Day: September 8, 2011

Meg came out of the barn to take in some sun, and found a good pole by the Pig Barn to hop up on. Meg is a pistol.

It had to happen, and it did. Sun! Lenore took to her favorite sunning spot and the animals practically danced. Thanks for the flood of good words about the “Going Home” video. I’m really pleased with it, and the response to it. I’m glad to have the sun back. Light follows dark. One cannot exist without the other.

I am proud to present the video “Going Home”   distributed in conjunction with my new book “Going Home: Finding Peace When Pets Die,”  published September 27 by Random House/Villard. The video will go on this site, Facebook and YouTube and also will be shown on my book tour. I am grateful to  Andy Barzvi of ICM and Jen Smith and Quinne Rogers for suggesting the video and advising and encouraging me in its production. I thank Dave Bigler and Jarel Lane of Bigler Productions for their good and hard work producing the video. And to Sara Friedman of Socialmomentum.org for helping me organize and select the many images we received.

Maria and I had a good cry when we saw this video. I suspect we will not be alone in that. The video is a true collaboration – my readers and I – coming together to explore our love of animals and the process of grieving for the ones we lose. The images belong to my readers. The words are spoken by me, and are taken from the opening chapters of a book, where I imagined a letter from a dog who has died to the human he or she loved.

Most importantly, I want to thank the many hundreds of people who were good enough to send me images and words on my “Going Home” page expressing their great love and touching memories, for their powerful testaments to the animals they have loved and lost. In the book, I wrote that the loss of a pet is sad, but that it needn’t only be sad. These images and testimonials speak to that idea,  affirming and uplifting – for me, messages of light, love and connection. They are also very important in a personal way – my readers are sharing their experiences with me in the creation of this book. In a very important sense, we are working together.

This use of technology to connect a writer and his readers  is a  gift for writing, I think, and a seminal direction in new publishing. It is what my blog is about. My readers have joined with me in using this new technology to communicate in a different way. It’s been very good for me. Writers and readers no longer need to be isolated from one another, so separate. This video is a big step in that direction.

I was  initially reluctant to take on this subject as a book, because of its intensely emotional nature. But I am very glad I did. The early reviews have been wonderful. The Library Journal said “Going Home” would be “extremely helpful” to the country’s 77 million dog owners and 93 million cat owners. I hope so.  I am eager to get out into the country and talk with you about the love your have for your pets, and the grief you suffer at their loss. And how to deal with both. I believe my book will be helpful, and that is a very important thing for a book to be.

“Going Home” can be pre-ordered online, or in bookstores everywhere. Signed, personalized copies can be ordered from the Battenkill Bookstore, my local independent bookstore, Cambridge, N.Y., 518 677-2515.

Here is the video and thank you again. Feel free to share it in any way you wish.

The mailbox in front of the Studio Barn. When you live with Maria, things look different.

Getting ready for the “Going Home” video, going up in a few minutes. Still raining, but we sense sun, which has to appear eventually.  Rose went down in the pasture this morning, struggling to use her rear legs. Off to the vet this morning.

Drove by a farmer sitting by his truck yesterday and I pulled over to ask him what was up. His potato and corn crop were entirely destroyed by the flooding last week and the subsequent rains this week. Crops touched by floodwater can not be sold, and the rest rotted.

How are you? I asked. Good, he said. It’s the life I chose. My brothers and sisters all went off to the city. I stayed here. Nobody made me do it, so I have no right to complain about it. I shook his hand.

Simon’s bray today goes to him: