Day: November 1, 2017

I was looking for Bill today, I hadn’t talked to him much since returning from New Mexico, I found him sitting in the hallway listening to a crackly radio.  He is in a much better mood than he was when I first met him, I am hoping to find a way for this  oncevoracious reader to read again.

Our road to reading and listening to books is bumpy. Bill put the CD player we got him away, he said he couldn’t use it yet.

I asked him if he could listen to the radio that was in the CD player in his room, and he said he couldn’t, that’s why he comes out into the hall to listen to the radio out there. He said he has made no progress reading the books we have him, and he said he is looking forward to some eye surgery coming up.

But he’s not sure he will be able to read even after that, strokes work that way sometimes, he said, and I know that to be true. Bill seems more connected to other people than he was, and he much enjoys getting messages and letters from the outside world, especially the gay community, which is very much misses.

That’s a challenging thing about this work,  I know, it never goes in a straight line. It is always up or down and back and forth. Bill talks often about re-connecting with his community, and I can see how much that means to him.

I think I’ll try some new and different things for Bill. He is not comfortable manipulating machinery or any kind of technology. He does like being read to, and perhaps I can  help read some of the letters he gets to him, and we can see where that goes. I don’t want to pressure him, but I’d like to keep trying, I think being bored is hard on him, he has a very active mind.

It is important to leave the ego at the door in this work. Some things work and some thinks don’t, and one is always moving on and backing off, and trying something new and re-grouping. One of them will stick, and if not, then there is acceptance. One must never get discouraged or frustrated. We go where they go.

I was going to buy Bill some Armistead Maupin books about gay life in San Francisco, but I don’t think he is ready to read yet, and I don’t really know when or if it will ever be possible. I hope members of the LTGB community will continue to send him cards and letters and messages, he very much appreciates them, these messages are very good for him, they stimulate him to listen carefully and read.

They make him feel known and cared for. Gay or straight,  you can write to Bill c/o The Mansion, 11 S. Union Avenue, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816.

 

Alice is one of my favorite residents at the Mansion, she is quiet and thoughtful, she seems to be in her own world sometimes, but doesn’t miss much, and she has  a quick smile and a ready sense of humor. She has been attending my poetry workshop, and she listens carefully, but says little.

Today, I asked the group if any of them ever had dreams, dreams are good for writing poetry, I said. Alice looked at me and smiled.

She was my date on the Lake George Boat Ride last month, and it was difficult for her to navigate the boat. We held hands for much of the time.

“Do you ever dream?,” I asked. “Oh,” she said, laughing. “I wasn’t paying attention. I was petting your dog.” Sometimes, the Mansion residents can be humbling.

You can write Alice c/o The Mansion, 11 S. Union Avenue, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816.

Connie wanted me to thank you for your help in getting her a new recliner lift, she appreciates it and is excited to get it sometime next week.

Our visits are different these days, Connie is exhausted and my sense is she needs to see Red, not have long conversations with me. I try not to ask her about her health or medical condition, she gets to talk about that all day long. Right now, what she needs is to couch Red and rub his back, it is therapeutic and comforting to her.

I told  her about the chair and saw she was pleased, and then left Red and went to teach my Poetry Workshop in the Activity Room. We are working on a poem about being older, it is  very powerful for me as a teacher.

Red and Connie are old friends by now, he is always eager to see her and stands quietly by as she rubs his back and talks to him. There are times when she needs to talk to me, and times when she doesn’t, and it is my job to know the difference.

Her gratitude for the chair is very real. At this point, she is not able to read or knit, she is just trying to take care of herself. Red’s visits mean a lot to her.

After a month or two of disoriented wobbling around, and avoiding the roost to spend the night somewhere out in the open, the Gray Hen has mysteriously but almost completely returned to her former self.

She is doing in the roost at night, staying with the other hens again, and getting out of the way when we walk up to her.

In other words, she’s behaving like a chicken. She might have been broody, though I don’t think so, and she was never sitting on any eggs that we saw,  or she might have just been sick. My guess is the latter.

In any case, it’s probably just as well that I didn’t shoot her.

She seems back to her old self, and with the shorter days, the hens have stopped laying and we are going to put the blue light inside the roost again to fool them into thinking the days are long.

Maria is fond of the chickens, but I personally don’t see the point of having them around if they aren’t laying eggs.

Barn cats are mystical creatures to me, I love them for the unnfathomableness, their independence, their savvy and ferocity. Our cats, Flo and Minnie, are at least partly domesticated. We give them shots, feed them some solid food every day, worm them regularly, get them all of their shots, and let them into the house or basement on bitter cold nights.

They don’t hang out much together, they have separate lives.

Flo is the first cat to get to me, she seduced me into letting her in the farmhouse one bitter night, before that she lived in the woodshed, we don’t know where she came from.

Minnie was born a feral kitten and lived with the chickens in the first Bedlam Farm barn, she still hangs out with the chickens when she can, even though she is now a three-legged cat. She never came into a house until her amputation.

Usually, Flo and Minnie have little or nothing to do with one another. Flo sleeps on the porch or high up in the old barn, Minnie sleeps in a box by the back porch. Flo terrorizes the dogs, hissing and swiping at them if they get too close. Even Frieda  ran from her.

Flo lived secretly on the farm for a year or two, we knew she was there, but never saw her. In a storm, she revealed herself to Maria – a smart move, but still lived in the woodshed until she seduced me.

Minnie loves all things, human and animal. She sleeps on the hay in the big barn. We almost never  see them together.

I am not ever going to be certain we did the right thing in amputating Minnie’s leg after she was attacked by an unidentified predator one night out behind the farmhouse. I do not believe humans have the right to inflict such suffering on helpless animals just so they can feel better themselves.

It seems selfish and arrogant to me.

Today, for no reason I can know or imagine, these two cuddled up right next to one another like sisters. They touched heads and soaked up the sun together. It had been a chilly night, but there have been many chilly nights and they are never near each other.

Unlike dogs, they don’t slobber or pander or live to please people.

Barn cats are like that. They are unknowable. They do not live to please humans.  They find remote and safe corners and crevices to sleep in.

They sense approaching storms and vanish. They are ferocious and unforgiving hunters.

They are tough and free and love their independence. They get to live the natural lives of cats, and yes, that includes the slaughter of many helpless smaller things.