Maria and I are heading home this morning. We’ll go out and have breakfast, walk in Central Park, we want to sit for an hour or so an watch the people walking by in New York City – one of the greatest shows on earth. Then we’ll head home before lunch. We had a remarkable couple of days in New York, good news and bad news.
Zelda went into labor Monday, her lamb did not survive. She is fine. Her long night ended the lambing experience Maria and I decided to undertake together last year. We have four healthy lambs, that is a fortunate and successful outcome, for all the difficulties. It was different than expected, but not really so different from the real lives of real animals.
People who live with animals understand this reality all too well, what can be done and what cannot be done, some people do not. Animals do not live in paradise, they do not live in a no-kill world free of pain or sorrow any more than we do. Accepting that is key to their survival.
It is my calling to share the experience truthfully, we all learn from it, I learn from my animals every day of my life.
For Maria and I both, the lambing was a watershed experience, filled with crisis and mystery, joy and loss. Zelda’ loss was a disappointment, it is not a tragedy, it is a part of the life we chose, we accept it and move forward. The lambing was sometimes painful, sometimes thrilling, it was exhausting. It was life. It cannot be controlled or predicted.
In New York, we had a remarkable time, good and rich experiences throughout. I met with Chief Avrol Looking Horse, one of the most revered and influential figures in Native-American life, we talked about the importance of the New York Carriage Horses and my own sometimes mystical experience with these horses. He was so helpful to me.
We met some wonderful people, a rich and diverse community has formed in support of the carriage horses, I am so honored to be a part of it.
Tuesday, we met with my new editor and publisher and we had the most exciting and creative talks about my next book “Talking To Animals.” After some years of wandering in the desert, I have found the right home for me. My editor asked if Maria could join us for lunch, he said he knew she was and important part of the project, that showed such exquisite sensitivity, I texted her hurriedly at the Metropolitan Museum Of Art, where she had just arrived, and she rushed back to meet me at the hotel, grumbling about her wasted admission fee.
She always is there when needed.
It was wonderful to have her at lunch, she added so much.
In the afternoon, we went to MOMA (the Museum Of Modern Art) my favorite museum in New York to see the amazing exhibit of Sigmar Polke’s work. We finally joined the museum, we go there so often, we enjoy it so much.
I am so happy about my new creative connection in my book writing life. I am reborn, giving rebirth to myself just as Gabriel Garcia Marquez said I would.
We had dinner last night with my daughter Emma, she is also embarking on her next chapter, she is a new Senior Editor at Sports Illustrated. She is so smart and decent a person, I love her so much. She is getting the success and recognition that she deserves.
Emma guided us to a wonderful new Thai restaurant in Manhattan. Maria and I walked for hours and hours yesterday – no blisters this time, and I am taking a lot of photos that I like. We walked to Times Square late last night to look at the crowds. I struggled over how to photograph this chaotic, surging scene.
I talked to the carriage drivers in Central Park for hours – my peeps I think, a tribe I could belong to. Like me, they are seeking a meaningful life, a way of life, they seek nothing more than the freedom to do their work and the respect they deserve. I spent some time with animal rights demonstrators, and they let me take some photos of them (they took some of me). Lots to write about.
The lambing experience was intense. Draining for Maria and for me. I reached my limits in many ways. For all the ups and downs – it is never a straight line outside of the world of pets and rarely there – it was a wonderful experience for me, there is nothing like helping a living thing come into being.
I thank everyone for the immense support, good wishes and love shown me. That was the overwhelming response.
There was also, of course, the usual rage, ignorance, unsolicited advice, self-righteous second-guessing and sexism that comes from so much of the animal world and from being online, it is the toll we pay for our new kind of community, the great struggle over keeping animals in the world.
These are Maria’s sheep, I should say, she sells their wool, and no decisions are made about them without her knowledge and blessing. I have long experienced these assumptions about what I must be feeling and doing because I am a man – sexism can cut both ways – and what Maria must be feeling and doing because she is a woman. Oh, said the people sitting at their computer screens far, away, everyone is okay now, Maria is back. She will talk the lambs into coming out in a healthy way, she will perform miracles. A lot to put on Maria.
I wish the world really worked that way, except I really don’t – that is life in a patronizing and surreal world, not the real one. The real life of animals is not cute it is not a life of fairy tales, it is smelly, dirty, painful and ugly. It is everything life is, good and bad.
We are not two things in this regard, Maria and I, we are one thing. Lambing was a different thing than we expected, we are reminded that the life of animals is complex and unpredictable. We were sure Zelda’s birth would be the first and the easiest, it was the last and saddest. I feel badly for sure, I think she would have been a wonderful mother, we were eager for her lamb.
In sharing my life, I do not seek the approval or advice of others, I am responsible for what I do, I answer to myself, I seek self-respect, not self-love. There are always a few people who cannot accept that, or do not understand it. They always go away, they never get what they need here, and I am glad to see them go. People who are so thoughtless as to criticize or second-guess other human beings at a difficult time misunderstand what sharing means, they do not belong anywhere near my blog. It is not the place for them. I am committed to being open, to sharing my life. When people attack other people in distress, they are not acting out of love or concern for animals, anymore than the animal rights demonstrators in New York really care about animals.
It is just another kind of narcissism, I understand it but have not yet developed much patience or compassion for it.
Perspective in all things, a rare thing in the animal universe, just ask the carriage horses. This is a part of life, it is not life itself. We are ready to go home. Maria is eager to get back into her studio, her trip to Gee’s Bend fresh in her mind. I am eager to take photos of our lambs, keep them healthy, begin work in earnest on my great project, “Talking To Animals,” take a million good photos, see my friends, live my life. Prepare for our Open House in just a few weeks. I start work on my new book first thing in the morning.
And I will continue to explore the meaning of the New York Carriage Horses. Their story is important, their fate will affect the lives of everyone who loves, lives with or works with an animal.
I am called to share my life in the hope that people will understand and respect the true nature of animals, so that all animals will not suffer the possible fate of the New York Carriage Horses, whose existence and lives are threatened by people who are disconnected from the natural world and have forgotten what the true lives of animals are like.I am eager to see the farm, the dogs, the donkey and the sheep and lambs, and to see the farm return to its normal rituals and rhythms.
All things in their place, I accept my life, I love it. We cannot cure the world of sorrows, but we can choose to live in joy.