Month: September 2014

Next Tuesday, my next book, my last book with Random House, my lifetime book publisher, will be published. It reflects the enormous changes in publishing and in my publishing life. More than any book I have ever published, the fate of “Saving Simon” will be determined on my blog and on social media and by word of mouth. I am excited about the challenge. My next book, “Talking To Animals,” will be published by Simon and Schuster. We are working to sell 2,000 books through Battenkill Books, this has become an annual affirmation of the need for independent bookstores to prosper and survive.

“Saving Simon” will be launched at Battenkill Books at 7 p.m. on publication day. I will give a talk and reading there, George Forss will also be on hand to celebrate the publication of his new book “The Way We Were,” a collection of his photographs before 911. I am proud to kick off a book with George. Red is coming also. I will sign and personalize every book ordered through Battenkill.

“Saving Simon” is the story of the rescue and recovery of Simon, one of my three donkeys. The book is a story about my relationship with Simon, but more than that, a look at the nature of compassion, something Simon very much inspired. Simon’s story is one of compassion. For him. For the farmer that neglected him. For the very idea of compassion in our culture.

All of our great spiritual and religious and political leaders talk about compassion, but few of us seem to practice it or see it in our daily lives. There is no compassion in Washington and I found that compassion is generally applied only to people we like, the people who most need it – the people we don’t like, rarely get much. Compassion is a difficult thing to practice. When Simon came to me, I was overwhelmed with messages of concern for him from all over the world, but why, I wondered, was no one concerned about the farmer, so exhausted and soul dead, that he left Simon to nearly starve to death?

I went to visit the farmer, a visit I describe in my book. I wanted to feel compassion and understanding for him, it was not simple. Simon raised issues of compassion again and again, most painfully when he repeatedly attacked our blind pony Rocky, who was living here on the new farm when we came. Simon would not accept an old and infirm pony – equines drive off sick and wounded comrades to protect the herd from predators. Rocky was disoriented and frightened.

Simon was just protecting Lulu and Fanny. We had an agonizing decision to make about Rocky. Our vet urged me to be merciful to him, it was old and winter was approaching.

So compassion also means, in many cases with animals, letting them go, rather than keeping them alive. Another way to see it. All year I have been writing about the New York Carriage Horses and I have been struck by the lack of compassion in the animal rights movement seeking to banish them. There is much talk of the horses welfare, little or not of the people in the carriage trade. How, I have wondered all year, can one love animals but hate people and treat them so cruelly?

I am proud of “Saving Simon,” it  raises many questions about people and animals and the nature of life. I love Simon, I am grateful for him in my life. I am excited about my book. Publishing has changed, my life has changed, and so has the nature of book, but I am a book writer at heart, and will remain one to the end of my writing days.

People who wish to meet Simon can greet him at the Bedlam Farm Open House, to be held on Saturday (11 to 4) and Sunday (noon to five) at our farm in Cambridge, New York (details on Maria’s website events page). The book can be ordered or pre-ordered through Battenkill Books, my local bookstore. The first 2,000 people who order the book will receive a free signed photo postcard of Simon, they will all also be eligible to win free dog food from Fromm Foods, free books, potholders and notecards.

There will be other good stuff to do at the Open House. Maria and some other gifted artists will be selling their art in the Studio Barn, I’ll be conducting several sheepherding demonstrations with Red, there will be talks and discussions, and people can meet Simon and Lulu and Fanny. I’ll be doing a second book signing early Sunday October 12th (9 a.m.) at Battenkill Books on Main Street. We encourage everyone who is coming to the Open House to visit Cambridge, the Round House Cafe, the Diner, the Cambridge Food Co-op, the Artisans Gallery, The Ginofor Gallery, Jack’s Outback Antiques and the Battenkill Bookshop. Cambridge is a charming town to explore, we are very happy to be living here.

It’s time, I suppose, to talk about where the meadow shots came from.

It’s time to write down the journey I took to the other side during or after my open heart surgery on July 1. I need to write it down now because I am able to – I was not before – and because I don’t want to forget it or lose the sense of it if I wait to long. It was a great adventure, it may have been a dream, a visitation, a dream, a drug-induced fantasy. I don’t know, I will never know.  A doctor I liked told me that when your heart is stopped you die in a sense, your body stops functioning, it is taken over by medications solutions.

Your spirit, she said, can go places, it is free.

You will be, she said,  in a state of suspended animation, and the difference between this kind of death and a permanent one is that most of the time, you are returned to life. It is a powerful and mysterious state to be in, she said, people are known to see things and go places.  Doctors can’t come along, machines don’t record it,  nobody knows what happens out there, in that twilight time between life and death, wakefulness and the deepest sleep.

***

I had read some powerful accounts of the trips people take in surgery. Like most patients, I wanted to be put to sleep before I saw too much and felt too much. I knew what they were going to do to me, I did not want to see any of it.

They brought me to a prep room, Maria and I, our own nurse. She asked me a dozen questions – name, age, birthday, social security number, she told me about the dangers, the risks, I had to sign more papers, Maria was beside me. Then, I had to go on my own, Maria couldn’t come. I was taken into surgery about 1 p.m., the last thing I remember was the tears in Maria’s eyes as she saw me rolled out and blew me one last kiss.

I remember feeling so badly that she had to undergo this worry and trouble, I think it is harder to watch sometimes, than to experience things. She looked so sad, so worried. We understood the moment, we didn’t need to speak of it. We expected to see one another again, but we knew we might not.

We were not dramatic about this, we both decided without discussing it to be matter-of-fact, and really, there are no good words to say at such a moment other than “I love you, and will see you soon.” She squeezed my hand as they wheeled me to the surgical suite.

***

I remember a bright room, big, powerfully lit, all kinds of machines and monitors, a score of people, a nurse’s assistant asking me if I was comfortable, there were people all over me, inserting lines, attaching tubes and things, I remember a nurse attaching something to my neck, and then I remember nothing. Sometime later, I don’t know if it was during surgery or in the intensive care unit, I found myself in a different place. Rose rushed past me, on the run, and I saw Maria up on a hillside, waving to me gently, a sad and yearning look on her face. It was a beautiful place, a soft yellow meadow, a golden field, there were trees on the horizon, clear blue skies, clouds in a calm sky, a sea of wildflowers.

***

When I began walking on Macmillan Road and suddenly saw the beautiful meadow, I remembered why I was so struck by it when I had not seen it before, it took me back to the other side, it was so much like the meadow there, and I began photographing it. It is eerie and emotional for me to see these photos, they bring me back to that time, that place. I never saw the beauty in the meadow before, I saw it in that other place.

There were older women there, they were dignified,  beautiful in their way, they were walking in the meadow together, one was drawing, the other two were talking, they turned to me and smiled at me, they seemed especially comforting and loving. You are okay, they said, you are all right, you can trust us, this is a safe place, they said. We love you, you know.

Rose and Maria were gone, I was walking, I was alone, I felt no pain, no weight. I knew without being told that these women were death, no skulls or scythes or wings. We do love you, they said, we accept who you are, we are not here to take you away or make decisions about you. We are not frightening. Death and life are different ends of the same candle. You can make whatever decisions you wish, you can come with us or go back. This is your time, your moment. The world of your imagination is right here for you, waiting for you.

I was not frightened, I was excited by this choice, perhaps relieved. I felt nothing in my chest, it was as if my heart had been removed, and maybe it had been, perhaps this was all during surgery. I want to go back, I said, I am not done, I am not nearly done. Yes, one of the woman said, nodding, we see that. I was afraid they might argue with me, but they didn’t, they knew me, heard me. The thing is, going back is a choice, a decision, they said. That’s what gives it meaning and purpose. It’s a rebirth, if you wish to see it that way.

They gave me a cup of water to drink, I was so thirsty, and suddenly, so tired.  I sat down, I was suddenly weak, almost dizzy. I have a lot of things to do, I said. You do, said one of the women, although cannot recall her lips moving, only her voice. It is important to remember that. I sat down, I was so tired, and one of the woman mopped my brow with a cool cloth. Up on the hill, I saw my father, we had been estranged from one another all of my life, he raised his arm to me, as if in a greeting, but did not come closer. You have to walk, I heard him say. He was an athlete, he believed so much in the power of the body. We never really talked, not once.

It was so hard sometimes, I said to the women. I waited too long, I worked so hard.  I’m not ready. We know, said one, we know that. I’m not finished, I have so many things to do, I said, as if to persuade them. But they didn’t need persuasion. Then there seemed to be one woman talking to me, her face was lined, her eyes sad and very wise. I know, she said, I know what has happened to you. So it is a decision, you see, your decision, you have decided to go back, to finish, to complete your work. You have a lot to do. You have to walk, there it was again.

And then, I opened my eyes, slowly, it took a while to focus, there was a bright light, many beeping things, a great weight in my chest, and a nurse was standing over me, and she said, “hey Jon,” and she pulled tubes out of my throat and neck, and told me there were more tubes in my chest and stomach, they had to stay.

“Can you hear me?,” she asked.

“Yes,” I said, “let’s walk.”

She asked me about painkillers, she had some in her hand, and I said no, I didn’t need any.  I felt no pain, none, anywhere in my scarred and ravaged body, I felt more like a machine than a human being then.

“What?,” she said.

“I think we need to walk.”

She laughed. “No one has ever asked me that just when they woke up,” she said.

“If you wish, we can walk.” And we did walk, two times around the unit, on a walker with wheels, trailing beeping monitors, tubes and drains all the way down to the floor,  the other nurses started and shook their heads. “No one has ever done that when they woke up,” she said.

I had to walk. It was the light, it was life, healing and recovery, it was the way forward, the rebirth.

And then I laid down and collapsed in bed and fell back to sleep, and when I opened my eyes next, I saw Maria rounding the corner, a wide smile on her face as she saw me sitting up, and behind her, my daughter, looking relieved, uncomfortable, concerned.

And so that, finally, is the story of my trip to the other side, you can make as much out of it as me. I don’t know if it was a dream, a vision, a journey, a fantasy. But I knew I had to love and I had to walk, and I have been loving and walking ever since.

Today, another chapter in the great adventure that is Bedlam Farm, the destination and departure point on my hero journey. This morning, at 11:30 a.m., I’m meeting with Kristen Preble of Preble Realty to sign the papers to put the first Bedlam Farm up for sale once again, this time for $329,000, about $180,000 less that our original asking price.

This time, all kinds of inducements – assumable mortgage, bank financing – are being offered, and the 90-acre property can be split into parcels. Buyers can just buy the 40 acre parcel that is the farm, barns and pastures.The path in the woods is being offered separately as a hunting or camping space.

For me, many lessons to be considered and learned, that is the point of the hero journey. When I announced two weeks ago that the farm would be put up for sale again, I braced myself for the barrage of advice, messages from the boundary of superstition and reality. Superstition teaches that one can alter reality with magic –  chants and meditations, sacrifices and totems, good thoughts, crystals and shrines.

There is this growing spiritual movement that believes if you want to do something like sell a home and can’t, it is your fault: you aren’t letting go, you aren’t ready, you haven’t talked to the property, done the work you need to do to convince it to leave  you, thought thoughts that are positive enough to magically draw the right buyer, the right rescuer. This is human nature, of course, superstition has always been important to people dealing with the disappointments, terrors and challenges of life. Superstition is simple and comforting, spirituality is hard work.

“You need to bury a St. Joseph’s statute,” was the first message. There are three nestled in the garden and front lawn. “You haven’t let go, made your peace with leaving,” was the second. “Once you do, the farm will summon the right buyer.” Then, this: “you need to talk to the farm, tell it why you have left. That will bring the buyer who loves the farm as much as you do.”

These are not the messages for me, not the lessons Bedlam Farm has taught me. It is not our fault when fate intervenes and life does not always go our way. Life happens. Frieda dug up the first little St. Joseph’s statue – it was planted in the garden – and ate it. Is it her fault Bedlam Farm has not sold in three years?

I worked very hard at selling the farm. I tried everything that could be tried, from advertising in New York to spending even more money to get the place to shine. Time and again, I went there in good faith to take people on long tours, I answered a million questions, only to learn that none of them were really interested in the property, they just wanted to meet me or ask where Rose herded the sheep. I began to dislike many of them – the woman who said she needed an attached two-story garage, the man who claimed to be a septic tank authority, the woman who pretended to want to live on a farm with her dog but who didn’t. I stopped going on showings.

What I learned was this. Spirituality is not magic, it does not alter the course of the universe, bring cash or good fortune, offer potions to lure a rich New Yorker in search of a second home. Spirituality does not bar disappointment and struggle, if helps us weather disappointment and struggle.

I love Bedlam Farm very much, and the very idea that it has not yet sold is viscerally painful to me, it is worth so much more in so many ways than the asking price,  yet I remember, as I prepare to drive to our realtor once again, and sign more papers once again, what my long and challenging spiritual pursuits have taught me. A good and meaningful life is not one without struggle, it is one in which we respond to struggle with grace and acceptance.

Another chapter in the hero journey, another lesson to learn again.

I have always been honest in my journal of life here on this blog, I promised to be open and honest when I started bedlamfarm.com, and I have worked hard to keep that promise. We cannot afford to keep two farms any longer, we have exhausted our resources trying.  Bedlam Farm, the most wonderful and creative place in my life, is no longer sustainable. That is the reality I have come, at long last, to accept. St. Joseph can’t do one thing about it, neither can the crystals we were advised to put on the windowsills and did. I can talk to the farm all I want, but like the great poet Omar Khayam wrote, the moving finger writes, and having writ, moves on, nor all your piety and wit can change a word of it.

Some people say they doubt it when I say that I love my life and have no regrets about changing it. I imagine that is difficult thing for some people to accept. Still, it is the truth. At Bedlam Farm, I found myself, met Maria,  learned who I am, what I want, how to live. I am so grateful for that, for once, I do not really have the words. If I had a magic wand, I would never go back. At the end,  I was dying there.

So I am letting go of the farm at long last, in a number of ways. This will not produce a loving buyer out of the mist.  The economy and the real estate market and the bank will have something to say about it. He or she will appear in their own good time for their own good reasons. There is nothing more I can do about it than I have done. I do finally accept  that is not my fault, for all of the many mistakes I made there.

Maria and I are in this all together, yet this is really my responsibility, my journey. I bought the farm, my name alone is on the lease. I must deal with it in an honest and direct manner. I don’t want her to come along to be with me when I sign the papers, this is for me to do.

I am not planting any more statues, or have any more conversations with my farm, or working on my emotional issues with a beautiful piece of real estate. Later today, the farm will be listed on the Preble Realty website, and it is a multiple listing, it can be seen anywhere.

When spirituality meets superstition, it is life,  not magic, that wins every single time. People get sick, people die, the world changes. I believe that – acceptance – is a very spiritual thing for me to grasp. It is, I believe, wrong to blame ourselves for the nature of life. Life is so much bigger than we are. Life happens, to me and to you, and the best we can do is bow our knee to it and give thanks for what we have had and what we have now.