Joseph Campbell writes that the role of the artist is to make sense of the color and light and images of the world, I think that is so. We reflect what we see in the mirror. In our culture most of us – most of the people reading this – do not see themselves reflected in the culture, do not see themselves in the mirror of movies, TV, the news, magazines, politics. We are frustrated – often angered – by the fact that we have no voice in our own lives. Politics, health care, lobbyists, the corporate eco-system, the law, all function apart from us and around us and this can make us feel helpless and disconnected.
I am beginning to understand why I started this blog seven years ago, on a sultry Memorial Day before I owned a camera or had taken a photo. I was seeking my voice, my face in the mirror, and this is what the blog has become for me. I do not feel helpless here, or shut out of my own life. Voice is identity, I am grateful to be finding mine.
We have had an intense few weeks – book launch, Minnie’s leg, death of a sheep, too many other things to list. It is always soothing and grounding to me to pursue the rhythms of life – on Wednesdays and Friday’s we take our garbage and recycling to the town dump, also known as the Washington County Recycling Station, a Rube Goldberg marked by all sorts of signs, bins, regulations and rituals. We dump the garbage bags on the big bin, ($4.50 a bag) and the recycling is free, there are so many choices and options that I get confused, the former girlfriend does not, so I do the garbage, she distributes all the bottles and cans and paper.
Mike the dump manager is the grouchy but highly competent supervisor, he puts out things people might need or want, he so far refuses to let me take his photo, I am wearing him down and will prevail. I think the dump is the perfect backdrop to launch my return to New Jersey Friday to prepare to tape my Ted Talk Saturday at Montclair State University. We will be staying at a motel nearby. Montclair is the site of my former life, a place I spent more than two decades helping to raise my daughter and becoming a writer, I haven’t been back there since my divorce.
I feel good about going back, Montclair is an interesting town, I want to walk around it a bit and complete the circle of my life. It is ironic that I am going back there. My life there was marked by parenting, working for some years to establish myself as a writer. It would have been hard for me to go there even a year ago, it is not now. I am at peace with the past and the present, insofar as one can be. And there is wonderful Thai food there.
I am excited about the Ted Talk, I have been working on it all week, I am happy with it. I think there will be about 300 people in the audience, and I have been afraid of many things in my life, but never of speaking to large groups of people. We will rehearse the talks on Friday night, give them on Saturday. I’ve sent about 25 photos as a backdrop, the Ted Talk people are smart and focused, they know what they are doing.
Second Chances: Books for Connie, for Xmas, For Plaid Friday
Second Chance Dog: A Love Story is about second chances in life – for Maria, an artists struggling to find her work and voice, for Frieda, an abandoned dog with a huge heart and a lot of prey drive, for me, a writer whose life had just gone to pieces. It is the happiest book I have ever written, the most writing I have ever done about love, the most serious experience with training an almost impossibly challenging dog I have ever had.
And yes, no dog dies (or even gets sick.) I like writing books with happy endings.
It is also a Christmas book, the story ends on Christmas eve, and I’ve never really written a book before that dovetails so nicely with Christmas – the cover is even green. There are other nice things happening around this book, which is due out next week – November 12 (The three of us will be launching the book at Battenkill Books, Main St., Cambridge, N.Y. at 7 p.m.) We have started a special promotion on behalf of Battenkill Books, my local bookstore, a statement about buying local, supporting bookstores, re-connecting reading with human beings, our own continuing version of Plaid Friday. Anyone who pre-orders the book from Battenkill will get it signed and personalized by me (Maria also if you wish) and the buyer will be eligible for a free bag of Fromm Family Food, photos of Minnie and the hens or some free books.
Maria didn’t realize until yesterday when we went to Battenkill how many books she was going to have to sign – her face was a lot of fun to see. (I told her she is a whineass.) So was her post about it – You Want Who To Sign Your Book?
Battenkill has already received about 400 pre-orders we are shooting for 500 or more by pub date. You can also call the store at 518 677-2515 to place an order, they take Paypal and ship anywhere in the world. This connection with Battenkill has become an important part of my writing life, it is a wonderful way to make a book come alive and do good beyond the story itself, which I am quite proud of. And a sweet way to promote a great bookstore.
I am also connecting this book with Plaid Friday, an important and growing effort to preserve individuality and community in the face of the great corporate onslaught on life in America. They shouldn’t take over everything.
And I am just beginning to grasp what a good Christmas present this book could be to anyone who is interested in love, dogs, family and second chances. This book also marks a seminal turning point in my life as a writer – it is a symbol of the new book tour, the new way of writers promoting their work, of controlling their marketing, of empowering themselves.
And then, there is the most important thing about the book – it is an account of the great light Maria and Frieda brought into my life, of how they saved my life really, and gave me the most wonderful second chance any human being could ever get – a chance at love. Do not ever give up on love. And do not ever give up on dogs. If you wish to pre-order or order the book from an outlet other than Battenkill, you can find the options here.
I well understand that many of you are purchasing the book on digital devices, and thank you – nobody ought to feel bad about that, I have one, they are quite wonderful – this book in paper form can do a lot of good for many things in many ways – for you, as a gift, for the holidays, for Plaid Friday, for the love of life. It’s time to take our country back, in all sorts of ways. I’m game.
The book is rising on a lot of online best-seller lists, it is in it’s second printing already, you can check out some of the early reviews here.
Well, there are four sheep now and they all posed this morning for the new group profile photo. More are coming, our friend and farmer Daryl Kuehne is bringing a ram for breeding and another ewe for wool and hopefully by Spring there will be some lambs for us. I think Maria will love lambing, I enjoyed it also.
We have to re-assemble our lambing equipment – syringes, lamps, pens, tail-dockers, iodine, vitamins, etc. – but we have time for that. Four ewes is a bit small for sheepherding, it speeds up the process and excites the dog – more like chasing than herding, we will be glad when the flock is replenished.
Some technical issues yesterday involving the mobile app and some other stuff I don’t understand kept recent blog posts (from yesterday) out of tablets, mobile phones and some tablets and desktops, I think it is fixed now and you can scroll backwards and catch up on the posts you missed if this happened to you – most of the posts related to the death of Tess, animal spirituality and other things. The good people at Mannix Marketing got on it and I think all is working well now. Life happens, nowhere more so than with technology.
It’s nice that when this happens, I hear about it instantly from people all over the place – it is humbling that the blog is missed. Some people assume that if there is no blog, I must be dead or in trouble, which is also telling. I learned when I was a reporter that bad news travels fast, good news more slowly. Welcome back.
