Day: February 14, 2013

The photo above was taken on the first day Simon came to Bedlam Farm. He could only stand up for a few minutes, and mostly, he just lay under the feeder. But this image of him has engraved itself in my consciousness, he was so broken and helpless.

I think I always kept the rescue culture at some distance from me and my writing not only because I didn’t want to see animals as piteous and abused creatures – too narrow a prism for me, like “left” and “right,” – but because I didn’t want to see  myself as piteous and abused. Maria saw the connection between Simon and me  from the first. I am not sure I have ever been so shocked or touched as when he first came to our farm and I watched him struggle to stand up, and move in great pain and orient himself to the world again, to struggle to live and survive. We were not sure he would.

Seeing those wounds, pouring salve and balm and ointment on them, rubbing and massaging his twisted legs and infected gums and rotted skin, scraping the lice and maggots out of his wounds, I was forced to confront something about human beings and what they can to do animals and to one another, and to confront the sores and scabs and wounds inside of me. This is often the thing about rescuing animals, as honest people will admit, we are rescuing ourselves as well. How do you keep perspective in the face of such a sight?, and lying there on the ground with Simon, hand feeding him hay, reading him stories, I was, of course, knee deep in the broken parts of me.  Every day, we see what humans do to one another, and we are challenged to affirm our own humanity.

So we set out, I think, to heal one another. What I could do for him I might also do for me. Valentine’s Day can be a sappy day, or a chance to thoughtfully explore the meaning of love in our lives. I think of Maria, of Lenore, of many dogs I have loved. But Simon comes up again and again. From the beginning, we both meant to heal ourselves, and how curious we found one another bound on the same journey, another man and donkey story and an unlikely one. What are the odds that Jon Katz and Simon would have found one another? Simon was named by McKenzie Barrett, the daughter of the animal control officer – Jessica Barrett – who asked me if I might adopt Simon. McKenzie said that Simon was a name from the bible and she thought that if she named him Simon he would be blessed and never get hurt again.

I have helped Simon heal, and he has helped me. Every time he sees me, he lets out a joyous bray that reminds me that I am good, I am beautiful, I am strong. I brought him a cookie this morning and kissed him on the nose. Happy Valentine’s day to you, sir, I said. And thanks for coming into my life.

And so it came to be, another love story, another kiss for the soul. Simon is blessed and will never be hurt again.  And for the record, I am blessed, also and will never be hurt again in those ways. It is a wonderful Valentine’s Day Story.

It is said of Lenore – and it is true – that if you look upon her, and you see her eyes, you will smile it is true. Try it. A man in Dallas went into open heart surgery with a photo of Lenore on the wall of the operating room. He went in smiling and came out smiling. She is the Love Dog. She spreads the message and joy of love everywhere she goes. She was my inspiration for love. I remember the bitter cold winter night when I was alone at Bedlam Farm and beginning to drown in my loneliness – looking for love in all the wrong places, as they say – that I took this puppy up to the bedroom and let her sleep on the foot of my bed, where she has been ever since. Lenore is the Supervisor of Love, she oversees love and revels in it. When love returned to my life, I was terrified of being seen, of exposing my  body to another human being. I remember closing my eyes in terror and looking over at Lenore, who sat at the foot of the bed wagging her tail, looking at me. It’s okay, I remember her saying. Love is good, love is right.

Lenore has always given me the strength to love, shown me how to do it. She taught Frieda and Izzy how to love, and countless other dogs and people. Even a donkey or two. It is a powerful force within her, she never lets go of it or surrenders it, as faithful to her work as Red is to his. She is a warrior for light and love and gentleness. This morning, I woke in the middle of the night and leaned over to kiss Maria on the back of her head, something I do in the dark, and there, on the other side, was Lenore. I heard the thumping of her tail, saw her soft eyes, her Lab smile, and I heard her once again. It’s okay. You can do it. Love is good.

Lenore is the Goddess of Love. Happy Valentine’s Day to her.

Really, when all is said and done, is there anything new to be said about love? Can I add a single meaningful word to the countless books, plays, poems, sonnets, movies,  songs, TV shows, pleas and observations about love? Love, like anything else is a personal thing, it varies in centrality and importance from heart to heart. Some people want it, others seem to push it aside. It seems to have vanished, for now, from our political system, our media, our workplace, even from the core messages of people and institutions who call themselves religious. A young friend tells me she hates sentimentality and mistrusts anyone who tosses terms like “love” around, she finds them hypocritical in our world. I understand this, it is not what she sees all around her, why should she believe in it when she hears yet another sappy person talking about it?

The therapists tell us we do what we see, we are what we know. If we grew up in the middle of a loveless world, then that is what is normal for us. The spiritual counselors say love is about energy and the laws of attraction. If we think love, if we want it, it will find us or we will find it. Every great religious, political or spiritual leader has understood the power of love – Jesus, surely, King, Merton, Gandhi, Mohammed – and used it to transform the world. Yet my friend has a good point. If you watch the news, follow our leaders, see the great religions and their dogma it is easy to think the whole idea is a shuck. Imaging a President talking to our Congress about love? Cynicism, like anger, corrodes the very idea of love. I can testify to that as well. Somebody wrote on my Facebook Page yesterday that she has given up on the idea of love, choosing to stick with the reliable and enduring love of animals. I get that too. I did that too.

I imagine that there was love all around me in my life, perhaps I could not accept it or see it or believe it was possible. Perhaps I just didn’t know what it is. Love, like generosity and faith, takes a great deal of work. I work at it every day. I think of it every day. I fail at it every day and sometimes, I succeed with it. All I can say is that my perception of love is that it is something of a decision. It begins internally, for me, with a commitment. It takes some work.

Speaking as a man, I can say the biggest obstacle to love for me was an openness to it. I just don’t think I was open to it, or really grasped what it was and it’s centrality to my life. I was always afraid of the wrong things, chasing the wrong things. I was fortunate late in life to encounter a loving person, who was open to it, and who feels it as naturally as I did not. And to learn that the thing to fear is a loveless life.

I have come to see animals as spirit guides for me, partners in my search for love. Their purpose for me is not to replace human love, but to guide me to it. I was thinking the other day of Lenore was sitting by the podium during the State of The Union message, we would be living in a different world. And then, I realized that this was serious, it might be true. Rose held the fort for me until I could find love, and then when I did, she left, perhaps to help another poor human soul do the same thing. Lenore kept love alive in my heart when hope was fading. Izzy helped teach me how to practice love when when we visited people on the edge of life. Orson showed me something of the pain of love, when I realized he could not live in this world. Frieda helped bring me to the real thing. She guided me to it, I saw it happen. The donkeys came into my life as spirit guides, steadying me, guiding me. Rocky, that most faithful and enduring of creatures,  brought me to our new home. Animals have been important to me in my search for life. I think they led me there, willing to work with me once I was willing to work.

I am not so arrogant as to think I have new ground to break about life, but thinking about it the last few days – and now, Valentine’s Day – I do realize that love is the point for me. Every photo I have ever taken is a love letter to my wife, that is the source of my search for light and color and emotion. That is how my photos began, that is how they continue.

Every time I can practice love, my heart and my life grow. Every time I fail,  my life shrinks. This morning I dedicate myself to telling the woman I love how much I appreciate her. I will bring her small things she does not yet know about – a tie-dyed Rose, a small painting, a cup of tea, some notes left around the house. I will simply tell her this day and every day that I love her and I mean for it to be authentic, and I will take her to Momma’s for a veggie wrap and a glass of wine. We are not into fancy restaurants these days.  Maybe one person who has given up on love with look at this curious older man with no hair and grumpy knees from too many falls and think if-he-did-it-I-can-do-it and give it another shot. Or maybe one young person sneering at this cold and greedy and angry world the adults in her life seem to be creating will revive it as a cool and universal idea as important as any political movement, ideology or bad news story.

Happy Valentine’s Day to you. May love reign for me, for you.