If you go to the Mansion any afternoon, any day of the week, you will find Diane sitting and singing to the two parakeets in a cage in the long hallway. Animals are very important to many people in assisted care or nursing homes, they are the avatars of life, the life they lived, the life the mourn, they life ahead.
They bring inestimable joy and connection to them. I sat down on the sofa on the other side of the cage with my camera today. Diane has some memory issues, but she is always smiling, always filled with joy, especially when she is seeing Red, or the Mansion cat, or her beloved parakeets – she feeds them every afternoon, sometimes she lets them nibble on a cookie she puts through the cage.
Her songs are sing song, but the message is clear. “I will never hurt you, I will never leave you, I will always take care of you, no sir, I will never let anyone hurt you.”
She sings it every day, over and over again, and the parakeets get excited when they see her, and hop up and down, hoping for food. I imagine the song is comforting to them, they sometimes sing back to Diane.
After awhile, Red comes over to her and puts his head in her lap. “Yes, sir,” she sings to him, “I will always love you, I will never let anyone hurt you.” Red closes his eyes, wags his tail, put his head on her lap or knee.
She is there every day, every afternoon, her walker parked near the sofa, to the front of the cage.
You can write to Diane c/o The Mansion, 11 S. Union Avenue, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816.
I will be honest and say I did not believe it possible that the letters and messages of encouragement would have triggered something in Bill that made it possible for him to read again, the first time in more than a year since he had a debilitating stroke that prevented him reading and writing and brought him to live in the Mansion, an assisted care facility where I work as a volunteer with Red.
Two weeks ago, Bill told me he felt he had no reason to live, and greatly missed a connection with the gay community, a profoundly important and defining part of his life. He said at 82, he had lost hope and purpose. He rarely got out of bed.
He told me he could not read or write or see well. I got him CD’s and audio books and a CD player, but it was just frustrating him more. He said he just couldn’t figure it out.
In the past weeks, after I asked for help on the blog, Bill began receiving beautiful, affirming messages from people all over, and his mood and demeanor changed before our delighted eyes. The staff was elated. He began smiling, joking, moving around, taking walks, it was as if the letters – read to him by me and the Mansion aides – were some kind of miraculous medicine, a spiritual IV that began to revive him and give him hope.
I have never seen anything quite like that, not in a decade of therapy work among the elderly and the dying. Each letter was like a powerful vitamin, a miracle drug.
At first, Bill could not believe that these letters were for him. Then, he could hardly wait to read them.
Today, when I came into the Mansion, he was sitting on the porch, grinning at me, waving to me, and he fairly shouted, “hey, I’ve been looking for you, I’ve been waiting for you! I read today. I can read today, I read a letter today from beginning to end, for the first time since my stroke!”
He was elated, his face filled with joy. He gave me a great hug.
Then he said “this is because of you,” and I corrected him, and said, “no Bill, this is because the community you said you need found you and and reached out to you, and given you what you always said you needed. Your community come back to you.”
Bill read the letter to me in his room, and then again on the porch, he is saving it to read to his daughter, who is coming to visit him tomorrow.
The letter was from Gaye F, It began this way: “Dear Bill, I hope this note finds you well…I have been reading about you online. Although I live in the South, and am straight, I felt moved to write to you. Most of us are drowning in loneliness and dying for connection to community. We we would never dare admit it. We would rather accept misery that open up to the world with our needs. I admire your bravery in being open with your struggles. We all want connection. We all need affection. And we are so afraid of speaking up. I hope that by being open, your tribe finds you..”
Gaye’s letter was apt, and it follows a daily stream of messages from gay men and women all over the country, from Los Angeles to New York City. Day by day, as these messages (and cakes and cupcakes and scarves) arrived, Bill’s outlook got brighter and more energetic.
I have been taking pictures of Bill for some time now, and he never once smiled until these last days. Now he is always smiling.
He had a stroke, and doctors have told me that recovery from strokes is part medical, part physical, part emotional. I could see that Bill felt he had nothing to live for, and had been cut off forever from his community. I saw the letters restore this. Bill is having surgery on his eyes, I did not believe he was fully able to read these letters, but today, he was and did.
I don’t want to emotionalize his experience, his stroke was serious and he has a number of serious cognitive issues to work through. But this was a remarkable breakthrough, when I left, was clutching Gaye’s letter, reading it over and over. Bill cautioned me that he was not quite ready to read books again, and I asked him what he might like to read and he told me and I am going out to get some books for him first thing next week.
I won’t push it on him, but I want him to have the books he likes by his bedside. (Please don’t send any at this point, we need to go slowly and cautiously.)
One of the Mansion residents died recently, he was the sweetest man, and I wrote about him that he was a Prince In The Kingdom of Heart, and the term stuck in my mind. I think in our corner of this universe, in this place, with these people reading together, we have formed our own Kingdom Of The Heart, an antidote to the poison and hatred that sometimes flows all around us.
I am wary of over-reacting to things.Bill has a good long ways to go, but I sometimes think that in the Kingdom Of Heart, miracles are possible. I feel I witness one day, and thanks to all of you good people who reached outside of yourselves and brought connection and community to someone tottering at the edge of life.
(Bill is seeking letters and messages from people in the gay community, his community, he also welcomes letters from others. You can write Bill c/o The Mansion, 11 S. Union Avenue, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816. These messages are making a difference.)
Our eighth Open House is just about one week away – Columbus Day Weekend, October 7th and 8th. As you can see, Maria and I have just discovered the beauty of signs printed on Vista Prints online, inexpensively and easily. What took us so long?
They say it all – sheep herding with Red and Gus and Fate, Belly Dancing with Maria’s Belly Dancing Group, and an increasingly popular art show from Maria showcasing the artists of rural life.
Our Open Houses have become a celebration of rural life. And a celebration of us, with our readers, our neighbors, our good and much-loved friends. When the Open Houses began at the much grander first Bedlam Farm, people flocked from all over the country, we were somewhat overwhelmed.
We moved to our smaller farm, and it is not so overwhelming, although the crowds can still be large.We have learned a lot about h ow to do it in an order, intimate and comfortable way. A few years ago, I despaired about the Open Houses, through no fault of anyone but my own, they had turned into something disturbing to me, and far from what Maria and I had imagined.
It seemed alien, on many levels.
For one thing, the movie about me had just come out, and people get very excited about movies. For another, a lot of people came who didn’t have any idea what we were about or what the Open Houses meant to us. That was my fault. Time seems to have resolved that, and Maria’s energy and creativity has moved me past it.
That was a very painful learning experience for me, and for others. Last year, and especially this year, I feel we have our purpose and our focus back. It feels very good again, Maria and I are excited. Almost all of the people we want and hope to see are coming, and many new friends have told us they plan to be here also.
Local motels and B & B’s are filling up for that weekend, the start of leaf season in nearby Vermont and her in New York.
There is a glow of community and love and friendship again, just what we hoped for, and the leaves are really starting to turn.
The older I get, the more I realize that things left alone quite often find their own way, and Maria has assembled a quite outstanding group of artists and will also show and sell her own art. I’m back to selling photos again in an inexpensive and hopefully, sensitive, way.
She is a natural curator, with great energy and impeccable taste. We are also mindful of everything we do being affordable.
Maria and I are only planning one Open House next year, so we can plan it more thoughtfully. This year, a focus on the art of rural life, of the gathering strength of women, on herding sheep with Red and Fate (and Gus), on our sweet donkeys. The shearer is coming, knitters and spinners are coming, the art has never been better or more affordable The RISSE refugee chorus is coming to sing, some of our friends from the Mansion will be our honored guests, there will be belly dancing, poetry reading.
Ed Gulley, an artist and the co-author of the popular Bejosh Farm Journal, will be here with his farm art sculptures, wind chimes and striking “flowers” made out of farm parts. Ed is an amazing artist and human being, a life-long dairy farmer with amazing stories to tell. People have bought his very striking wind chimes from all over the country.
We couldn’t feel better or more welcoming about it, and I hope that will be reflected in the weekend. It is, after all, a celebration of warmth and creativity and connection, important things these days. No arguments here or screaming cable news panelists.
Some housekeeping details.No dogs, please. We can’t offer toilet facilities but we do have a port-a-potty coming. There is plenty of food and some neat stores in our small town, just down the road. Children are most welcome, but please don’t let them chase after the chickens, for some reason a favored activity of (mostly) boys of a certain age.
Chickens can get killed that way.
Our dogs are very welcoming, sometimes too much so. Fate loves to jump up on people initially, I have not been successful in totally curbing that. Gus does the same thing, but he is too little to jump too far up. They absolutely love people.
We are sorry to ask people not to bring dogs, especially to Bedlam Farm, but our dogs and the donkeys are very protective of the farm and the sheep, dogs prompt chaos and some danger. Please don’t bring them.
Red is, as always, appropriate. The donkeys love to eat carrots and apples, and Shelby, our friend and house-sitter will be here to conduct some donkey tours.
The belly dancing, a must see will be at 1 p.m. Saturday. Poetry readings, talks and sheep shearing afterwards. Art is sold in Maria’s studio all day. The Open House are free, we accept and welcome donations to help us defray expenses. A donation box will be right near the Tin Man.
Parking is along the road in front of the house. Be careful. We are eager to meet you and talk with you. This is not an imposition, but the point, and this year, we definitely have our mojo back, we are psyched.
Maria will be holed up with her artists, I will be happy to sign any books you bring with you or buy for me to sign.
I’m not superstituous but I was surprised to look at this photo – taken with my Achromat art lens – of Gus sitting on Lulu as the sun rose over the hills behind the farm. I suppose there might be a message there,but I don’t dare hazard a guess as to what it might be?
Last week, I wrote a rather anguished account of my grappling with my increasing identification with Antifa, the anti-fascist street movement popping up across America. I said I would wear an Antifa bracelet until Nazi’s stopped marching in torchlight parades through our city streets.
I am not complaining about it, but I did understand this was a controversial idea and that many people would be upset with me, although I was somewhat surprised that so many were not. I love my bracelet, I wear it every day and am taken aback that so many people in my conservative upstate N.Y. town thank me for wearing it and ask me about.
In America, it is increasingly the custom to celebrate freedom and patriotism while often denying freedom and tarnishing the very idea of American patriotism. It sometimes feels like a slogan without meaning.
Here, loudmouths and iconoclasts like me can speak freely, explore our beliefs, change them and learn and grow, or stand or ground. I write what I think, and as I go. I am not a fixed point, but a raging stream.
I love that about America, there are few places on our earth where one can do it.
Ideas swirl about my head like a whirlpool, I believe consistency is the process of small and fixed minds, the country of the left and the right. If the bad guys ever do takeover, it is understood that I will be one of the first to be dragged out into the night and shot or locked away, it always thus.
It would not be because I am important, but because nobody would want me to get important.
I change my mind about things, hourly, that’s what it means to think. But I have not changed my mind about my bracelet from Antifa.
This morning, I got a letter from Berkeley, Calif. from Tim S. Inside the letter was a lovely card which began: “Dear Jon, if your “heart is with Intifa,” I can no longer support your work. I do not believe in using violent means and destruction of property against opposing ideologies and groups. Further, I found your characterization of Antifa to be overly simplistic, naive, and lacking of nuance. If you were thinking of answering…Don’t Bother.”
t was an interesting message, it felt more like an e-mail to me than a letter. The letters I get every day are usually quite thoughtful and loving and wonderful to read. The letter was significant to me, because it raised important questions about what support of someone like me really means, and whether the idea of support means accepting ideas you don’t like as well as ideas you do.
I understand how Tim feels, and living in Berkeley, he sees a lot more Intifa than I have. This loosely knit coalition has done a lot of things I would not do and cannot condone.
I did, of course, reply. He doesn’t get to tell me whether I can do that or not, and I thanked him for the card and said he did, of course, have to follow his heart as I am following mine. People get the right to decide who they want to read, that is not my decision.
The letter got me thinking about what support means in the realm of ideas.
He seems to be against assaults on opposing ideologies or groups, but he is not in favor of my opposing ideology or beliefs. It occurred to me reading this letter that he obviously has never supported my work or he would know that sooner or later, having written 23,000 plus blog posts, I would express a belief he does not like. To me, that is sort of the point of reading something.
I don’t agree with the President’s belief that protests around the flag or the National Anthem denigrate the people who have given their lives for freedom. That is precisely what so many men and women have given their lives to protect. They were not dying for good manners, they were fighting and dying for freedom.
And freedom is not always polite or conventional.
If Tim were speaking to me, I would ask him why only read things you agree or like? If it is wrong to assault opposing ideologies of thought or political belief, why it is okay to ban me and call me names, an assaultive kind of message, as opposed to civil and thoughtful disagreement? You don’t change minds by calling people names.
But the difference between Tim and I is that I like dialogues, I never claim to always be right. And he doesn’t want to speak with me, which tells me how knows or cares little about me. By running away he rejects the very idea of dialogue.
This is the thing in America, we have to hate what and who we disagree with, and this what Tim is doing while convincing himself he is doing just the opposite. Is it possible that everyone is protecting freedom all at once, in their own ways?
I’m not going to run from it. I am a dialogue guy.
My heart is, in some ways with the Antifa because they have drawn the line against hateful ideologies that promote the slaughter and genocide of people with whom they disagree. People like me. If Nazi’s and white supremacists take hold, as they are beginning to do, they have made it clear that they will not observe conventional rituals and values about free expression. They will kill people like me and people who are a different color than they are.
And I should say I do differentiate between outspoken conservatives and Nazi’s. They are not nearly the same thing. But when Nazi’s and white supremacists march with torches through city streets, and are not challenged by our most powerful leaders, lines and distinctions get blurry quickly.
Unlike most politicians, Nazi’s keep their promises.
I always thought my government would protect me from people like that, but now, I’m not so sure. And Antifa is trying to protect people like me from people like them. If they become legitimate and secure, then history tells us there may be no stopping them. My family has, over the years, learned that lesson only too well, and I can’t run or hide from that reality.
People who have been enslaved know it as well. This, I think, is the great disconnect. You are either close to it or you are not.
I could be wrong about this, it is not a simple issue for me at all, despite what Tim thinks. I would have enjoyed hearing his thoughts about it, name-calling and banning and storming off in a huff is not the way in which I communicate, it is the national disease, it is not an expression of freedom, but an assault on freedom.
I do not argue my beliefs on Facebook, or even in letters with classy notecards.
I think the national conversation underway about patriotism, the flag, and free expression is a great and hopeful thing, and it is long over due. Freedom is worthy of debate, it is a fragile thing, given human history. I don’t have the answers to it, all but I am listening, and I am especially interested in listening to people who think differently from me.
If Tim feels this way about me, and if he can’t express himself in a more thoughtful way, he is wise to move along, life is short. But I would define support differently than he does, and remind him he could never have possibly supported my work if he could write a letter like that. In this way, he makes himself irrelevant to me when he very well might have something to say that I need to hear.
Irene, from, South Dakota, has and does support my work. And she doesn’t like what I wrote either.
She sent me a letter this week also and in it, she said: “Jon, I have enjoyed your writing, books and blogs for years. I often disagree with you, but often find reasons to think in your writing. I was sorry to see you are identifying with Antifa, it seems to me you stand for very different things than they do. You are not a violent or angry and destructive person.
You are entitled to your opinion, I’m not writing to attack you, call your names, or quit reading you. I’m see you explain yourself over time – I am not agreeing with you on this – and I am interested to see whether you change your mind or not. I thought your piece was powerful and it did make me think, and for that, I will always be indebted to you. Keep on trucking, you do good work. Best, Irene.”
She added a very thought page or two on just why she disagreed with me and gave me much to think about.
I don’t know Irene, but I love her. She is a patriot, she understands what it really means to be an American. She understands what it really means to be free. And she really does support my work, for which I thank her.
At the close of his letter, Tim wrote “goodbye.” Goodbye to you also, sir, and I hope you find what you need.
