Day: February 10, 2018

A few months ago, I wrote that a man who was once a very close friend of mine, a mentor, guide and inspiration, had been singled out by the me.too movement sweeping the country.

He was one of the most moral, ethical and responsible journalists I had known, and I modeled myself after him in many ways.

Journalism always had a moral purpose for me, it was never about the left or the right, and my friend – we spent so many good and long hours talking to one another – encouraged and  uplifted me.

He has admitted to sexually harassing several young women who applied to him for work, or who did work with him. He touched them inappropriately, frightened them, stuck his tongue in their mouths, grossly abused his authority. We haven’t been in touch for some years, we did talk to each other from time to time. It always felt good and nourishing and ennobling.

I have been struggling all this time to figure out how to talk to him, to support him without enabling or endorsing him.

I would never walk away from a true friend, or so I thought. I have, somewhat to my shame, walked away from him

I know enough about men to believe women when they talk about suffering harassment and abuse.

And my friend never denied what he had done, he acknowledged that the women who spoke up about him  were telling the truth, he apologized to them and to his colleagues and  resigned and vanished into the ether. No one had heard from him or talked to him, including me.

I do know he lost everything he had worked so hard for his whole life, his wife, his family, his work, his future, even his home. He doubts he will ever get a job again. Every friend he had has abandoned him, none of his former colleagues have attempted to contact him, no college would speak with him.

I know this because I finally got focused and called him up. We talked for a good long time and I asked him if he wished to speak about what has happened to him. He did speak of it, but the truth is, he said, he doesn’t really know how he could have sacrificed everything he loved in the world in order to abuse and mistreat those women.

He doesn’t know, he can’t say, he has no excuse to make or explanation to offer. He will, he said, spent the rest of his life trying to understand why he destroyed his life doing things he knew then and knows now were wrong.

I can’t say it wasn’t good talking with him, or that it was. It was sad and painful. It brought me down.

I also know we will almost certainly never speak to one another again. The person I know, the friendship we had, no longer seems to be there, is either no longer relevant, or has failed in some profound  way.

For me, authenticity comes when I can see and accept and acknowledge the worst parts of myself. In our world, there are always long lines of people waiting to tell us what we are doing, saying and thinking that is wrong. It is how we judge ourselves that matters.

I just can’t fathom what happened to my friend, how I person I was so close to and  knew to be so moral and grounded was neither. I am no waif, I know good people can do bad things, but I still can’t get a grip on it and perhaps never will. I can’t help thinking if the friendship was real, he would have come to me for help, or I would have known he was in such trouble, or at the very least comforted him in some personal way when his life fell apart.

I mean, what is a friendship worth it if is marked by so many failures?

I am still getting to know me, still getting to like me. I have said this before, but I have pretty much given up on the idea of friendship, at least  with men. I had no friends when I was very young, I have since avoided friendship and given up or lost on the friendships I have formed as an adult. I don’t know why, I’m sure it’s a black hole in me, my  therapists  have never put a finger on it, except to wonder if I just wasn’t comfortable with intimacy, a common enough symptom for people with my history.

Maria has surely broken through the moat, but I think it’s still there, at this point in my life, this need for some distance.  I’m learning to accept myself.

What I feel in this case is a profound failure of friendship, the kind of failure that persuades me to back off on the idea of friendship, to look elsewhere in my life for what I need. I know I tend to make people uncomfortable, and why do that? The truth is, I am happy with life, and busy and fulfilled, and friendship may just not be something I need.

I admit that I am still somewhat haunted by another failure of friendship, the suicide of my friend Paul, who sat with me in this farmhouse talking for hours just a short time before he went out into the night and hung himself on a giant pine tree.

I waited, as did everyone else, for a note, and have never received one. Either he loved me too much to talk to me, or he didn’t love me enough to talk to me.

But i can’t quite imagine a more spectacular failure of friendship than that. Every one say it had nothing to do with me, and that’s fair enough, but am I really so blind as to have missed any signal or sign?

I will never know.

I think I have learned that men are broken in many ways that neither they nor the culture around them every reall acknowledge. The industrial revolution cut them off from their families,  and made them slaves. The women’s revolution has called them out for their eternal sings and crimes. The hoary old ideas of power and dominance are being rejected all over the world.

They seem to be destroying the planet, and one another in the endless was, genocides, persecutions, greed, power trips and ignorance that now literally threatens the earth.

I don’t mean to seem gloomy, I have, in fact, never been happier. And I do have some very good friends, a couple of men and some remarkable women.

But I think it’s time to let the old idea of friendship go, perhaps I will find another way to do the same thing. This way doesn’t seem to work for me

I was wandering the halls of the Mansion Assisted Care Facility Friday, looking for volunteers to act in our “Night Of Four Skits” on April 4. I ran into Madeline and  Joan, two of my favorite friends at the Mansion. They were both laughing and making noise and dancing with one another, and I said “what is going on here?”

And they both stopped, and said at the same time. “we are Wonderful Ladies and this is the Wonderful Ladies Club.”

“Are you dancing?,”I asked. “Of course,” said Madeline, “can’t  you see? Take our picture!” I needed no additional encouragement, and I much-loved the joy and connection between these two.

They look out for one another.

“I think it’s about wonderful…or something,” said Joan, smiling.

They are, in fact, wonderful ladies.

“How long has this club  been around?,” I asked. “Oh, about three minutes,” said Madeline.

Madeline is in her 90’s and she is fierce warrior for thinking, singing, writing and culture, this, she says, is because she comes from New York City. She admits to being a bit of a New York City snob. “After all,” she says haughtily, “they have the Yankees there.”

Joan and I are working on her memory and having much fun and success, we are reading together, her memory is reasserting itself.

But I loved the spirit of these two, these proud, undaunted, determined women, struggling every day to lead a meaningful and loving life. People tend to write off the elderly, content to keep them out of sight, as our culture pushes them out of sight, happy to keep them alive for profit, but not willing to think much about how they will live their lives.

They are lucky to be in the Mansion. That is the best place I have seen.

Some, I see, are broken by this process, and surrender to it. Others never do.

I asked Madeline and Joan if they wished to continue the idea of the Very Wonderful Ladies Club – their memory is not always on the surface. I volunteered to remind them in case they got distracted or it slipped their minds. I can already picture the dances and parties.

Good ideas can fade at the Mansion, there are so many things to do first. Both of these wonderful ladies have signed up to be in our play,”Night Of Four Skits.”

“Please,” said Madeline. “Oh yes,” said Joan. “We are wonderful ladies.”

You can write to Madeline or Joan c/o The Mansion, 11 S. Union Avenue, Cambridge, N.Y., 12818. As a rule, Joan cannot read or respond to your letters, but they will be read to her and sometimes, she can reply. She loves getting them.

We’ve only seen Robin Gibbons once since we brought Gus home from her house last Spring. She’s Gus’s breeder, and now, a good friend. She hasn’t seen Gus since his megaesophagus diagnosis, but we have talked on the phone and messaged one another almost continuously since Gus got sick.

She was  eager to see him again, so I drove him over to her house this afternoon. Although megaesophagus is not a breeding issue – doctors believe it is caused by parasites or a virus – she is scrupulous and ethical and she is testing Gus’s mother Hannah, to make sure she isn’t carrying the disease.

We all keep telling her it isn’t transmitted in that way, and Gus’s mother, father and siblings don’t have any health issues of any kind. Robin wants to be sure, she says she prays for Gus continuously. I have hopefully been clear – this is not a breeding problem, a dog lover could hardly do better than t get a dog from Robin, she is careful, loving and  very honest.

We stopped by her house on the way to town, she doesn’t live far from the farm. Robin has two Boston Terriers, Jeeter, a male who is no his father, and Hannah, a female who is his mother. Gus was  very happy to see Robin and her son Brian, he went crazy over Brian, jumping on his head, showering him with kisses.

It was a joyous reunion, although Hannah didn’t seem to recognize Gus at all. His feelings were not the least bit heart, he chased her all over the room.

Gus clearly remembered Brian, and they got right into their old scrambling and wrestling with one another. Robin has been following Gus’s   progress on my blog, and she has been encouraging and supportive as we try to figure out what to do.

Gus regurgitated some food just after coming home, I write that off to excitement and energy, the dogs were all quite intense with one another, lots of circling and posturing with one another.                                                          .

It was a great pleasure to work with Robin. She said we could come over as often as we wished to see the puppy, and we did. Robin did a great job of socializing all of the dogs. She is a careful breeder and works hard to keep the best traits alive in the dogs she breed. I hope she breeds again. Hannah is a sweetheart.

 

“I believe that most caregivers find that they inherit a situation where they just kind of move into caregiving. It’s not a conscious decision for most caregivers, and they are ultimately left with the responsibility of working while still trying to be the caregiver, the provider, and the nurturer. – Sharon Law Tucker

Today, i devote this post to the caretakers, unheralded and so often taken for granted. This weekend, I am one.

This weekend, I’m a Caretaker, and the meaning and poignancy and history of the term are not lost on me. Whenever I have been sick, the caretakers have always been women. I don’t think a man has ever taken care of me when I was sick, not once in my life.

Maria and I play different roles in our marriage, quite often reversing or inverting traditional gender stereotypes.

She rarely cooks and never shops, she is not what you call domestic. I relish those things.

Yet she is a deep and instinctive caretaker Most morning, when Gus needs to be held upright, it is Maria doing the holding, singing songs to Gus, playing chants for him on her Iphone, this seems so natural to her, and to him.

Most mornings, I am fussing around with my camera, recording this or some other moment of intimacy and emotion, I am always easier on that end of the things, caretaking has always been a women’s thing in my mind.

It is always dangerous to generalize, and often unfair. I think of two men in my life when I think of caretaking, there is Ali, who is nurturing and fiercely protective of his refugee soccer players. There is a young man at the Mansion named Logan, an aide who is a natural caretaker, the residents often tell me how loving and intuitive he is, and I can see  how much he cares.

But mostly, the caretaking there and elsewhere is done by women. I do think men and women are different, which isn’t to say unequal. I think women’s hearts are more open than the hearts of most of the men I know.

In my work with the elderly, I see how many women are caretakers for the elderly, and also for their aging mothers and fathers, it is difficult, even crushing work, it drains them and binds them and challenges them.  And often, it challenges them.

I rarely come across men who are not nurses or doctors  turn their lives over to their parents. I know it happens, I doubt it happens nearly as often.

When I have been sick – had my heart surgery, my eye operation, my sudden fevers and colds – Maria has always been there to take care of me to be a caretaker. To drive me to appointments, feed me, comfort me, love me. It is difficult for me to say how natural this is for her, and how healing for me. I never feel it is grudging or reluctant, I never have to ask for anything, she knows what I need.

I mention this all because this weekend I am a Caretaker, and I have learned in recent years how much I love doing that, what a powerful part of me that is. Love creates caretakers, as well as obligation. I take pride in it, I am good at it.

I am grateful for the opportunity to care for someone who is so devoted to caring for others. Is there a purer manifestation of love? Do I ever have a better chance to show what she means to me?

Maria is sick, she is weak and exhausted. It might be the flu, it might be a cold, it might be something else. It is not a life-threatening thing, I can see that, and so can she. But she is quite helpless, a startling thing to see in such a vibrant creature.

We won’t know what it is because Maria doesn’t go to doctors if she can walk and talk, that is the way she is and I don’t challenge her or question it any longer. I respect her right to make her own decisions about herself, just as I defend my right to do the same. We respect that in another.

Yesterday, I shoveled snow for an hour outside, and I saw her watching me closely, i knew she wanted to say something to urge me to stop. (She did mutter once, “what the hell are you doing?” but that was all).  But she didn’t try to stop me, and I appreciate her letting me feel like someone who could shovel his own walk.

I have rarely seen her so week. She insisted on getting up early to feed the animals, I know she doesn’t want me walking out on the ice pack. I let her go, had ginger tea and breakfast waiting, I walked the dogs, fed them, did the dishes, cranked up the wood stoves, I did anything I thought she might do, and when she came in, she was so weak she went right up to bed.

So I am the Caretaker this weekend. I cancelled my writing workshop, will haul the garbage and recycling to the dump, tend to Gus and hold him, make lunch and dinner, go out shopping. Maria is sleeping and in bed, No movies today, she agrees not to go outside again, so I know she’s hurting. There is no fight in her.

This is a gift to me,  a selfish thing. I remember taking care of my daughter when she was sick, I so loved cooking for  her, taking her temperature, reading to her, wiping her  brow, cheering her up, helping her heal.

The world is changing in so many ways, and I can think of nothing better for the world or healthier than men for them to honor the caretakers and incorporate caretaking into their own lives, as I have begun to do. I know it has been good for me, and I dearly love the men I know who are doing it.

Perhaps not surprisingly, they have become close friends.

I wrote this piece in honor of the Caretakers, and in honor of me for meaning to do it well and completely. Most of all, I honor the women who have been caretaking for centuries, and in our country, are doing so more than ever.

Running a farmhouse and a farm with animals and dogs and donkeys and sheep and cats is not simple (I must remember to feed the barn cats, they are in the basement again during the ice storm). I will be careful not to fall, to ferry tea, to pack up the car for the dump, to make sure we have enough food for the weekend, to bring Maria some medicine if she will take it, and take her temperature and make her soup.

It isn’t that I haven’t done these things before, I do them all the time. But this weekend I am the Caretaker, and  join that precious and loyal community of people who reach out beyond themselves and answer the call to help the vulnerable.

It is true, I think, that caretaking is so often something we move into, not always a conscious decision.

In our country, helping the vulnerable is seen by many as a blasphemy, an enabling of the weak. To me, it is sacred one, another way in which we define our sense of humanity. Maria is asleep now, so I get to blog.

Time to get dressed and head for the dump. There is much good and meaningful work to do.

Love is always a gift.