Bedlam Farm Blog Journal by Jon Katz

18 March

Book Review: Stone Yard Dervotional, A Wonderful Novel I’ve Been Hoping To Read For Years. A Frustrated And Burned Out Women Leaves Her Life Behind In Search Of A New One

by Jon Katz

The minute I read a review of Charlotte Wood’s new novel, Stone Yard Devotional, I knew I had to buy it. I picked it up the second I got it home and haven’t put it down yet.

I’m only halfway through, but I can’t remember being so touched or absorbed by a novel as by this Booker Prize Finalist (2024). It is the most relevant book I’ve read about our world and our searches for a place in it.

Not since Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s great work One Hundred Years of Solitude was I so taken with so imaginative and wrenching a story.

The narrator’s story is ours and my story in so many ways. Is our world overwhelming us? Are we failing it? When I decided to leave my life after decades in a suburb of New Jersey with my wife and daughter, I wondered how to do some good and find love and happiness.

At age 68,  after 35 years of marriage, I ran away from home, my wife and daughter, and my life and fled to a cabin on the top of a big hill in upstate New York with all of Thomas Merton’s books and diaries to read.  I read every one of those books on that mountain for a year.

I didn’t run to a monstery but turned my cabin into one as best as possible. I also ran to a place I had never been.

I have never been happier than now, but I accept that I will never truly forgive myself and that the people I love will never truly forgive me for leaving.

The nameless beginning subject of this magical and profoundly thought-provoking book is the narrator’s realization that she is burned out, a failure in her work, and in the process of ending her long marriage.

While her husband is moving on to his new life in London, she will visit a remote corner of Australia. The book opens with the narrator leaving Sydney to return to a place near where she grew up—the stark plains of rural Australia, where she grew up deep and forgotten. They never say goodbye. She has no idea where she is going or where she will land.

She doesn’t believe in God, doesn’t know what a prayer is, and is as surprised as her friends to find herself in this alien, reclusive  Catholic convent in the middle of nowhere almost entirely by accident. She is offered her room,  moves into a guest house, and only sees the nuns when they come out to pray. She has no sure idea what she is doing there.

She has no desire to find God or be a nun. She is lost and alone, a hero journey if ever there was one. Her close friend accuses her of running away. She won’t deny it.

 

 

The woman, an animal species conservationist, has given up on making animals or people in our world better. Global extinction? Human indifference and greed?  Power is moving almost entirely to billionaires and shameless demagogues. Is there a point in trying? Was she not helpless in the face of so many entrenched obstacles? Wasn’t she a failure?

Don’t so many of us ask these questions today with beating hearts and sometimes wish we could run away to someplace peaceful and safe? Like I wanted to do.

These are the reasons she’s given up on her life and fled to the struggling convent to live.

Surprisingly, she ended up at a nun’s retreat and was as good as her words. She stayed, at least for a while. Here, she felt alone and safe. I know the feeling. As I did, she learned there can be peace, but there is no such thing as a perfect life.

For weeks, she lies and sleeps on the floor; without prayer or conversion, she joins in the convent’s strange life, showing for most, helping to cook. There is no moment of revelation, epiphany, or sense of redemptions. She absorbed her own life into the strange place where she found herself.

And I  haven’t even mentioned the mice. The drama at the convent comes from outside through three arrivals. The first came from the mortal remains of Sister Jenny, a member of the order who was murdered in Thailand years before after a flood revealed her bones in a storm.

The bones are accompanied by their most famous sister, an activist called Helen Parry, whose presence pulls the noise and trouble of the world inside their retreat. The mice – a fantastic non-fiction climate disaster – come to them in a plague as horrifying numbers flee a drought in the north and invade every inch of the continent, a shocking and scary (and mesmerizing) part of the book. In a sense, a horror story.

I won’t go further with the story than this for obvious reasons.

It was eerie, surprising, and thought-provoking so many times and for many reasons. She asked the same questions I asked myself when I tore myself away from my life and onto the Hero Journey to an unknown world.

As happy as I am, I will always wonder if this was a moral thing to do and if I will ever have answers.  And I will never get over it.

I’ve learned that you can never run away from your life, but you can make it better.

It was my life’s best and worst experience, and I am eager to know if she found some answers. I will finish the book by tomorrow.

Last night, I read more than 120 pages and am about to pick it up again—less than 200 to go. I’m not sure I’ve ever read a novel that has gotten me thinking as eagerly as this one.

I learned so much on this journey. The answer was never in the mirror; it was always inside me.  The problem was no matter where I moved or ran, I came along.

That is where I had to go find out who I was. I don’t know yet what the narrator has decided.

Like me, the narrator left her everyday life to search for her place in the world and do no harm. I am eager to see what happens next. Years and years later, I’m just now finding my place and accepting it.

Decisions like this are not easy or very clear. I came looking for the same things, entering the world of the refugee forever, uprooted from the life I was closest to and all that I knew, and am still searching for the truth. I broke faith with people I cared about.  I will never get over it. Was it a good and moral decision? Am I doing any good?

Does it all seem overwhelming?

Sometimes, yes, I think so, but I’m not the one who can say.  I will never stop looking. Like the narrator, you are never “one of us” again when you go on this search and go away. I belong to the person I love and my own open heart.

When you leave home, you never find another one and never want to return.

In this search, we can only look for the right thing and pray that we have found it.

The New York Times ended Wood’s book review in this  way and had me running for the bookstore:

Activism, abdication, atonement, grace: In this novel, one of these paths is holier than the other; Wood is more invested in noticing the human pursuit of holiness itself. “Not denounced, not forgiven,” the narrator and her sins swing in the uncomfortable uncertainty of the living. Nothing can exempt a person from this moral stain, from mortality – not even being a nun on the edge of the earth.”

Or a writer on a mountain.

___

As is evident, I couldn’t recommend this book more if you ever want to know who you are.

 

18 March

Flower Art, Tuesday, March 18, 2025 I’m Moving From O’Keeffe To Roth, Not Nearly As Good As Either, But Inspired By Both Of Them. Some Sort Of Abract Realism Is Where I’m Going

by Jon Katz

In my photographic eye, no flower stands alone. I see them all as together, standing up, lying down, blowing in the wind. Each won defines the other, I see each one as connected to the other. They are aware if one another, trade water and soil in the sun. My abstract idea is about collective color. Today I found that amazing, especially in the bright sun. One for all, and all for many.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

18 March

Came Home, Got Right Down To Flowers, Surgery Went Perfectly. My Feline Associate Showed Up.

by Jon Katz

I had a morning surgery this morning near Sarasota; it was for my eyes, the final step in the Cataract Surgery I had a couple of months ago. Just some clean-up; it took only a few minutes and went well. I didn’t sleep much last night, neither did Maria.

She had to drive me to and from the surgery, they wouldn’t let me drive home alone. As we came into town, we went by my friend Sue’s Cambridge Florist shop, and I got an armful of fresh flowers and got right to work for my photos this afternoon; it’s good fodder for my Flower Art tonight; I’m calling it Abstract Floral Realism.

Sue is my Fairy Flowermother. She understands exactly what kind of flowers I need for my photos and scored big today.

She is a great friend; she and her partner, Michael, have done a fantastic job putting that shop together.  They are busy almost every hour.

Sue has a fantastic sense of humor and we always end up laughig together. She gets a kick out of seeing her flowres on my flog. I get a kick out of buyint them.

She is always busy, and she has helped me figure out what flowers to use in my photos. Bless you, Sue. Congratulations on your success. Your store is THE place to get flowers around here, and it’s  helped me more than I can say. She gave me some tulips that are beautiful but too old to sell. I bought a bunch of others.

Photos in the sun are challenging with pupil dilation but I get through it by wrapping a kitchen towl around the sun side of my face.Works fine.

I’m not 100 percent sure what I mean about abstract realism, but it feels right to me, and I like its sound. A mix between the realism of Roth and O’Keeffe, that’s what I shooting for, humble me.

We returned to a warm and wonderful day; we both hoped to sit outside with Zip in the sun for a while later.

Once I got outside with my camera, Zip, my associate popped up and took position so he could keep an eye on what I was doing. I think he approved, but after some neck scratching he was sound asleep.

(Flower photo by Maria)

I told him I’d be coming out to sit in the sun with him later this afternoon. He knows.

18 March

Good Morning, Off On A Mission. When Good Seems Especially Precious

by Jon Katz

Good morning. I’m heading off for a pre-scheduled medical procedure and hope to return later. I wanted to get this Cambridge Food Pantry appeal up before I left (It’s 6:30 a.m. and still pitch dark.)

I choose love, not fear or anger.

We are in incredibly challenging times for the Cambridge Food Pantry and all food pantries. I see this not as a crisis but as an opportunity to be good and feel good.

It’s the best cause I’ve been involved in, and I am grateful and in awe of the support you have given these selfless people, both those who help and those who need help.

Christ is said to have appealed to his followers to help those with nowhere to go. I am not Christ, but I got his message and hope to live by it. He is missed.

I am grateful for the chance. Instead of watching the news many times daily, I am choosing to help people who need it. It keeps me strong and grounded. Life has real meaning.

I’ll check in with you when I get back, assuming my eyes are not dilated beyond use. Thanks for supporting the pantry, Maria, and me. We are all in this together.

Zip came out of hiding after the storms and has re-taken control of his farm. I am at his mercy.

18 March

End Of Month Time, Checks Are Running Out: Sarah Asks For Betty Crocket Biscuit And Muffin Mix, Urgent Item: Can Openers

by Jon Katz

Note: The Pantry gets busy towards the end of the month. Many customers get their checks at the beginning of the month, and money gets tight at the end, which is rapidly approaching. We appreciate your support, as food prices are still rising. Sarah is, as always, looking for Amazon food bargains. Hard times are tough on pantry families and volunteers.

Today, Sarah is seeking a Betty Crocker Biscuit and Muffin mix, an especially popular family request for chilly mornings. They also need can openers since most don’t have the utensils to open cans and packages.

We know you are feeling your own challenges. We appreciate any help you can offer people with nowhere else to go. These are difficult times for food-deprived families and the people who volunteer in the pantry, but they are also a chance for us to do real good and love where it is most needed. Lots of us need that now, too.

Sarah and her volunteers are working hard, day and night, and seeing their efforts is touching and inspiring. We are bringing hope to these pantry families. Thank you.

Sarah’s requested items today, Tuesday:

Betty Crocker Bisquick Complete Cheese Garlic Biscuit Mix, Add Watter, 7.75 oz, (Pack of 9), $11.49.

Betty Crocker Triple Berry Muffin Mix, 6.5 oz (Pack of 9), $13.41.

 

To the Cambridge Pantry volunteers:

 

Urgent request: They don’t have the tools to open the food they buy or receive. These are in great demand and inexpensive:

Safring Can Opener Manual, Handheld Strong Heavy Duty Stainless Steel Can Opener, Comfortable Handle, Sharp Blade Smooth Edge, Can Openers with Multifunctional Bottle Opener, $7.49.

 

 

Also, the Amazon Cambridge Pantry Urgent Wish List is accessible anytime, day or night. Click on the links here or use the green button at the bottom of every blog post. Every item on the wish list is urgent and updated several times daily. Thanks for the messages; the pantry volunteers greatly appreciate them.

Email SignupFree Email Signup