Sometimes people disappoint me, sometimes I disappoint people. I am deeply touched by what it means to be a human, and what I learn every single day about myself. Will I always be a work in progress? Yes, I hope so. If I ever think otherwise, my spiritual journey for peace and meaning and identity will be cold and over.
I have come so far, I have so much farther to go. My life is new, I am reborn. My life began six or seven years ago, it was necessary for me to give rebirth to myself in order to survive, and to finally live. There are all kinds of ways to die, many are sadder than the final passing.
Being reborn is a transformative spiritual and emotional experience. My life changed in an instant, almost nothing about it remained the same. In the past five years, very little of my life has changed. That is new.
The idea for an Open House was shocking to my friends and colleagues, especially in publishing. It was unheard of for an author, especially a New York Times Bestselling author, to open up his home to readers and other people, it was considered dangerous, and my editor at the time thought it an awful precedent that would lead to my life being overrun by people, some of whom I might not wish to be around.
“If you open that door, can you ever close it?,” he asked. He is no longer my editor, but I did e-mail him today, and said we were on the eve of another Open House, our fifth or sixth, I honestly don’t remember. I can’t count how many people have come to visit us, how many new people have come into our lives. People from everywhere, they come to meet us, hug us, wish us well, take a look at the lives we share for themselves.
“You were right about one thing,” I e-mailed my former editor, “once you open the door, you can never close it. But you were wrong about the people, they are just people really, and so many of them are just open and sweet and very nice to know. The Open Houses are about opening up, sharing our lives and very much about people.
Maria loved the idea and I had someone to share it with. We initially saw it as a kind of art show of encouragement, a chance to showcase the works of artists. It is still that, but it has evolved into something quite different. We moved, it changed to fit our new life. It draws large crowds, but over two days, it stays intimate, close, comfortable. We never want to lose that. It is exhausting for me, still strange and different to meet so many strangers, shake so many hands, get so many hugs. Maria stays with the art, explaining it, mothering it, selling it. I kid her that this week, she is all curator, making decisions, arranging things, using her special eye to fit everything together. Boss Curator, I call her, do not mess with her this week.
I get that blazing Sicilian stare, it freezes the blood.
There is Mary Kellogg, coming this weekend to read from yet another dazzling book of poetry, she is plowing through her 80’s like a tractor through a cornfield. Gracious and inspiring. And Tyler, we are watching him grow up. He is a friend, a helper, we invited him to bring his girl friend Sunday, Maria was much impressed when he told us she was an athlete, like him, she can run faster than he can. Maria thought it was especially nice that he was pleased about that, some 14-year-old men, she said, might not be.
Tyler got a concussion a couple of weeks ago, he is being sidelined. He is eager to play again against the team that injured him. Take it slow, we urged. He said he might invite his girlfriend on Sunday, we would like to meet her. There are all kinds of people traveling here from the Creative Group at Bedlam Farm, some of them have become good friends. I think we will need them this weekend. From Oklahoma, Canada, California.
Pamela from Blue Star is coming with two giant draft horses, so is Mithra, my young and very spiritual friend who has built a magical garden at Blue Star farm this summer. I bought copy of Pope Francis’s new encyclical on climate change for him, he and the Pope are brothers in many ways. Hopefully, we will make time to talk and walk, share some readings. Mithra has the gift of spirituality and generosity, rare in our world. Deb Foster will be here to manage the pony and donkey tours, Ed Gulley will be here to sell his “junk art.” Kate Rantilla will read from her new book of poetry, Kate is coming to tell us of her mystical pigs, the weekend is bursting with creativity and good energy.
Nancy from Tulsa, a dog writer and rescuer, I have a feeling she and Fate will know one another, two very determined and energetic women who do not care to be told what to do. On Friday, a creativity conference at Bedlam Farm, 50 people signed up, all organized neatly by Lisa Dingle, who will be here also, maybe helping us get the sheep shorn when our shearer, Jim McRae arrives.
Sunday, our farrier and friend Ken Norman is coming to trim the hooves of Chloe, Lulu and Fanny. I think we need a bigger farm again. (Just kidding.)
And a lot of new faces it seems, the innkeepers around here tell us they are all filled up. People coming to Bedlam. It is curious to be a person who lives in a place people want to come and see. I don’t quite know what to make of it.
People are coming to see, to heal, to enter our lives for a brief time and help us continue our hunger for community. Maria and I have offered wondered where we belong in our lives, we belong right here, with these people. That’s home. I am humbled that people want to see it, it is both affirming and meaningful to us.
People thank me for sharing our lives, but in truth, I really ought to thank them. They give our lives meaning. I often disappoint people, and people sometimes disappoint me. That is the nature of being a human, I think. We are such imperfect, distracted and incomplete creatures. I never feel that at the Open House. I always want to do more, it is always enough. I trust it now.
Maria is as happy as she ever is, curating her show, working morning and night to arrange the work of the artists, set prices, put everything where it ought to be, and in balance with everything else. Fate and I and Red and working daily to polish up to put on some demonstrations of the work we do. Red works almost effortlessly, Fate and I remind me of Olympic wannabes, we have been out there every day, several times a day, for months with the sheep, in heat, rain, chill and bugs.
I wonder sometimes what the sheep make of us, plodding around as we do, bothering them every day, an older man walking somewhat more slowly at times than he once did, careful not to step in the groundhog holes, a rocket-propelled border collie covering more ground in a second that I can do in minutes.
I know who I am. I am living in my skin. I am proud of it, and liking it there. I wish I could back to the five-year-old boy I was so long ago and tell him that this would happen. He would be very happy. I will try and explain the sheep-herding thing to him, I think he would not believe it.
“Let’s get ready,” I tell Fate in the morning, as we practice for the Open House, “let’s be sure to walk in our own skin.” Or run. A kind of miracle to have so many good and interesting people walking with us.