What Rose knows

Whenever the suitcase comes downstairs, Rose takes up position between the suitcase the door. She waits. She knows I am leaving. Does she want to come? I don’t know. She watches my back, always.

My front yard

Hannah Arendt wrote beautifully about the notion of the “New Man.” Thomas Merton wrote of the New Man as well, a man who sought humility, kindness and generosity and who was connected to his friends and family. He sought a spiritual life, valued creativity and the life of the mind and worked hard to understand the fear that men have sometimes spawned in the world. And to use his gifts to life people up.

I love this ideal of the New Man, a hard thing to acheive but something I aspire to.

Tonight, heading to New York City. We are going to the opera with Maria’s mom, a lifelong opera lover. She is excited, so are we. I think when you do things for other people, you are almost always doing something for yourself. Generosity is a selfish act, and no less valuable for that. Back tomorrow morning.

Smile. It's the Hound of Love

A couple of years ago, I had given up on love, on an entire part of love and the human experience. I just didn’t think it was possible for me. I closed down and then, began to break down. I have a different notion of love. I see that many people give up on it at some point in their lives, just as society conditions them to give up on their dreams and stories and ambitions.

We are trained to see accomplishment and security as linked with money and 401 K’s and the money to pay for pills we might or might not need, depending on which survey comes out this month. I ran headlong into love, and I remember thinking, “I will not let this opportunity pass. I will not be closed to it. I will not let it go and live in the light and spirit of other people and their expectations of me and my life.”

There are all kinds of surveys and statistics about love and the odds of finding it – age, gender, geography, psychology. I don’t choose to live by these odds, but would rather make my own. If you give up on love, you are giving up on so much of what matters in life. Love, like anything worthwhile, is hard work. But to me, it embodies Mary Oliver’s wonderful notion of putting your lips to the world. And just living.

As the Buddhists say, time passes quickly. Use it.

Milkhouse, late afternoon, Hebron, N.Y.

Humility, wrote Thomas Merton, is absolutely necessary if a person is to avoid acting like a baby all of his life. To grow up means, in fact, to become humble, and cast aside the illusion that we are the center of things. True humility, is, I think, one of the rarest traits that I encounter in human beings.

I can think of few people to whom I might apply that word. It is something for which I truly strive because I believe that only the humble can really be open to true human connection, and learn to listen and put their own fears and needs aside. I’m not there, but it is a place I would love to be.

I’m heading to New York City for the day. We are taking Maria’s mom to New York for a special birthday celebration. I hope to see my daughter there.

It has been about five years since I pointed a camera to a farmhouse on Kinney Road and opened my eyes to the light and images and shadows of the world.

That night changed my life. I have not seen the world the same since then and an abandoned milkhouse on a country is a radiant place for me when we drive by and I see the late afternoon lighting coming through that screened window. Maria, who is as humble as she is good, can sense my twitch now and says, on her own, “do you want to stop,” and I nod and she pulls over and I jump out of the car – nearly rushing into traffic as always – and she takes out her sketch pad and draws while I nose around for the best angle to catch the fading light.

We have pulled over a thousand times in a thousand places and never – not once – has she been annoyed or impatient with me. I am so appreciative of that.

A neat book, highly recommended

Next week – March 16, to be exact – my daughter Emma Span joins the authorial ranks with her new book, “90 per cent of the game is half mental,” already getting nice reviews. Her book party is next week in Brooklyn, of course, and I’m going as proud papa and official photographer. It takes Em a lot longer to write a book than it makes me, but then she has taken on a pretty big subject. And she labors over every word, five or six times. They had to pry the book out of her hands.

Although the book is nominally about her strange experiences as a New York baseball fan, it is, of course, about much more. It’s a coming of age memoir, I think, a book about work in New York these days, and about an outsider coming to terms with an insider world, a subject that is perhaps familiar to her. Her chapter on movies is hilarious, not in the least because she recounts in great and merciless detail my dragging her to movies since she was in a stroller. I got in trouble taking her to see Terminator II when she was eight or nine, and we had to go back and see it again because her eyes were closed for most of the first viewing.

She has lots of fun poking Dad, as is only fair.

Emma’s odyssey took her through some awful and scary jobs in New York and finally to work as a baseball writer, at least until she got canned in a corporate takeover. Emma never quite figured out (I think she did) whether she wanted to be watching the game from the press box or out in a bar. The book is funny, but also pretty poignant, at least to me. I keep thinking of O Henry’s amazing accounts of the smart people who came to New York to make it and of their struggles. There’s a lot of that in here. Anyway, it’s coming out next week, and as a completely unbiased observer, I can’t recommend it highly enough.

Place to meditate

This is where Maria and I go up to meditate sometimes, or just to sit and talk. It is a good view of Bedlam Farm and yes, one would have to be a little crazy to leave here. Where else in the world would one get to sit in a place like that.

Sunset, Pole Barn

I walked up the hill with Maria on this crisp, Spring like day. I missed the sheep today, missed going up there with Rose and marching up the hill, through the woods, down paths in the forest. I am not one for looking back too much, although I am beginning to tally up some of the loss in my life, but this would have been a glorious day to take the sheep out. I think Rose missed them today too, although I can’t say for sure.

The sheep loved the pole barn, and it was the center of their existence, Perhaps I will visit them in Vermont over the next few weeks, and take some photos. I think it would have been too painful to see them – they are with Lulu and Fanny also – and I’d like to see them as well.

Return to the City of God

Izzy and I resumed our Washington County Hospice volunteer work today, visiting a Hudson Falls Nursing Home, and a new patient, Louise, a long-time dog lover. She was tired, and said hello to Izzy and then had to lie down and rest. We will return on Thursday.

This afternoon, Maria and I walked up the hill to sit in the Adirondack Chairs I put up there when I moved to the farm. I remember – before I fell apart a bit – going up there almost every day to sit with the dogs and be still. I remember reading St. Augustine’s City of God, sometimes to me, sometimes to the dogs. The dogs soak up the contemplative feeling of the moment, and settled down. Mother came up to say hello. It was wonderful sitting there with Maria, as happy a moment as I could ever have dreampt of.

Soon after those visits, I lost my mind, or much of it, and went into one of Joseph Campbell’s dark places. I am fighting my way out, and I see much light, joy, peace and love. It was wonderful to sit up on the mountain, and remember Augustine’s notion of a city of light. That’s where I was. Seeing Louise was uplifting for me. I love watching Izzy work – he tuned up the whole wing. And I always appreciate my life when I am near people on the edge of life. Time is short. Use it well.

Frieda, watching

I love the look Frieda gets when she has spotted something, out on the path. She is a true hunter.

Maria, a portrait

I guess it is not an easy thing, Learning to Love. By definition, it involves change, sharing, listening, giving, opening. I never gave up on love. I hope I never do.

Window, Coila, N.Y., garage

March 7, 2010 – Someone asked me yesterday what my responsibility was a writer and an artist, and the answer came right out: to lift people up, to stimulate, entertain and sometimes provoke them. Expensive art is not selling right now, and some books aren’t either, and for me, that means the creative challenge is greater to connect – through stories, different kinds of writing, notecards and, if necessary, to crawl on my hands and knees to each reader and kiss them on the nose.

The creative has to reach people, and keep trying until they do. I am fortunate, not because I am more gifted than others, but because I am writing about a subject people care about these days – pets and companion animals. But even in that context, I have changed. I am writing fiction, short stories, children’s books, selling notecards. All of this involves many things – money, opportunity, but as much as anything else, a passionate desire to connect with people and spark an emotional response – through words, images, experience.

I told my friend that whenever people weren’t buying the creative works of people, it means the artist or writer was out of touch and needed to change. Maria did this with her potholders. I am trying it with new kinds of writing and photography and new ways of distributing it. That’s the joy of the creative life. You have to be creative. I think this responsibility is especially critical in challenging times when people are bombarded with disturbing information from unthinking people around the clock.

My job is to help people make sense of the feelings, light and images of the world. If I do my job, my work will find a home.

Rose and the imaginary squirrel

March 6 2010- Rose is now in her seventh year of pursuit of the Imaginary Squirrel which she saw the first week she came to live on the farm when she was six months old. I have not seen him since, but she has never passed this tree without stopping to check. One day I am sure he will return and the chase will be renewed. But Rose does not take her work lightly.

Today, writing a proposal for a new book idea. Secret for now. Tomorrow work resumes on my short stories.

Seeing yourself

Fear and sadness both have a bad name in our culture, and I can grasp that. Awhile back, when I was struggling especially hard with both, several doctors suggested that I medicate myself, and I decided, after a lot of thinking, to say not. I have learned more from fear and sadness than from any other thing in my life. They have given me strength and confidence, helped me to grow up, opened me up to love and friendship, forced me to face the worst truths about myself, as well as the best things.

I have dealt with fear all of my life, and I expect to deal with it to the end of my life. But I have learned a lot about myself, and seen things I believe I would not have seen had I chosen medication. I am not suggesting that anybody else make the same choice – these are always personal decisions. But fear and pain can be valuable. They bring wisdom. I am glad I did not choose to push them too far aside.

Lost America. Schoolhouse and tractor

You hear a lot of things about love and its prospects. Some relate to age, gender and the fickle nature of human beings. After many years of being unlucky in love, I got lucky. Or did I? Did I open the door? Let it in?

Is it true that it is so much more difficult for women than men to find love? Or to keep love after first blush? I do not live by statistics, as I know too many people – men, women, of all ages – who make their own news, create their own statistics. I think you need to be brave to find love. You need to let someone get close. You need to open yourself up. You need to ask every single morning, “what can I do to love this person? To show her that she is important to me? To think of her and give her something that she needs?”

It was hard for me to find love. I was terrified. I knew I had to try and be brave.

Learning to Love, Part One

Going for black and white for a bit, here a shot from Bunker Hill Road. The winter woods.

March 3, 2010 – There are many differing views of love in our culture. That it’s only for the young. Or only something one sees in the movies. That it is imbued with romantic and idealized notions and feelings. That it doesn’t last long. That it is rare.  That it wearies under the pressures and ravages of time and life. That it isn’t important, when compared to much of what is in the news – money, war, catastrophe, politics.

Many people give up on the idea of love, especially when they’ve lost it, gotten older, been discouraged or distracted. I gave up on love. I thought it was for kids. I didn’t know what it was. I was not open to it.

So I am learning to love now, an extraordinary gift for a man in late middle age, and a seminal experience, one of the most significant and compelling of my life. I was thinking of one of my favorite books, “Learning to  Love: End Of The Journey”, Thomas Merton’s last book, and an account of his falling in love and having to choose between the woman he loved and his faith. So I want to write about love over the next week or so, an ambitious and personal subject, and an important one.

I have come to believe love is open to people if they are open to it, and it is not a simple process. Are we available to it? Seeking it? Do we have faith that it is there for us? A lot of people don’t.

Learning and changing. More to come. It is something that ought to be shared.

Growing up

Carriage Barn Window

For the past few years, I’ve recorded most of the important events of my life on the blog, a living record of my strange and curious trek. Today was an important day. I did something that was both frightening and painful, and it was necessary to do because it was part of being a grown-up. It is personal, not something to reveal here.

It meant a great deal to me, and took me a long time to do. It was a statement that my life is important, and I will not give pieces of it away, and I will protect it and do the things that adults do to take care of themselves.

On the surface, it seems obvious that people have to grow up, but for me, one of many people whose childhoods were interrupted by trauma and trouble, it has not been so simple. I remained a child long past childhood’s time passing my frights and responsibilities onto other people.

I was confused about money, lost perspective, was disconnected from reality. And when the mask came off, it scared the hell out of me. Enough to get me growing up, and quickly. I work hard at it, every day.

It has taken me a long time to grasp the idea of growing up, even longer to do it. And I am not quite there yet. I have come to see that  it is frightening to remain a child, to not know the details of your life, or to be able to stand up for it. To know your life, to understand it, is to be unafraid, because it means you know you can take care of yourself. Many times in recent years, I’ve felt like a six-year-old kid with a farm and a book contract.

I felt often that I had given myself away, and there wasn’t much left. I had no idea who I was, and am still puzzling over it. Grown-ups know these things, I thing. I’ve had a lot of catching up to do, and it is enthralling, frightening, exhausting and exhilarating.

I’ve needed to grow up, and fast. The farm helped me do it. So does Maria. So did a therapist. And some good friends. So, curiously, did my photography which somehow, in ways I think I will never quite grasp, permitted me to see my life and the world more clearly as I live it now. Perhaps that is Zen photography. I am lucky to have the opportunity to grow up.

It is hard enough to do when you are supposed to do it, rougher later on. But essential. Life depends on it.

So I took a big and scary step towards growing up today. And it feels good.

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At 7 p.m. Thursday, Mary Kellogg and I will be at the Red Fox Bookstore in Glens Falls, N.Y. (518 793 5352). Mary will be reading from her new book “Whistling Woman,” which also includes some of my photographs. I will be available to sign books too. Mary is a treasure, and come and see her if you can.

Lenore, accompanying me on my life

March 2, 2010 – Intimations of Spring. Snow melting, sun higher, garden stirring.  Lenore came with me yesterday to help me take photographs in the Carriage Barn, and ten, of course, she became the photograph. Like many Labs, she loves to come along and keep me company in life. Today, back to work on the short stories, which need some more work.

Tomorrow, somebody is coming to look at the farm. Don’t know whether they will buy it or not, but it focuses on some questions. Have to think about life – whether to stay, move on to the next Bedlam Farm. Dogs will remain a focus of my life, along with fiction, children’s books, photography. And Maria.

Got to have a place with room for these dogs. Rose needs space, so do the other dogs. And Maria has to have a studio. And I have to have a study. Sounds like Bedlam Farm. Does it make sense to stay in such a big place, however beautiful, with three empty barns and acres of fenced pasture that isn’t being used? I don’t know. I’ll be sharing the process though. I’ve always thought this Spring would be telling. We’ll see.

Zen dogs

Dogs live in the moment, and we can learn from that. They find the sun, they go within themselves, and they seem to find peace, at least some of them some of the time. I am working again on training. Lenore has gotten into the habit of running into the woods to eat dead deer parts and she doesn’t come. I started yelling at her of course, and then reminded myself, with a good and responsive dog like this, whose fault is it that she isn’t coming? Mine. So I’m back to the Ziploc bags and treats and doing basic obedience – come, sit, stay – and she is responding. How much a mirror of us they are, how consistently at fault we are when we lost our patience and yell rather than doing the painstaking and time-consuming work of communicating well with them. Whenever I yell at a dog, I know it is time to shut up and start thinking about what I am doing. In this way, they have improved me. Taught me to be more patient, to listen and think.

I was much inspired by the Zen Photographs of Thomas Merton and went out and took a few I think. I’ll post them later. It was affirming to see that he went after so many of the same subjects I cherish.

Farm truck, ret.

People write to me sometimes and say the blog is important to them, that it is something they turn on in the morning, before they get started, or in the evening after work. This is humbling to me, and puzzling, too, as I don’t know why my life would have that impact. The blog is an important part of my writing now, and it has, in some ways, been part of my community for several years. It is grounding.

I appreciate that it means much to a lot of people, and feel obliged to say that that means something very important to me. At dark times, I found myself going to the blog.  And in good times, too. It is sometimes a great trial to share parts of one’s life, but I don’t regret it. I think it saved me in many ways, helped me when the mask came off, was grounding and healing. And forced me to be  honest and acknowledge the reality of my life, which I had kept hidden for so many years, and denied.

I can’t say I understand it, but when I head out every year on book tour I see evidence of it, everywhere I go, and in the flesh. Our world is magical and mysterious, and it is changing.

This is a new kind of community. In discussions about animals, I often find myself thinking that there is no substitute for meaningful human connection and community. And there isn’t. But there are powerful new kinds of community, and like animals sometimes can do, they can shape and define our lives. I sometimes tremble at the thought this might inspire someone. Maybe I will make sense of it one day. In the meantime, I appreciate it.

A sunny day

February 28, 2010 – Today was a surprise, a sunny day. Maria and I went to Glens Falls to take down her quilting exhibit, “Cut It Up.” We walked around Glens Falls. We came back and walked on the path. Lenore ate some meat from a dead deer. Crate for her tonight.

The sense of Spring is everywhere. I don’t know if the farm will sell or not, but I suspect that if it does, it will be in the Spring. If not, I will have another lovely year or two here.

I do think I am ready for something different. I think the positive side of my craziness has been the willingness to give rebirth to life – the Hero’s Journey – in ways that stimulate my creativity. I love the farm, and it is a wonderful place to work. But change is fuel for me, and the dogs and I have some more adventures in us. I think Maria feels the same way.

I had an awful and unexpected bout with fear in the middle of the night – the night terrors, the shrinks called them. I meditated, visualized, gritted my teeth. Read, went for walks, had tea. Walking with Maria and the dogs helped settle me, as it always does. Need to work hard, be strong.

This week, I hope to start the next round on my short story book. Then I have to start thinking about the sequel to Rose In A Storm. Or perhaps another children’s book. I want to write a book about dogs and their dreams.

Tonight, quiet time. More reading about China. Posting of photos to the blog. Appreciation for the good things in my life.

Frieda, modeling the "Spot" fabric

I believe all of my dogs are working dogs, and an intrinsic element in their lives is what I might call media whoring. Rose’s work is obvious, – sheep and fiction – Lenore has already sparked three children’s books, Izzy has his own book and Frieda has one children’s book under her belt, and I have absolutely no doubt she will be generating more, if not a full-length horror film. The deal is clear. They get good lives on a farm, I get to write about them. Photos, readings, signings, notecards. That’s the deal. I told Frieda today that she will get to go to a reading this year. That will be a landmark.

This afternoon I saw Maria’s fun dog fabric – soon to be handbags, maybe potholders also – and I put the border collies to the side, and said “let’s go to work girls,” to Lenore and Frieda. Usually when I take a photo like this I put four or five small biscuits on top of my head (you really need the right hat). Lenore who is viscerally bribable, stares lovingly at the biscuit. Frieda has a bit more integrity and you have to explain what you are doing. “This is for Maria, sweetie. Let’s see those big brown eyes.” A year ago if I had tried this with Frieda, I would be typing with one arm. But Frieda and I are tight now, and she gets the photoshoot thing along with the rest of my dogs And she is happy to market for Maria. Maria will be annoyed that I got this fabric up on my site before she got it on hers, but hey, I was home most of the day in a snowstorm. The dog fabric will be up on her site tomorrow.

Spot likes to play

Lenore modeling Maria's new dog fabric

Maria is off working today, and she foolishly left some samples of the new dog fabric she has bartered for to make her potholders, quilts and handbags. Last week, she made what I call the first Sparky handbag, but the new material is a lot of fun and Lenore and Frieda happily modeled for me behind the farmhouse during a lull in the eternal storm. I don’t know what she calls them, but I’m calling these the Spot Bags. They will be up shortly on her website. I also got Frieda to model. Both were paid in biscuits. They are naturals in front of a camera.

(Reminder: This Thursday March 4, Mary Kellogg will be reading from her new book of poetry “Whistling Woman,” at the Red Fox  Bookstore in Glens Falls, N.Y. The book contains wonderful new poems from Mary and some of my photographs. I will also be on hand to sign books for anybody who wants them.)

On March 26, my daughter Emma and I will be appearing at Red Fox to talk about Em’s new  book “Ninety Percent Of the Game is Half Mental,” on sale March 16.

Emma and I will also be making a joint appearance on behalf of her book at Northshire Books in Manchester, Vt. on May 8. Also the Mother’s Day/Spring notecards are being organized by Christine Nemec at Redux.

Not in Florida anymore

We seem to be a good ways from Disney World. I decided a couple of years ago to avoid politics as much as possible, pursue spirituality quietly, and never complain about the weather. I live in the North Country, and it snows and snows. If you read the old Farm Journals – some of which inspired this blog – you read of blizzard after blizzard. That is life here, and it means that Spring will be all the more appreciated. As a farmer told me when I first moved her, if you don’t like snow and cold, buy a map and move to the yellow part.

Bedlam Farm from the Black Creek Valley

February 27, 2010 – Took this shot from down in the valley, from behind the Presbyterian Church, with my 70-200mm zoom in heavy snow. A different perspective, for me, perhaps for you. Bedlam Farm saved my life in a number of ways, and nearly ruined it in some others. A magical place for me, and I love it. I know every inch of the house and those barns and have undertaken the hero’s journey there, and am still on it.

It’s a special place in a snowstorm. Rose and I walked down the hill and into town to get this shot and this hill is where Rose, six months old, went out into a blizzard and found the sheep and donkey who had walked through the gates of the big barn, above and out into the dark. We walked them back together and it was the beginning of an extraordinary collaboration that continues to this day. Now, she is inspiring my writing, especially the novel “Rose In A Storm.” She never stops working and I enjoyed our walk and this perspective.

The Dogs Of Bedlam Farm

“No Street.” Frieda is getting it.