I love all of my dogs, but I noticed this morning that when I think of Red, I think of him simply as “My Dog.” I have had some wonderful and complex dogs in my life – Orson, Rose, Izzy – and Lenore and I are close as I can recall being with a dog. But Red, who has been with me for two months, is simply my dog. He is always with me, watching me, waiting for me. He feels a part of me. He anticipates my moves, watches my shoes as Rose did to see if we are working, heads for the door when I am heading for the car. He can go anywhere and does. Yesterday, in the middle of much chaos – three trucks with hay and half a dozen people milling around, I looked up to see Red just sitting in the yard watching me, waiting for me. My dog.
I was up at 4 a.m. this morning finishing the autobiography of David Foster Wallace, “Every Love Story Is A Ghost Story,” and it was an emotional experience for me. I have come to see in recent years that I have experienced some form of mental illness for much of my life, and am only recently coming to feel that I am understanding this and undertaking some serious and sustained healing, a process that involves so many different parts of my life. This realization is a transformative experience, one Wallace could not endure or survive. He took his life at age 46.
I have also recently been working in my own spiritual work the idea that we can take some of the sorrows and pains and fears of life and put them down. This is also complex. I do not know if Wallace really had a choice or not about his illness or the medications he took for much of his life. I took anti-anxiety and other anti-obsessive medications for more than 30 years and have lived free of them for the past five years successfully. Like him, they altered my mind and consciousness in ways I did not like. Wallace’s death was triggered by his desire to go off of the powerful anti-depressants he had been on. They were affecting his life and his writing. But he could no longer survive off the medicine and he could not bear the idea of going back on it. At almost precisely the point where he finally had so many of the things he had wanted all of his life, he gave up on living this way. I can so easily relate to the awful choices he had to make, and I am no one to judge the one he did make.
I was talking to a friend who is also a spiritual adviser and we talked about the choice between medication and seeing oneself as mentally ill. We talked about the idea of putting it down, taking the sense of oneself as weak, fearful, troubled, imperiled or sick and putting that idea down, separating from it, leaving it behind. I don’t need to tell a struggle story. I don’t need to take medication. I don’t need to think of myself any longer as ill.
This idea applies to fear and anger and despair, things all of us feel at some point. I like the idea. Put It Down. Let go of it. Make choices about what we feel, read, see and listen to. About how we see ourselves. I am drawn to the idea of taking this notion of myself as a sick person and this illness as a choice. To keep it. Or put it down.
Today is a special day in my life with dogs and my life as a writer. It is the publication date for “Lenore Finds A Friend,” my second children’s book and the second book inspired by the most loving and generous dog that I have ever known. Lenore’s life is characterized by her powerfully loving spirit. She befriended Frieda, Izzy, Red and Rose. She taught them all how to play and share.
When we thought Frieda couldn’t get along with the other dogs, Lenore move in and sat with her while we trained. She showed Izzy, who had been abandoned on a farm, how to live in a house, take walks, sit in the sun. This week, after Red was injured, she simply moved in and kept him company while he healed. She has a great intuition for need, and I know this. When I was along and struggling on the farm, she kept love alive for me, and to this day, reminds me of its importance. I can’t think of a better story for children.
I saw the power of Lenore’s love when she befriended a grumpy ram named Brutus nearly five years ago. Rose was horrified to see the two of them hanging out together and tried for months to break it up. Lenore’s love was in the end more powerful even than Rose’s great work ethic. When I posted photos of this strange but sweet relationship, it crashed my website. It was one of the first times I took my photography seriously and pursued Lenore and her buddy as they grazed and nuzzled together.
Lenore is a working dog, through and through and her work is love and she works at it every day. “Lenore Finds A Friend” is the story of her friendship with Brutus, and of Rose’s determination to stop it. Lenore is the Hound Of Love, the Love Dog. l very am proud of this book and last week I took my video camera to Battenkill Books, my local bookstore and watched Connie Brooks read it to her children’s reading group. Lenore was on hand to thump her tail and kiss everybody.
Battenkill Books is offering free signed Bedlam Farm notecards – as long as supplies last – with the purchase of “Lenore Finds A Friend,” and with any purchase of my other books, including the revised paperback version of “Going Home: Finding Peace When Pets Die,” and “Dancing Dogs,” my first short-story collection, out September 25. I will sign and personalize any book purchased through Battenkill, which now has Paypal. You can support my work, Lenore’s great heart and a terrific independent bookstore in this way. You can call the store at 518 677-2515 or visit their website, www. battenkillbooks.com.
Lenore’s work might not be as stylish as Red’s but she is, in many ways, the greatest working dog I have known, suffusing our farm and life with affection and connection. I think this is a wonderful and inspirational story for children about love and real friendship. Come and see Connie read it to some mesmerized kids while Lenore listens in.
