Day: March 7, 2014

When I think of my life now, when I think of my farm, I always go back to the image of Maria and the animals, they are always gathered around her, she is always speaking to them, soothing them, wondering about them. And they respond to her, they quietly gather around her, wait patiently for words or grain or one of the many small treats she tucks into her pockets and carries around with her. We hardly ever throw food away, Maria says it is for this chicken, or that sheep, or Lulu or Fanny or Simon will love it. We save bread at restaurants and tuck them into bags or napkins, often Maria will reach into her big canvas bag for her wallet or cellphone and pull out some rock-hard piece of bread she meant to bring back from New York City for one of the donkeys or dogs or cats.

Maria loves these animals so much, they trust her and they talk to her in their own language and in their own way. This week I have been wondering how to get that piece of photographic equipment I really wanted and thought I had enough money to buy, I was going to get it Sunday in New York and there just wasn’t enough money for it, and I felt a brief disappointment and then brought myself back into focus. I got a lot of new equipment a couple of weeks ago in New York, I am lucky to have it all and am loving it.

I have so much in the way of wealth and riches, I love Maria and the farm and the animals and my life and blog and work and friends so much, riches are just pouring into my life. I don’t need the things I think I need, I have more wealth than I ever imagined. Tableaus are important, they tell us where we are. This one speaks to me of gratitude and connection, the old ways fight hard and die hard. I work every day of my life to shed them and bow my head in wonder at the joy, crisis and mystery of life.

Maria at the Clinton Park Stables, New York City

The proposal is to ban the horses and carriages from New York and replace them with “eco-friendly” electric vintage (antique) cars that cost about $150,000 per car, according to a New York City newspaper. I like this photo, I took it at the West Side Livery Stable, it seems a symbol in my mind of what we might lose and what might replace it. There are always two sides to every story, I am struggling to find the other one here, there are just too many things being said that are not true.

Perhaps I’ll see that differently as the issue evolves. So far, my heart is with the horses and their carriages, with the romance and the magic I see in them. In a way, the choice between the carriages and the vintage cars are the perfect metaphor for the choices we are really making, the magic and the romance and the mystery pitted against the politically correct, the shallow and the eco-correct dull. I am all for the environment, I hear Mother Earth crying out to us all the time, but I do not believe she would for one second choose a vintage electric cart against a big working horse and his or her beautiful old carriage, made by the Amish in Pennsylvania. There needs to be magic in the world, and history, and the romance and risk of things.

I suspect the children of New York and the world beyond will not remember their electric cart rides years later when they recall the magic images of their trips to New York. I think of this carriage all of the time when I think of my visit to New York last month.

We all choose our symbols, I’ll take the carriage over the electric cart every time. This is such a significant choice.

There is something regal about Donna Wynbrandt, the artist and long-time lover and companion of George Forss. I call her the Queen Mum sometimes, Donna can be difficult and challenging and loving and wise, she is always creative and loyal and loving to George. She has the most wonderful hats, it is always inspiring to see Donna – a former street person in New York and someone has worked hard in her life to deal with mental illness – drawing her sketches, making her art, loving George. She has a wonderful face to photograph.

I am always irrationally aggressive around snobs, I just have never liked them, and every now and then, when the snobbish parts of me get exposed, I swallow and appreciate it. I went over to George’s apartment above his art gallery today to see the neew computer that he bought for $500, I was quite prepared to find it a piece of junk. I mean, my computer cost nearly $3,000 and I have never bought a computer from anyone but Apple, I am a computer snob for sure, I was trying to persuade George to get an Apple.

I also realized that George and I were different and when my friend Russell Davidson sent me a link to newegg.com and this inexpensive computer I forwarded it to George and expected the worse. I was taken aback today, George’s computer is fast and powerful, it used to take him 10 minutes just to get to his e-mail, not he just pushes a key. He loves this Compaq Pro and has already figured it out (he is keeping the monitor he got at a thrift shop.) We went to lunch at the Round House Cafe and George and Donna were both in expansive moods, George was riffing on philosophy, the nature of the universe, and the many recent communications he has received from the aliens.

George knew just what to do, he knew what the perfect computer was for  him, he knew much better than me what he needed, and it wasn’t an Apple computer. This one has plenty of power and lots of memory. George is off on the new chapter of his life, and so far, it has cost him only $500. I spent five times that much on lenses in New York last week. It’s another way of thinking, another puncture in the snob’s balloon.

We had a lot of fun, George is so excited about his new book “The Way We Were.” He can’t bring himself to look at “The Way We Were,” he is closing in on $12,000 there.  But I have to check and see where the money is, he just can’t bear to go and look. He’s already choosing photos for the book. I was honored today, George asked me if I would write the introduction to the book and helped with the text, short descriptions of the photographs. I am delighted to be asked to do that, I grateful accepted.

George fell in love with a photo I took this morning, “Sunspots” of Flo the barn cat, he is printing it up for me and framing it. I think I’ll offer it for sale at the Round House Cafe photo show. I am very excited when George praises a photo of mine like that, I think I am getting somewhere.

Lunch was so easy, George off on his riffs about the universe, Donna with her reflections on Buddhism and the world. George said if he reads the messages from the aliens wrong, he will blow up and disintegrate. I wasn’t sure why, but I said to him “George, your world is not coming to an end. It is just beginning.” George was quiet and looked at me carefully, as he does when something penetrates his many defenses and hiding places.

“Wow,” he said. “You may be right.”