marriage. It is not a story I have ever told fully or ever will tell fully, some things just don’t need to be shared.
In therapy, a wonderful and genuine healer told me I had lost perspective, I was simply giving pieces of me away to people all of the time, I used people badly and was badly used by them.
It was a kind of addiction, she said, most often afflicting people who were abused or traumatized as children.
Their shattered egos and sense of shame and need for love make them especially vulnerable to relationships that are neither nourishing or healthy, and that are so one-sided as to almost be psychotic. These relationships are reliably destructive and unhealthy. They don’t work. They can’t work.
You simply cannot have a healthy relationship with an unhealthy person, she told me. I deserved better, she said. You must learn to ask, she said, not just what you can do for somebody else, but what is it that somebody else can do for you? Good relationships can never be one-sided.
I told her about my friendship with a woman named Maria I had met only recently in my small and remote town, this was the first time in my life I felt the power of a balanced and nourishing relationship. I was falling in love with her, I said. I was afraid to mention it to the therapist for fear she would see it as just another unhealthy relationship to be avoided, and warn me off. I had just begun the process of ending a 35-year marriage.
She listened carefully, and then said: “you have been working hard here, and listening. I fully support this new relationship. It will open your eyes to what a healthy relationship can be.” And my world changed.
I used to think “Co-Dependence” was something Dr. Phil discussed with Oprah Winfrey. Then my therapist told me to read a book called “Co-Dependence Now,” and then I was convinced me the book was written for me.
According to psychologists, co-dependence is an emotional and behavioral condition that affects an individual’s ability to have a healthy, mutually satisfying relationship. It is also known as “relationship addiction” because people with co-dependency often form or maintain relationships that are one-sided, emotionally destructive and/or abusive.
For me, all of the above. Co-dependency is many things, but in general terms, it is a type of dysfunctional relationship where one person supports or enables another person’s drug addiction, alcoholism, gambling addiction, poor mental health, immaturity, irresponsibility, selfishness or under-achievement.
Co-dependent people are the enablers of the modern world, we make it possible for so many others to avoid responsibility for their lives and deeds.
Other forms of mental illness are better known and famously destructive, but I can tell you – and so many of you already know this – that co-dependence can be a life-killer, a black hole of unhealthy relationships, anger, hurt, mistrust, crippled friendships and loveless and lonely lives.
Recently, I had a second reminder that co-dependence lives forever inside of damaged people.
It can be controlled and understood, like alcoholism or other addictions, but the impulse can never be fully eradicated or cured. I have just realized that there was another friend in my life who is not a friend, but the kind of fantasy friend co-dependent people conjure up all the time.
A person who has come to me for help, who I have helped many times, but is not a friend to me and cares nothing about me. This happens rarely now – I have several very good friends who are both nourishing and healthy, my therapist would approve.
I have learned some things. I called this person up and was honest about my feelings and disappointment. People don’t like it, but it is good for me to stand in my truth, that is healthy. I walked away, and that is healthy too.
My relationship with Maria – and years of good talking therapy – has helped me to understand what a true relationship can be like. In many surprising ways, the dogs have helped me to see this also, learning boundaries and perspective with them has helped me throughout my recent life, from being a grandfather to a good partner and husband to a loving but rational dog owner.
On Facebook recently, a nice woman urged me to go join a group called “Facebook Addicts For Boston Terriers,” since we are getting Gus on Friday. (There are also many groups like this for grandparents.)
But now, I listen to the alarm that goes off in my head, because there are so many co-dependent relationships in the dog world, a million Dr. Phil’s could not cope with them.
I have learned this about co-dependence. You don’t wish to be addicted to any person or emotion or thing, not a drug, not a grandchild, not a dog. Addiction is not love. Giving pieces of yourself to others is not friendship. Turning your life over to something else is not cute.
Making a grandchild the center of my emotional universe is not for me, love is different from that.
For people who suffer from co-dependent relationships, trust is very hard to find and to keep. By definition, many of their relationships must and will betray them. And when they do, they will often blame themselves.
Relationships must be mutual, founded on trust and empathy – both sides. They must feel nourishing, not unsettling or uncomfortable. When you walk away or put the phone down and wonder what it is that just happened, then something is wrong. You cannot, in fact, have a healthy relationship with an unhealthy person. When you feel uncomfortable, speak up about it, and if that doesn’t work, then walk away. Co-dependent people can rarely work out their troubles, they just vanish and go somewhere else to get what they need.
And I am lucky. Co-dependent sufferers, like alcoholics, often need a whack on the head. I needed many.
So many lessons in life, and they continue to arise and be learned and face. For me, co-dependence is one of the biggest.
Co-dependence is a ghost that never wants to go away. But help helps. If I can’t always forestall it, at least I can foresee it and recover in time. That is the lucky thing about mental illness for me, if there is such a thing.
Unlike many awful chronic illnesses, I get to recover every day.
